I’ve had a deputy editor for some years now. She sits in a big old chair in the corner of my office, under one of its two windows. Normally she sleeps, but she’s been known to quirk an eyebrow when advice on semicolons, f’r’instance, is needed, and she’s a patient listener when I’m reading aloud a particularly troublesome scene, although, to be honest, she rarely offers an opinion.

This is the deputy editor. Molly, the chocolate cockerpoo.

 

Molly has acquired an assistant.  Friends needed to find a home for their Bichon-Yorkie cross, and sometime around yesterday lunchtime, Mavis arrived.

 

She’s a lot smaller than Molly and a great deal closer to the ground, but boy does she already love chasing around the garden or sitting on the back of the old office chair, telling the world what’s what. Terrier, you see. Bossy, opinionated, no conception of relative size at all, and positively Napoleonic in their refusal to accept that really they’re small dogs that should tread warily when it comes to bigger ones.

She’s fitting right in.

Here they are, bonding over barking their heads off at those strange white woolly things down in the field. Or possibly barking their heads off at a passing squirrel. Or barking their heads off just because they can.

They’re getting on just fine, which is a relief. No obvious sources of tension, even over things like food and toys. Of course, I don’t yet know if their views mesh over the proper placement of semicolons or the role of em-rules in dialogue. Only time will tell.

 

Welcome, Mavis! May your life with us be a long and happy one.

 

 

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