NOW I know why lurchers are so called.

It’s because they suddenly launch themselves, whilst attached to an extending lead, towards whatever’s attracted their interest so that their owners - who may have allowed their attention to wander for a few seconds - find themselves lurching about, struggling to a) remain upright and b) hang on.

For weeks I’ve been troubled by a pain all down my left leg, after tripping in a hole on Harnham cricket field and falling flat on my face as I was making a swift U-turn to keep up with these antics.

You may wish to make a helpful suggestion at this point, such as “Why don’t you let go of the lead, then?”

And since I am currently sitting, calm and relaxed, in front of the computer, I am able to answer you politely.

“Because I’d then have to catch her again whilst she’s totally distracted and ignoring my calls and whistles, getting up to goodness knows what.”

The absolute focus of a lurcher that has spotted something deserving closer investigation has to be experienced to be understood.

In my own defence I should say at this point that we didn’t quite understand that it was a lurcher we were adopting.

“Collie cross” was what it said on the rescue website.

Well, we had collies for 35 years and I can tell you, Poppy’s not one of those.

But by the time we worked that out we were in a foster carer’s home in Ferndown, looking into a sweet little face that reminded us of Dobby the house-elf in Harry Potter. We could hardly walk away and say “No, thank you.”

Apart from these alarming episodes in the park she’s as docile as you could hope for, napping for hours on the sofa or soaking up the sun in the garden with the prized logs she’s raided from the woodpile arranged all around her.

As long, that is, as there’s no food around.

Then she resembles a caged beast, pacing restlessly round and round within sniffing range of the table and silently resisting all attempts to make her go away.

And as long as she’s not trying to wake us up for breakfast by yowling in the keys of F major and A minor simultaneously on the landing.

She really does have an extraordinary musical repertoire.

If you’re not a dog person you’re probably scratching your head in perplexity at this moment, wondering why we bother.

I suppose it’s because she makes us smile so often.

And that has to be worth a great deal.

anneriddle36@gmail.com