ON the sofa opposite me is a woebegone little face peering out from one of those instruments of canine torture known as a Cone of Shame.

One hind leg is shaved to reveal a large and very ugly wound with several layers of stitches.

“Is Poppy OK?” Yes, thank you, she’s fine.

The unfortunate who’s temporarily taken up residence with us is a skinny pedigree whippet, recently acquired by my son and daughter-in-law from a rescue organisation.

Now Teddy is a real cutie. Gentle, and friendly as you like. Everyone who meets him goes ‘Aaah!’

He’s also disaster-prone.

“Can be happily left for three or four hours,” claimed the rescue website.

Patently not.

Having been passed between members of his original owner’s family, then taken into care through no fault of his own, he’d settled well in a foster home, and I suspect this latest move has induced a case of separation anxiety.

He doesn’t wanted to be parted from my daughter-in-law for a moment, and cries pitifully when he is.

Advice from an animal behaviourist has been sought and followed. There were signs of progress.

Until Tuesday last week when he was left indoors, briefly, and took it into his head to jump out of a window. An upstairs window. On to a patio. A possibility no-one had foreseen.

Neighbours reported hearing him howling, then seeing him teetering on the sill before taking the plunge.

Rescue followed swiftly, with a large vet’s bill for a general anaesthetic and X-ray, which miraculously revealed no broken bones.

But his ordeal reversed all the progress he’d made. He was waking several times a night and having ‘accidents’ indoors.

Early Friday morning, daughter-in-law (home alone for a fortnight and by now seriously sleep-deprived) was clearing up the mess and had let him into the garden just in case he needed to relieve himself still further before she got ready for work. (Her employers have very kindly been letting him accompany her till he settles down.)

He reappeared with a horrific gash on his flank. We can only assume he’d barged into something as he chased an intruding cat – a favourite pastime.

Another emergency vet appointment in Shaftesbury resulted in yours truly being drafted in to take him to a better-equipped surgery, in Blandford, for treatment, with a merry half-hour spent alternately fuming and panicking in a Steam Fair traffic jam en route, muttering soothing words all the while. Whether his whimpering stemmed from pain or separation anxiety I have no idea.

But by the end of the day he was patched up and ready to go, and the pair of them are now staying with us so we can keep an eye while my daughter-in-law earns her living.

Teddy looks like he’s been in a war zone. Absolutely pathetic.

Poppy is being angelic, giving him sofa space and letting him recover in peace.

Should be about ten days, according to the vet, till the cone comes off.

Fingers crossed.

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