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‘Irish setters are normally incredibly lively. So when did this subdued behaviour first start?’
    ‘About three months ago,’ Mrs Green replied.
    ‘No, it’s not as long as that,’ her husband corrected her gently. ‘I’d say it was about six weeks actually.’
    ‘No, it wasn’t!’ she snapped. ‘It was three months. Do you think I wouldn’t notice something like that—my own dog?’ I discreetly wrote down ‘child substitute’ and ‘marital tension’.
    ‘ Our dog,’ he said. Sinead lifted her head and looked at them anxiously.
    ‘It’s all right, baby,’ said Fiona, leaning forward to stroke her. ‘It’s all right. Mummy and Daddy aren’t cross.’
    ‘How old is she?’ I asked. ‘Two?’
    ‘Just under. We’ve had her for about a year and a half.’
    ‘And has she had any specific traumas? Did she get in a fight with another dog, for example? Or has she had a near miss with a car?’
    ‘No. Nothing like that,’ said Fiona. ‘I work at home, so I’m with her all day. All I know is she seems constantly depressed and she just lies in her basket. It’s heartbreaking,’ she added, her voice suddenly catching.
    ‘I don’t wish to be personal, Mr and Mrs Green, but are there any specific stresses in the, well, family dynamics, to which she might be reacting?’ This was a rhetorical question. There clearly were.
    ‘Well, no, not…really,’ Fiona replied, crossing her arms defensively.
    I saw her husband roll his eyes. ‘C’mon, Fi,’ he said wearily. ‘You know there are. And I think it’s relevant. I’ve said so all along.’ He looked at me. ‘You see—’

    ‘I don’t want to discuss it!’ she hissed.
    ‘But it might be important,’ Miles protested.
    ‘But it’s private !’
    ‘It’s all right, Mrs Green,’ I interjected. ‘I’m not asking you to tell me anything you don’t want to. But I can assure you that I’m bound by a code of confidentiality which means that anything you do choose to tell me will go to my grave.’
    ‘Okay then,’ she sighed. She opened her bag and got out a tissue; her husband gave her arm an encouraging squeeze. ‘We’ve been trying for a baby for four years,’ she explained quietly. ‘That’s why we got Sinead, actually, to distract us from the stress. This year we’ve had IVF, but our first two attempts have failed.’
    ‘Well, that would put a strain on any relationship, however happy,’ I said. They both nodded. ‘And dogs are incredibly sensitive to changes in atmosphere, and I think Sinead is simply picking up on that. So I think that you should try and protect her from emotional stress by having any sensitive discussions when she’s out of the room.’
    ‘But it’s not just that she’s depressed,’ said Fiona. ‘She’s been behaving in a peculiar way. For instance, she’s started stealing things.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yes. Very odd things—Miles’s shirts out of the laundry basket, for example.’
    ‘She might find it comforting if he’s out.’
    ‘But she steals old egg-boxes too. And the other day she took five empty plastic flowerpots out of the garden, one by one, and put them in her bed. And she was arranging them so carefully, almost tenderly, as if she loved them. It was weird. We didn’t know what to think.’
    Ah .
    I got up and went over to Sinead, pushed her gently ontoher side, and lifted up the feathery fur on her underside. Her tummy was slightly bloated and pink.
    ‘Has she been anywhere near a dog?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Yes—positive. And when she was last on heat we kept her in.’
    ‘Then she’s having a phantom pregnancy. That’s why she’s so subdued. Females that have never been mated can get very broody. They become listless, and they stay in their beds, which they carefully arrange, because basically they’re making a nest. Then they look for objects which they can put in their “nursery” and “mother”—hence the egg-boxes and flowerpots. They even show