It goes without saying that Herbert Hound’s arrival just a few weeks after our daughter left home to go to university was a total coincidence. Empty-nest syndrome? No thank you. He chose us every bit as much as we chose him. When we first came to visit him at his mother’s home in Essex – not Barking; Herbie gets fed up with that gag – he pushed his siblings out of the way, rolled on to his back and demanded to have his tummy rubbed. We were more than happy to oblige and have been doing so daily for almost the last 13 years. It was love at first sight.
Herbie has always been very much his own dog. With him, rule-making is a collaborative process. He doesn’t like to be taken for granted. Initially, we bought into the tough love programme. That lasted about two nights as we tried to get him to sleep downstairs in a crate. Neither he nor we got a wink of sleep as he howled for hours on end, only stopping when we came downstairs to comfort him. On the third day, we gave in and gave him his own cushion in our bedroom. He has been blissfully happy ever since.
