Women know how to catch a man’s attention. It is almost inherent or instinctive. I would suggest that the same rules apply to dogs. Last week I related how our Canaan, Woody, would ignore the much smaller Cavalier King Charles, Dixie, despite her best efforts and obvious affection. Our other Cavalier, Fudge, would do his own thing and he did not relate to Woody at all apart from the occasional sniff.

One day, we decided to give Dixie a haircut, taking off her long fur coat as we were heading for Spain. She was far more mobile as a result, but the haircut worked in another way. Dixie came back sporting her new hair-do, a close cut to the skin and Woody greeted her and would not leave her alone. So Dixie discovered what women have known for years: a new hair-do can work wonders.

She would sit next to him and sleep against him during the day. Yes that’s what dogs do. Being retired we can witness their antics and, if we stay in, they will sleep all day. If I go out in the garden for a morning, Dixie and Fudge will join me. They will do the same in the afternoon. If I stay in, they will sleep. As for Woody, he rarely came out into the garden. He had an obsession with a third-storey widow, from which our 5ft 4in neighbour, Claude, once called to him. Woody looked up, saw Claude and presumably thinking the neighbour had grown about 20 feet, ran inside. He never trusted Claude or that window again. If he sat out in the garden, he did so keeping one eye on the window.

Claude will call all three dogs but, while the others will run to the fence and greet him and seek a stroke and a pat, not so Woody.

Our other neighbour works with wood and has stacks of it under cover. There are some feral cats that now live in fear of Fudge. He killed five kittens and two larger cats, and, if he gets the chance, he dashes into the wood-yard looking for feline prey. He never bothers with the chickens in the pen. Cats are all he has thought about these last three years. He is constantly on the look-out for them.

When we returned from holiday and collected Woody from the kennel he would delight in seeing his two small companions. He adored Dixie, as if the penny had dropped that day she came back severely shorn. Fudge realised Woody was alpha male and always paid his respects.

Sadly, Woody suffered from increasing hip-dysplasia over the past two years. More recently, he began to go senile. I won’t bore you with the list of ailments, including prostate cancer, which we had monitored and arrested by medication. He was not in pain, ate well but forgot all his house training as the senility grew worse. Dixie, who always barks whenever she wants to go to toilet, spent a lot of time with him, as if she knew he was unwell and despite Woody’s aberrations, neither of the small dogs followed suit or forgot their house training.

We put off making the decision, or at least Ellie did until we started having to carry Woody upstairs. Just before we went on a Spring holiday to Spain, we took Woody to the vet and bade a sad farewell. It seemed almost clinical: going to town with a dog we have had for over 14 years and coming back without him. It was an emotional time. Ellie had come to the final decision on her own because, as she put it, she did not want to blame me. I had kept quiet about my feelings, as I did not want her to blame me. So we were in accord. He was not in pain but the quality of life was extremely limited and, I must admit, his passing was very tranquil. He just lay down and went to sleep forever.

We let our girls know and we received messages and even emails of sad understanding from our grandchildren but the eldest, who was particularly fond of him and really grew up with Woody, has yet to be told.

We were naturally subdued that night and the dogs seemed to take the cue. We wondered how the Cavaliers would take to missing their big mate. They seemed disorientated but, then again, that might have been down to us: ascribing human thoughts and reactions to dogs.

Anyone who has had and lost a dog will know how we felt.

Two days after Woody was put to sleep, Fudge headed for the woodshed, broke into the pen and killed seven chickens before I could get in and catch him. He had never been vaguely interested in the chickens for the past three years – their pen backs onto our wire fence but he has never even barked at them.

When we arrived at our friend’s house in Spain, for the first time in six years, within three hours, Dixie peed on their tiled floor. We were absolutely stunned by this. She had never done this since her puppy days. She did not do it again, or in the three weeks since then.

Fudge went into the woodshed before I could stop him the other morning, but after looking round for cats, he ignored the chickens and came back to me. The other night Dixie barked and Ellie got out of bed and let her into the garden. Normality had returned.

We thought about Fudge’s killing spree and Dixie’s lone pee. We came to a conclusion that Fudge and Dixie: two canines had behaved totally out of character.

Were they confused, saddened and upset by Woody’s disappearance? Or do we have too much time on our hands and need to get out more?