Give a working cocker a few months off and it turns into one half of Thelma and Louise

‘Can I go and play with Twiggy?’ If dogs could talk, this is what my spaniel Cydney would be saying to me every five minutes. She has made friends with the spaniel in the house up the track and the pair are beginning to show signs of folie à deux.

I leave my door open because it’s nice weather and one minute my dog is lying on the front lawn, the next minute she’s gone. Either she sneaks off to find Twiggy, or Twiggy comes to call for her. Sometimes I catch her wiggling under the gate and trotting off with the little brown spaniel.They look back over their shoulders at me before starting to run.

I used to walk up to Twiggy’s house and find them chasing each other gleefully round in circles in the pony paddock, watched over by a grumpy-faced Shetland who every now and then would show them a hoof. Either that or they would be leaping in and out of the pond. I used to think, ‘Aw! What harm can it do?’

But since the pair of them got into ratting missions, it isn’t just a case of harmless playdates. They disappear. They take off like Thelma and Louise. They know full well they are on the run and the authorities are looking for them.

Apart from me and Twiggy’s owners, the gamekeeper is on their case. ‘You lost a dog?’ he calls to me as he goes past the gate in his Defender.

‘Oh, er, um…’ I say, rushing out of the kitchen to realise the lawn is empty, dammit.