Animal Magic...

...Apart from the horse, which understandably doesn't actually live with us but in its own five-star stable at a livery yard up the hill, there are two dogs and a cat about the place, each of whom could be considered formally insane - assuming there is any objective test to validate such an assertion about non-human creatures.

G - a 'borderline collie' - was never much made of stern stuff. Although bred through ancestry to be a robust, working animal, this one of ours - a rescue creature as they all are - has proven a decadent, bi-sexual, hyper-neurotic - though utterly charming - companion, much given to licking the ear of S the lurcher. (One is told that ear-licking is a sign of a dominant animal, though if so it is the sole self-assertive act this fellow seems capable of.)

S - the other dog - is a pronounced penis/ball licker when stressed. Not of himself but of G the other dog. Whether this is sexually submissive behaviour perhaps only God or Freud could confirm. The lurcher is large and powerful - in his heyday a match for any speed merchant - though a bit dumb, if sweet. Lost half his tail crashing through a fence in an attempt to chase a cow. (Cow was not overly impressed, nor were we on viewing the vet's bill for semi-amputation.) Generally has a look that says "I may not know precisely what I am about to do, but I am sure you will love me for it anyways." And by and large we do.

M, the cat, is now completely barking. Sleeps on my pillow of a night licking my head. By day rips with her claws into a passing bureau or chair as she sees fit. Not to mention mousing - dumping headless carcases as trophies on the beds. All within the standard range of feline behaviour no doubt, but you've only to watch the manic look in her eye, or spot the bolting change of direction or activity, to realise there is considerable madness in her method.

As no 'baseline' sanity-quotient test was ever undertaken when these dear creatures arrived, one-by-one, into our household, it would be an imprecise science which concluded that living with us had driving them all nuts.

That though probably is the right reading of the spirit of the place, and under that spell they appear to have all fallen. They seem perfectly happy about their fate though, which is reassuring.