the times | Tuesday July 21 2020 1GT 3
times
dog I thought this would be easy
like a fox), put up signs, set up a
Facebook group, and I cried hot, guilty
tears. I had brought this dog all the
way to England only to make her life
worse. I confessed to the charity,
which warned us not to chase her
because this would panic her. But how
to locate a terrified foreign dog, let
alone get her home?
On day three I had to give a talk
in Birmingham before the publication
of my new novel. A chance
conversation led me to Colin Butcher,
a pet detective (yes, there really is
such a thing), who told me that,
contrary to expectations, escapee dogs
rarely run far. They “triangulate”,
seeking a sense of security. On his
advice we bought six night-vision
cameras and set them up in nearby
woodland and places she had been
spotted, left out food and scented the
area around our home with sardine
oil. We were to track her movements.
No search parties, no noise, no drama.
He wanted her to feel safe enough to
stay close. He seemed remarkably
confident that we would find her.
As well he might. Three days later
he arrived in person and, within hours,
with his working dog, had filmed her
on a neighbouring farmer’s estate.
Over the next few days our hopes
lifted and fell; we charted repeat
sightings, but she bolted if anyone
came within half a mile. We borrowed
an oversized humane trap from
Canine Capture, a charity devoted to
finding lost rescue dogs, disguising it
with blankets and foliage. By day ten,
footage showed that she was coming
to eat from it regularly. On day 12
finally we set the trap, and waited.
At 5am the next day I crept into the
garden and there she was, furious and
terrified in the cage.
An escapee dog’s adrenaline levels
take days to drop and, traumatised, shewouldn’t come in the house. Terrified
of losing her again, we put her in a
secure run, where I sat with her every
day trying to win her confidence. She
chewed through two collars and a
harness, and ripped blankets to shreds.
She did not want to be stroked and
was unmoved by treats. And yet she
howled when I went indoors.
Neighbours muttered darkly about
English dogs that needed homes. One
told me she would never settle. My
family thought I had needlessly
complicated my life further. I lay
awake wondering if she would be
happier with the other dogs in Bosnia.
And ten days later she escaped
again. This time I was in the middle
of promoting my book. In daylight
I waxed lyrical on radio and television;
at night, on Colin’s advice, I cooked
sausages in disposable barbecues in
the middle of fields, hoping their
scent would lure her back. We
rigged up the cameras again, and
drove across country to borrow the
oversized humane trap. Set, wait,
repeat. This time, cold and hungry,
she seemed relieved to be caught. It
had taken 11 days.
I employed a dog behaviourist,
who explained what she was afraid of
(1. men; 2. everything else) and how to
help her. That afternoon we got her
out on her first walk, in an escape-
proof harness and two leads, with
BigDog and Alfie — and from that
point her life began to change. She
decided that this was her place and
I was her person, and that became all
she really wanted.
I have had Sisu, as she is now
known (Finnish for outdoorsy and
independent, our little joke), nine
months. She housetrained herself on
day one. She loves our cat, Eric. I no
longer fear her running away because,
perversely, she refuses to go furtherthan our boundary. She seems to have
a form of dog OCD: she will go into
only two rooms in the house (she runs
upstairs to check I’m in my bedroom,
then runs away again). She has to visit
the same spots outside every day, has a
pathological fear of doorways and only
eats treats after she has trotted round
the kitchen twice. She loves Alfie, our
15-year-old border terrier, but is wary
of BigDog, who has never understood
gentle play and tends to run other
dogs over. BigDog in turn tolerates
Sisu, gives a devastating side-eye if
she thinks I am spending too much
time with her and monitors the treat
situation closely.
Getting up to walk her at 6.30am
gets me past my lowest point of the
day. In lockdown we walked for hours,
and I witnessed tiny milestones of
normal canine behaviour that filled
me with pleasure — the first time
she wagged her tail, dug a hole,
gnawed on a stick or grasped the
point of dog chews. The calm, sweet
natures of the other two dogs have
given her confidence.
She has also been responsible for
one of my most embarrassing celebrity
experiences. I was driving her to a
local lake when I became stuck in
a remote, flooded lane. As I was
attempting a 15-point turn, a car came
through the floodwater and I lowered
my window to apologise for blocking
the road. It was Jamie Oliver. Spying
a strange man, Sisu promptly crapped
lavishly in the boot. Jamie offered,
kindly, to drive my car through the
floodwater for me, but the smell at
that moment was so eye-watering
that I declined hurriedly, insisting that
I was fine, I really was, he should go
right ahead without me.
(Thanks, Jamie. I really did
appreciate your help. And it was
the dog, honest.)Jojo Moyes and her dogs
Spying
a strange
man, Sisu
promptly
crapped
lavishly. It
was Jamie
Oliver
I’m not sure Sisu will ever be
normal, whatever that means. She
is frightened of shadows and sharp
movements, and will drop what my
kids call “the egg of fear” if a stranger
approaches. My plans to bring her to
work fell apart when I discovered that
she hurls herself to the ground if
overwhelmed. I don’t know what
horrors she suffered in her previous
life, but the scars run deep, and it’s not
my job to push her to be more than
she’s comfortable with.
But she’s happy, increasingly so,
and that’s enough. Every day she
bounces with joy round the fields,
tolerates a moment longer of stroking,
asks for a tummy rub by rolling
over mid-walk and fixing me with
what can only be described as a
“come hither” look. It is hard to feel
down in the morning when a dog is
literally turning cartwheels of delight
at the fact that you came down the
stairs again.
In recent weeks she has been
persuaded twice to come running with
me, and once we are deep in open
countryside she stays close, carrying
her tail high, like a marker of
happiness. She is learning to love her
new world and feel secure in it.
BigDog and Alfie have both lived
beyond their natural lifespan, and
with the peculiar melancholy that
comes with watching the weary gait
of an elderly dog you love, I am
relieved that there will still be at least
one sleeping on the rug.
All animals teach you something,
and rescued animals the most —
it’s their great unexpected gift. Sisu
is my daily reminder that sometimes
you can’t change the world around
you, but you can nearly always
change something. And sometimes
that small thing may be exactly the
thing you need.The Giver of Stars is
out in paperback on
July 23. You can see
Sisu’s transformation
on @jojomoyesofficial
on Instagram2020
Sisu, a collie
2018
BigDog, a Pyrenean
mountain dog