Oh, and by the way, are you laughing now?

Piglet's always been a strange dog; he views Life very seriously. He's never seen the point of toys (unlike Harry who adored toys) unless it was to take Harry's favourite toy to annoy him, or playing games for pleasure. The concept of 'fun' has passed him by, and he totally missed out on the sense of humour gene (which Harry had in spades and was one of the many traits that made him so endearing). Piglet's always been more self-sufficient and anxious; I can see many characteristics in him that, in a human, would suggest a degree of autism. However in the months that he's been an only dog he's started to choose to be around us and seek our attention much more, which is nice.

Because he's never bothered about playing with our other dogs he's also never wanted to interact with dogs that we meet when we're out. He likes to ignore them if he can - he'd rather they didn't come too close unless he's met them amicably several times; if a strange dog pulls towards him he'll lunge and snap to drive it away. There were a couple of tricky moments at Cropredy when he felt pressured by dogs coming close (in a very crowded pub, for example), especially if they reminded him of dogs he knows he doesn't like (collies - they stare - and very hairy dogs mainly). However at Cropredy he also displayed a behaviour we've never witnessed before. As we were walking along past dogs of various shapes and sizes which were glanced at and ignored we saw another dalmatian; the first he's seen since Beattie left us. Piglet's ears pricked up, his tail started wagging and he pulled me towards it, squeaking with excitement. When we got close he knew it wasn't Harry or Beattie, but he was still keen to be sociable. His reaction brought tears of sympathy for his obvious loneliness; perhaps we ought to get another one sooner rather than later.

It was his and Harry's 11th birthday yesterday.