One more week will see the second anniversary of KiKi’s arrival here with us. Two years ago she was still in the care of ASH Animal Rescue in County Wicklow, two days ago, we went back with her. In her life with us KiKi has been an unexpected mixture of delight and at times, distress. Although her behaviour had dramatically improved, we found that she still needed to be managed carefully when she first met a new dog. The last two months had been particularly difficult. Another family wedding meant that our routine had been disrupted, with visitors staying over and a change in the expected pattern of things. The serious illness of Martha’s Mother, and her eventual passing just a couple of weeks ago saw an even more extreme change as people came and went throughout the days and nights. KiKi had been profoundly distressed throughout this period and had again taking to exhibiting some of the behaviours we thought to be in the past. Hiding in the topmost corner of the garden behind a tree, hiding under the bed upstairs, it was clear that she was unsettled and confused. We arranged to return to ASH on Tuesday, another long journey in the car for KiKi and Leica which none of us enjoyed. We arrived to find Remi, Helena and their staff as before, caring for almost 100 abandoned or surrendered dogs. Together with Remi we went back to the pens from which we had taken KiKi two years ago.

Remi opened the pen, and we met ‘Pongo’. Two years with KiKi had seen her initial reaction to any new dog be one of anxiety except on those few occasions when the other dog was also a Dalmatian. As we hoped, and actually expected, KiKi’s first encounter with Pongo went remarkably well, and Leica, again as we might have expected was a little more reserved but not unduly perturbed by him.  At two years of age Pongo is, as you would expect for a male Dalmatian, lively shall we say? We walked all three dogs up the laneway and as the noise of the dogs in their enclosures faded into the background they seemed relaxed in each others company. Pongo has been neutered, we had been concerned that if he was ‘entire’ that his inclination to force his attentions on Leica or KiKi could have been a significant issue. Still, he tried to mount KiKi anyway and was quite abruptly shown the error of his ways. KiKi may be small for a Dalmatian bitch, and Pongo is quite large even for a male, but she showed no signs of being intimidated by his size. So two days later, here he is with us and we have more to learn. A spectacularly brazen counter-surfing food-thief, Pongo knows no boundaries, yet. All three dogs are arriving at an understanding of how to live together and, as I write this KiKi and Pongo lie together sleeping behind me. We are not so naive as to imagine that it will all be simple, but Pongo so far has proven to be friendly and sociable with all the dogs he has met outdoors, indoors are where the challenges will lie this time.