My wife and I are driving back to London with a puppy in a cage on the back seat. The puppy, dark brown apart from a white bib shaped like a downward-pointing arrow, has commenced a pitiful, high-pitched keening, the kind of sound you can feel in your bones, a noise to scratch holes in your soul. We’ve had possession of this dog for about 15 minutes, and I’m already thinking we’ve made a terrible mistake.
After one last, rasping cry, the dog promptly falls asleep for the rest of the two-hour journey. Unfortunately, the two-hour journey ends up taking three hours, and for the final 20-minute stretch the dog sets up its pitiful wailing again.
