The cat looks at me in wide-eyed amazement that I am not pleased with the live and dead stock it brings into the house. However much I show, and voice, my displeasure it goes out and pursues another poor wee beast to present to me.

Shishi taking possession of one of Canna, the dog’s, toys

The cat turned up two summers ago, watching the house and grateful for the food we put out for it. Uncertain of its gender we christened it ‘Heshe’.

That is until she was followed across the yard by three small kittens.

We found her lair in the woodshed. The Cats’ Protection League re-homed the kittens and ‘Shishi’ – the name of those carved stone cats that guard the doorways of Chinese temples – after a trip to the vet for a microchip and neutering, came to live here.

Shishi adopted us, not the other way around. She made her choice; she might have chosen to move on. She made the house her own and insists on regular meal times while she takes up self-appointed precedence over Canna, our dog. Canna finds it easier to go along with it and avoid the hassle of resisting. But then so do I.