It’s fair to say that over the past few weeks we have been licking our wounds. Grief is a wound, that slowly heals with time.

So in these difficult times poor Elfie has had her work cut out. We both feel as if she had been coached by Wiglet before she came to us – it’s as if she was told all the things that were making us cry and what to do to try and help us.

So she insists on coming to the toilet with us, one of Wiglet’s last names was ‘Toilet Warden’ as she had started to insist that she come to the toilet with you, when she had never been bothered before her illness. So after she left us I found myself crying on the toilet, because she was no longer there with me. Elfie has made herself the new appointed ‘Toilet Warden’ and she always has a concerned look on her face, it’s as if she is worried that we are going to burst into tears at any moment, and she has been instructed to make sure that does NOT happen.

There are so many other things that she does, picks all her Markies up and brings them into the living room before eating them, cuddles RD just as Wiglet used to do when he comes home from work. As if she had been told that he was lost without that. Licks his ears (I know disgusting but something Wiglet loved to do!), kisses his face and beard, and lays at the exact spot Wiglet used to lay, right at his feet. When I am working she lays at my feet. As if to fill the spaces that have been left, so your breath doesn’t catch when you look down and the space is empty.

But the biggest thing of all is when she yawns, she ends it with a little Oh! Just like Wiglet used to do. I saw RD’s eyes light up when she did it, and then she looked at him as if to say ‘ Has that made you smile? She told me it would.’

But make no bones, Elfie is her own dog. Completely different to a Welsh Terrier she is happy to lay at your feet, and just let the world go by. She has made me smile again, through the inevitable tears.

I watch her as she looks at things in absolute wonderment. It is a joy to watch her see the world untarnished, to her everything is beautiful, everything is a wonder to behold.

She has expressions that vary from ‘wow’ to ‘what the hell is that?’ The latter was reserved for the cats! We had been informed she had never seen cats before and she was initially afraid of them, they could have landed from outer space for all Elfie knew about cats!

But she is a good girl, she has realised quickly that if she doesn’t chase them they will stop and let her sniff them, well one of them will. She has also realised that one of them in particular has sharp claws and is not afraid to put her in her place. But of course Harley the Welsh is trying to teach her in the way of the Welsh and will then chase the cat, with Elfie in hot pursuit of Harley because she thinks she should be.

Elfie came from a farm. She was born in an old outbuilding and that is where she lived, fed on biscuits. Don’t get me wrong she was cared for, but not in the way our dogs are cared for. So when we first arrived home she would not come in the door because she was afraid to enter the house. When RD eventually carried her in she just looked around, in wonderment.

Then we turned the TV on and she jumped, and again looked at in in awe, what the hell was that?

Dog treats are also a wonderment, for a little puppy who had only ate biscuits. In fact all of her food is and I will never forget the look on her face when we first gave her chicken and rice.

On the day after she arrived I left the bathroom door open whilst I had a shower, she looked at me as if I was insane and proceeded to cry because she did not like me getting wet. We are over three weeks in now, and I am now I am boring and allowed to have my shower in peace.

She has quickly come to realise that she loves toys, sooo much. But despite that the farm girl comes out in her and she is never happier than to play with an old potting plant pot. We have had a lot of them recently so she has been in her element. The bigger the better. My living room is now home to two or three plant pots, chewed and varying in size.

In this jaded world to watch her love everything, be in awe of everything, chase the wind and run like a mad thing through the long grasses that we have left in places in the meadow because we are trying to work with nature. To watch the birds in absolute wonderment as they fly to the feeder.

That is what I have found myself saying these past few weeks as I watch her ‘Wonderment’. Then I smile, through the tears.

Thank you Wub Wub, for sending her to us.

Rosie