Crufts people aren't my tribe but if I could get a little weirder

Dogs, Riverdance, bhangra. It’s hard to tell what’s going on. But in the end I feel almost at home

AtBirmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, a woman dressed as Lawrence of Arabia has just placed a plastic palm tree in the middle of the arena before going to retrieve her dog. Moments later, the music starts and the woman begins a vaguely Middle-Eastern dance while her pooch stares up at her lovingly and tries to keep track of her movements. Every so often, just for the hell of it, he skips between her legs or shuffles sideways.

Now I love dogs. I even count how many I come across on the way to work: the more I see, the better the day is going to be. It’s an OCD thing. But even I have to admit I haven’t got a clue what’s going on. Nor, it turns out, does our Lawrence of Arabia as halfway through her routine she unexpectedly withdraws from the competition.

Next to appear is a woman dressed like something out of Riverdance. Her pooch also stares up at her lovingly, trying to keep track of her movements and darting between her legs to an Irish jig. Much the same thing happens with a woman dressed like an Indian, dancing to a bhangra soundtrack while her dog tries to humour her by tagging along.

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Copycat culture: is it wrong to clone a beloved dead pet?

Barbra Streisand has revealed that she has created copies of her dog – but the ethics should give others paws for thought

Barbra Streisand has revealed that she had two clones made of her dog Samantha after her beloved coton de tulear died last year. This follows the fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg cloning her dog two years ago. Although pet cloning is illegal in some countries – including the UK – it appears to be a burgeoning international industry. The first pet to be cloned was a cat at Texas A&M University in 2001, while the first dog was cloned at Seoul National University in 2005. So, how exactly does one clone a pet?

1 The first thing anyone wishing to clone an animal needs is money. The US company Viagen, a market leader, charges $50,000 (£36,000) to clone a dog and $25,000 to clone a cat. It describes these animals as “an identical twin of the donor pet that is born at a later date”. For $1,600, you can genetically preserve your pet by freezing a tissue sample, thus keeping your options open. The dog in question doesn’t have any options, obviously.

2 Next, those interested in cloning need a vet. Cloning requires a biopsy to extract tissue from the original pet. In Streisand’s case, cells were taken from the late Samantha’s mouth and stomach. Cloning companies have different requirements. Sooam in South Korea – which claims to have created more than 1,000 clones since 2006 – prefers skin tissue if the pet is alive or skin and muscle if the pet has died.

3 If a pet dies before tissue has been extracted, cloning is still possible. But dead pets should not be put in the freezer – apparently, they belong in the fridge. Interested parties will need a large one. Or a small dog. Speed is of the essence. One British couple who cloned their late dog through Sooam has spoken of dashing to Boots for the tools they needed to remove the tissue themselves before flying out to South Korea to deliver it.

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Woof! Watching Isle of Dogs with a cinema full of canines

They were howling in delight at a pooch-friendly screening of Wes Anderson’s new film in Edinburgh

Scruffy, a sociable yellow labrador, enjoys lying on the couch watching westerns (because of the horses) and Match of the Day (because of the ball), but is only now, at the age of 10, making his debut trip to the cinema. The reason? To attend a pooch-friendly preview of Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs at the Cameo in Edinburgh.

“I’m hoping that he will behave,” says Scruffy’s human, Rory, adding, as if in reassurance: “He’s well house-trained.”

This sold-out screening is a first in the city (Picturehouse had a run of dog-friendly showings around the UK on Sunday). The cinema has laid on water bowls and blankets. There is not much of a queue for popcorn; when the picture begins, biscuits and dried pig ears will be brought out from bags.

In the foyer, gazing up at the chandelier, is Gordon “Kanye” Westie, a west highland terrier, shortbread-tin cute in a tartan bow tie. He is here with Fiona, a teacher, who uses the Dugs app on her phone to identify which pubs and other businesses are dog-friendly. She has been lobbying the Cameo to hold these screenings. “When Gordon was a puppy I was basically housebound,” she recalls. “It was like having a newborn baby, and I was missing loads of films.”

Within the auditorium are dogs of every sort. The largest, a newfoundland called Luna, seated front and centre, is the approximate size of the MGM lion. The smallest, a terrier cross called Pedro, has enjoyed a Hollywood ending of his own. The heart-shaped white mark on his forehead is apt; Wendy and Rhona, an Edinburgh couple, discovered him as a starving stray while visiting the ruins of the Temple of Aphrodite in Cyprus, and brought him back to live with them in Scotland where he enjoys climbing mountains and, now, attending the cinema.

The lights go down. The ears perk up. Isle of Dogs is a gorgeous stop-motion animation with a cast of impeccable pedigree: Bryan Cranston is a blue-eyed mongrel; Tilda Swinton a visionary pug. Whenever an animal howls or growls on screen, which is often, there is an answering bark from the audience. Mostly, the dogs behave. Some seem bored. The phlegmy pant of a French bulldog soon becomes a phlegmy snore.

As the film ends there is barking and applause. Wagged tails bang the backs of seats. Satisfied customers include Tobermory, an eight-year-old lab, named for the whisky not the Womble. I had wondered, while perusing Tobermory’s Facebook page – like a sort of Canine Analytica – whether this really was his first trip to the cinema. Records show that he went to see Murder on the Orient Express on 5 November last year, and considered it to be “mince”. This, however, turns out to be the opinion of Bob, a barman and waiter who updates the page and whom the dog has brought along for company.

“I thought this film was fantastic,” says Bob. And Tobermory? “He had a bit of a sleep.”

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Therapy, Mozart, play zones: it's a Spanish police dog's life

Madrid’s police dogs to be given heated beds and music therapy to lower stress levels

Madrid’s 22 police dogs will be provided with heated beds and music therapy sessions designed to reduce stress when they move into their new kennel this week.

The three-month makeover of their home is designed to improve the animals’ health, a spokesman said. In what is described as the “Mozart effect”, dogs will listen to classical music at various times during the day to keep them calm.

Trials carried out by the municipal police have confirmed that exposure to music helps reduce stress in the animals. They will also be given toys.

Their new home includes a patio where they can lie in the shade during the summer months, a green play zone and heated beds, which a council spokesman said will reduce energy bills by 80%.

The type of music and the amount to which they are exposed will depend on what tasks to which the dogs are assigned. While all the dogs are classified as detectors, each is specialised in a particular field, such as detecting drugs, explosives and counterfeit money, while some are dedicated to rescue operations.

The Madrid dog section, which was established in 1983, is proud of the fact that some of the animals have been trained to have double specialties, such as rescue work as well as explosives detection.

Sgt Rafael de la Gándara, the officer in charge of the dog section, points out that the way a dog behaves when it discovers a substance is crucial.

“For example, when a dog is looking for drugs, it digs up the ground, which obviously wouldn’t be a good idea if it was looking for explosives, so it has to have another way of showing that it’s found something. Likewise, if it’s a rescue situation, it barks when it thinks it’s found someone.”

Tests have shown that as well as classical music, dogs respond well to soft rock, jazz and reggae, whereas heavy metal increases their stress levels.

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Horse fly-tipping: why are animals being left to die?

Overbreeding means horses are cheap to buy, but they remain expensive to keep. This has led to a spike in cases of them being discarded, according to the RSPCA

The imaginative gulf is jaw-dropping. It starts with a kitsch tween dream of horse ownership – or ideas of cashing in on the breeders’ market. It ends with a horse dumped on a garbage heap.

The RSPCA has noticed a big uptick in “horse fly-tipping”, so much so that it is talking of a “horse crisis”. Prosecutions involving horses are up 25% since 2015. The society rescued 1,000 horses last year.

Horses are expensive to keep. Besides the feed, there are the vet bills. A case of colic can cost £5,000 to fix. Even in death they are pricey: a horse cremation can cost £500. Increasingly, owners unwilling to shoulder the costs simply abandon their animals.

Individual cases can be horrifying. In Dartford, Kent, the body of a horse was found under a pile of planks, next to a can of petrol. Six dying horses were later found on the same site. In Orsett, Essex, a mare was dumped by the side of a road while she was in labour. Mother and foal later died. In Upminster, east London, a horse with a swollen leg was found tied up at a fly-tipping spot. It had to be put down. The RSPCA notes that the biggest spike always comes during winter, when grazing is scarce and redworm becomes an issue.

Why the crisis? The problem has push and pull factors. Overbreeding issues have been brewing for years. With the market saturated, horses are changing hands for as little as £25, or even for free. They are picked up by naive owners who don’t understand that the upkeep is the true price of ownership. “When you look at insurance, stabling costs and microchipping, it’s probably in the hundreds per month,” says the RSPCA’s national equine co-ordinator, Christine McNeil. When injury or illness take hold, the horses are discarded.

Hay prices are rising, too. The solution of some owners has been equally antisocial: fly-grazing – pasturing your horse on land you don’t own. This became so widespread that the government introduced the Control of Horses Act 2015 to punish offenders.

The RSPCA is trying to get to grips with the overbreeding problem, but it is a long slog. “There’s no typical horse dumper,” McNeil says. “But we think it’s the breeders that are at the root of the problem, where they began with the intention of making a profit and now it’s costing them to keep horses that are worthless on the open market.”

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Million Paws Walk 2018: share your photos and videos

Thousands take part in the RSPCA’s fund-raiser for animals in need. If you or your dog are walking, we’d like to hear from you

Now in its 24th year, the annual Million Paws Walk is the RSPCA’s largest fundraiser and helps the animal welfare charity rescue thousands of animals a year. Dogs of all different breeds, sizes and colours, and their owners are invited to descend on 73 locations across Australia in a bid to end animal cruelty.

Money raised through activities on the day, go towards caring for the 135,000 animals who enter RSPCA shelters every year.

If you are taking part in the RSPCA’s Million Paws Walk, we’d like to hear from you. Share your photos and videos with us, and see the contributions so far.

You can share your pictures, videos and stories by clicking on the “Contribute” button on this article. You can also use the GuardianWitness smartphone app or the Guardian app and search for “GuardianWitness assignments”.

• GuardianWitness is the home of readers’ content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others. Posts will be reviewed prior to publication on GuardianWitness, and the best pieces will feature on the Guardian site.

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Show Dogs under fire for scene which 'grooms children for sexual abuse'

Rottweiler groping in family comedy normalises ‘unwanted genital touching to its child audience’, according to US’s National Center on Sexual Exploitation

Show Dogs, a new family comedy about a police hound who goes undercover to infiltrate a dog show, has come in for criticism over a scene which some feel sends a troubling message to impressionable audiences.

In a statement on Tuesday, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) says a scene in which Max (voiced by the actor-rapper Ludacris) is instructed to put his discomfort over genital groping to one side and instead “go to a zen place” sends “a troubling message that grooms children for sexual abuse”.

The movie concerns the case of a stolen baby panda, which leads Max, a talking Rottweiler, to team up with human FBI agent played by Will Arnett. Their covert mission means Max learns what it takes to be a dog show champion, by way of pedicures, Botox, waxing and tolerating the judges checking his genitals.

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Dawn Hawkins, the executive director of the NCOSE, said her organisation objects to “multiple scenes where a dog character must have its private parts inspected, in the course of which the dog is uncomfortable and wants to stop but is told to go to a ‘zen place’.

“The dog is rewarded with advancing to the final round of the dog show after passing this barrier. Disturbingly, these are similar tactics child abusers use when grooming children: telling them to pretend they are somewhere else and that they will get a reward for withstanding their discomfort.

“Children’s movies must be held to a higher standard, and must teach children bodily autonomy, the ability to say ‘no’ and safety – not confusing messages endorsing unwanted genital touching.”

The organisation has asked Global Road Entertainment, which co-produced and co-financed the film with Riverstone Pictures, to halt the film’s release until it can be recut.

But Global Road has defended the film by saying such touching is common practice in dog shows. “The dog show judging in this film is depicted completely accurately as done at shows around the world, and was performed by professional and highly respected dog show judges,” they said in a statement to CNN.

“Global Road Entertainment and the film-makers are saddened and apologise to any parent who feels the scene sends a message other than a comedic moment in the film, with no hidden or ulterior meaning, but respect their right to react to any piece of content.”

In a statement released on Wednesday, the British Board of Film Classification appeared to concur with Global. “[T]he scenes in question are entirely innocent and non-sexual and occur within the clear context of preparation for and judging in a dog show,” they wrote. “We regard the comments made about the film as suggesting ‘grooming’ as a misinterpretation of the scenes in question.”

In the UK, Show Dogs carries a Parental Guidance rating for “mild bad language, rude humour and violence”. In the US, it carries the same rating.

Max Botkin, one of the film’s chief writers, denies penning the scene in question, saying that his original script was “heavily rewritten by 13 other writers”, 12 of whom are uncredited.

Botkin was not a part of the rewrite process and “didn’t get to see the film until it was in its final stage of completion, and had zero say in creative choices the second I signed away the rights to my work”.

In a statement he wrote: “I absolutely condemn any suggestion or act of non-consensual touching in any form, as well as disassociation as a coping mechanism for abuse of any kind. I understand and empathise with the parents’ and groups’ concerns regarding the message the movie may impart.”

Concerned bodies have taken to Twitter to express their scepticism about the scene.

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Pet food is an environmental disaster – are vegan dogs the answer?

A quarter of the impact of meat production comes from the pet-food industry. Has the time come to change what we feed our dogs and cats?

Animal microbiologist Holly Ganz cannot talk about the pet feeding regime known as biologically appropriate raw food without laughing. The increasingly popular diet is known by its unfortunate acronym, Barf. “It’s bizarrely named,” she says, laughing. It certainly runs contrary to the twee language usually reserved for the pet realm; such as Kitty Biome, a project Ganz recently raised $23,000 (£17,000) for via Kickstarter, which invited cat owners to pay $100 to have the microorganisms in their cat’s droppings analysed. The common term for the environmental impact of pet-keeping has a cute name too: pawprint. But, with humans increasingly demanding human-grade meat for their four-legged family members, pet food is estimated to be responsible for a quarter of the environmental impacts of meat production in terms of the use of land, water, fossil fuels, phosphates and pesticides. And this trend for raw food is, environmentally speaking, a step backwards.

It is this carbon pawprint that Ganz is working to reduce. She has been drafted in to assess the gut-friendliness of a vegan pet-food product launching in the US in July called Wild Earth. Its first offering is a dog treat made from what the blurb calls an “ancient Asian” fungi called koji. “We’re hoping,” she says, “that it will support bacteria that will help to fight inflammation and maintain healthy digestion and nutrition.”

Ask Wild Earth’s CEO, Ryan Bethencourt, what the future of pet food looks like and he has one word: “Massive.” In 2017, the global pet-food market was worth $94bn, and it is projected to grow even further as new markets open up. In China, where pet ownership is rare, the market grew by 100% last year. “If China follows the trends, we are going to see hundreds of millions more pets in existence,” says Bethencourt. He thinks these pets can be fed sustainably with his koji protein while, for the longer term, the company is working on lab-grown meat, culturing meat cells that would not require rearing or killing animals. They have already created a mouse-meat prototype for cats that, it says, will beat lab meat for humans to market because there is less red tape to navigate. But it will be some time before the technology can be scaled up accordingly.

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Is Russia killing stray dogs ahead of the World Cup?

After the mass culls before the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, animal rights activists in the World Cup cities of Sochi and Yekaterinburg fear history could be repeating itself

Earlier this year, Russia’s deputy prime minister, Vitaly Mutko, met with animal rights activist to discuss their fears that stray dogs would be exterminated ahead of the football World Cup. Mutko pledged to stop all cruelty, and said he had ordered the construction of shelters for stray animals.

But activists allege dog killings have continued and that Mutko’s words are meaningless as city governments are not compelled to follow recommendations made at a federal level.

“If you put it in plain Russian, they said ‘sod off, we’re going to carry on killing’,” says Yekaterina Dmitriyeva, the head of NGO the Foundation for the Protection of Urban Animals, who was present at the meeting. She set up the popular Facebook group, Bloody Fifa-2018, last year.

There are approximately two million strays in Russia’s 11 World Cup host cities and it has been estimated that local authorities will spend up to £119 million on catching, caging, sterilising and euthanising animals this year.But activists warn that image-conscious officials are trying to remove strays from the streets by fair means or foul before the arrival of players and fans next month.

While contracts to regulate the number of stray dogs are won by private companies in Russia annually, there is some evidence that the size of these tenders have been increased this year. An online petition launched by Dmitriyeva late last year calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to cancel contracts ahead of the World Cup has almost two million signatures, but there has been no response from the Russian leader, who is known to have several pet dogs and often speaks about his love for animals.

Though Russian cities’ policies about stray animals differ, these contracts can be extremely lucrative. In the World Cup host city Yekaterinburg, for example, the state is paying £380,000 for the capture of 4,650 dogs. Some Russians have even advertised their properties online as housing for dogs during the World Cup, hoping for a financial windfall as the companies that won tenders struggle to cope.

Russian officials deny euthanasia is state policy, and some NGOs say the same. The allegations of mass extermination are just “gossip”, says Yekaterina Ublinskaya, deputy director of Right to Life, an animal rights NGO operating in the western exclave of Kaliningrad, which won a £21,400 contract to provide temporary accommodation for dogs picked up off the streets for the World Cup. “There are some instances of poisoning, but these are private incidents and there is no mass poisoning.”

But even top animal welfare officials have admitted there have been cases of animal cruelty linked to the World Cup preparations.

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Paw outcome? New Zealand council proposes banning all cats

Under ‘pest plan’ Omaui residents will not be allowed to replace cats when they die

A regional council in New Zealand has proposed banning all domestic cats in an attempt to protect native animals.

Environment Southland’s “pest plan” calls for all domestic cats in the region to be neutered, microchipped and registered. Then, when a cat dies, residents would not be permitted to have another.

“We’re not cat haters,” John Collins, of the Omaui Landcare Trust told Newshub. “But we’d like to see responsible pet ownership and this really isn’t the place for cats.”

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Ali Meade, the council’s biosecurity operations manager, said that if the move was approved the improvement for the environment and bird life would be vast.

Submissions on the pest management plan close at the end of October. However, not all members of the community are happy with the idea.

Omaui resident Nico Jarvis told the Otago Daily Times that she was shocked and planned a petition against the plan. She said that her three cats were the only way to combat a rodent problem in the area. “If I cannot have a cat, it almost becomes unhealthy for me to live in my house,” she said.

Jarvis likened the plan to living in a “police state … It’s not even regulating people’s ability to have a cat. It’s saying you can’t have a cat.”

The move comes as New Zealand works on an ambitious goal to become predator-free by 2050. That plan is devoted to wiping out introduced species of rats, stoats and possums.

The plan, announced in 2016, says that the government estimates the cost of introduced species to the New Zealand economy and primary sector to be NZ$3.3bn (£1.76bn) a year.

Cats have also come under the spotlight for their tendency to target native birds.

Kapiti Island’s Kotuku Parks subdivision has a no-cat rule and Auckland council is also looking at a plan to euthanise any cat caught in an “ecologically significant site” without a microchip.

Economist turned parliamentary candidate Gareth Morgan has long proposed wiping out cats from New Zealand as a way to protect native species from what he called “natural born killers”.

Since you’ve been here …

… some things have changed. Whilst advertising revenues across the media are still falling fast, more people are helping to fund The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism than ever. Which means we now stand a fighting chance. But we still need your help.

The Guardian is editorially independent. Our journalism is free from commercial bias and not influenced by billionaire owners, politicians or shareholders. No one edits our editor. No one steers our opinion. This is important because it enables us to give a voice to the voiceless, challenge the powerful and hold them to account. We keep our factual, honest reporting open to all, not just for those who can afford it. And we want to keep it that way, for generations to come.

If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be much more secure.

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Want a flat in the Doghouse? You'll need a four-legged friend

New-build apartment block in Denmark has communal dog washing facility in the gardens

andlords having mostly failed to get the memo about dogs being man’s best friend, a Danish developer is building an apartment block exclusively for dog owners.

The three-story complex in Frederikssund, Zealand, about 45km from Copenhagen, should be finished within the next 12 months and its 18 rented flats will be reserved for tenants with dogs, the local Frederiksborg Amts Avis newspaper reported.

“There’s a real demand,” developer Niels Martin Viuff told the Ritzau news agency. “People are tired of the fact that there are so many places where you cannot have a dog. We’d like to welcome dog owners. Many of them feel a little lonely.”

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Viuff, who consulted the Danish kennel club on the apartments’ design and canine-friendly features, said he and his partner Palle Søegaard hoped the Doghouse, as it will be known, would also foster a strong community spirit among residents because they will share a common passion.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” Lise Lotte Christensen, a behavioural consultant at the club, the country’s largest association for dog owners, told the paper. “It’s super exciting, it's innovative, and we look forward to following the project as it evolves.”

Christensen said the flats would feature hard-wearing, easy-to-clean floors. “Dogs wear things out. They have their winter outdoor footwear on all year round,” she said. “They don’t take their shoes off in the entrance.”

The complex will also have a communal dog-washing facility in the gardens, which would be designed to take account of the fact that dogs are not great respecters of plants, she added.

Viuff said he would want to meet prospective tenants and their dogs before signing the lease. Residents with more than one dog would be welcome as long as the dogs were small, but the very biggest breeds, weighing more than 45kg, would be refused because the apartments were not big enough.

Cat owners, too, would be discouraged, for obvious reasons. But if the Doghouse proved successful, a Cathouse might follow. “I could imagine we might build an apartment block for cat owners,” Viuff said. “It’s on the drawing board.”

Since you’ve been here …

… some things have changed. Whilst advertising revenues across the media are still falling fast, more people are helping to fund The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism than ever. Which means we now stand a fighting chance. But we still need your help.

The Guardian is editorially independent. Our journalism is free from commercial bias and not influenced by billionaire owners, politicians or shareholders. No one edits our editor. No one steers our opinion. This is important because it enables us to give a voice to the voiceless, challenge the powerful and hold them to account. We keep our factual, honest reporting open to all, not just for those who can afford it. And we want to keep it that way, for generations to come.

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Experience: I run a hospice for animals

I provide care for however long they have left, so they do not have to take their final steps alone.

The last day we had with Osha the bullmastiff was hard, although perfect for her. We took her for her favourite walk, gave her a meal of her favourite food (pasta) and then lay in the garden in the sun with her, feeding her fruit chews, which she loved. Then the vet came and sedated her and put her to sleep. I was so sad , but I knew it was the right time to say goodbye.

I had heard about Osha through the charity I run, Pounds For Poundies, which tries to stop abandoned dogs from being put down in pounds. When I learned Osha had been dumped in the pound with terminal cancer, I had to take her in. This was October 2015, the same time my dog Maggie died suddenly in a veterinary hospital, which left me devastated. Maggie and Osha inspired me to set up the Maggie Fleming animal hospice, offering end-of-life care for animals, in Dumfries in March 2016. At the hospice, I provide them with a home, friendship, love, comfort and tailored vet care for however long they have left, so they do not have to take their final steps alone. The hospice is funded by charitable donations and I run it with help from my partner Adam, friends, family and volunteers.

Osha’s favourite things were food and sleep, so she spent her last nine months being spoiled with breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in bed. She loved to steal eggs from our rescued chickens; I would leave one on the doorstep so that when she went out for her late-night wees she would think she had found treasure.

The vet who put Osha to sleep helped me realise it was the right thing to do. She told me that she sees similar situations almost weekly, when owners are so desperate not to make that heartbreaking decision that they leave it too late and the animals die in pain. The point of the hospice is to avoid that scenario.

I look after a maximum of three animals at one time, so that I can provide the best care possible. It is very time-intensive. Some of the animals I have helped have lived all their lives in kennels, never been hugged or kissed and don’t know what to do when I cuddle them, although they are clearly desperate for affection. My day is busy in some ways – looking after the animals’ practical needs, feeding them and giving them medication or other required care – but it is peaceful in others. Old and sick animals need love and attention, so I spend a lot of time sitting with them, reading to them and cuddling them.

I also care for more than 80 animals at my sanctuary for farmed animals and rescue hens. Many have been worked to death, and they come here rather than the slaughterhouse.There is something so sad about animals that have never known life outside a pen or a cage.

Experience: a stray cat saved me from depression

 

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We take animals from all over, but I cannot provide end-of-life care for all that need it, so I offer support to their owners instead. They can phone me 24/7 for advice. Often just talking to someone who understands their sorrow can help people through what can be one of the hardest decisions they ever have to make. Most importantly, it helps families to stay together until the end, which is the best outcome for everyone, especially the animal, which wants to be with the people it knows and loves. Knowing you have done right by your pet, giving back that love and loyalty as you see it safely to the end, is a huge responsibility and privilege.

I have just started an end-of-life care plan for Bran, another abandoned dog, as he is starting to slow down. He was abandoned on the street with a tumour on his spleen when he was about 17 years old. He was given six weeks to live when he came here; that was almosttwo and a half years ago. But his latest blood results show he is starting to slip into liver and kidney dysfunction. I sit with him for a couple of hours each day, washing his face with a warm cloth, which he loves, and giving him a massage to ease his muscles. I have promised him that when he tells me it is time to go I will listen. I will be there on his last day with all his favourite things and hold him as he slips away peacefully, knowing someone loved him to the last.

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