of her by playing a didgeridoo I had picked up in Australia. There was a bit of coyote in her, I think. Bianca lived to sixteen and has a special place in my heart. I cried into her fur when I was going through the hardest of times and got such comfort. She was my friend. It is not a lesser love we feel for these animals. Our connection with them is extraordinary.

Serendipity has sometimes brought me the dogs in my life. I went out to buy a chicken one Sunday and saw Millie outside a dog rescue centre. She was the most adorable thing I had ever seen: coal drop eyes, bristly terrier hair that you could mould into a mohawk, a tail that wagged on an angle like a broken coat hanger. She was as desirable to me as a Fabergé egg. I had to take her home immediately. On my return, everyone gasped at Millie’s cuteness. My husband, who I had feared would reprimand me, lay her on his chest where she promptly fell asleep. He had found his ‘spirit animal’.

But who was Millie? Why was she found wandering in downtown Los Angeles? Why was there not a ‘Lost’ poster on every lamp post? We soon found out. When Millie awoke, she walked woozily into the hallway and started to whimper. The whimpering became louder and increasingly hysterical. Higher and higher it went, until it became a fullthroated glass-shattering screech that reverberated through the hallway and the neighbourhood.

‘Millie!’ I cried, ‘What on earth is the matter?’.

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