“The weekend started with a bang – literally! In fact, there were quite a few ‘bangs’ on the Friday night as one of our neighbours hosted a party with loud fireworks to finish.

For many animals, the firework season causes significant distress, but, in our household, we appear to be very fortunate because our own dogs are not fazed at all by the annual light-and-sound displays around the village.

If they are outside in the garden, our dogs will either go about their business completely disregarding the fireworks, or have been known to sit in the middle of the lawn and watch the displays as they light-up the night sky.

This year was no different, and our own dogs were joined by Ruby, who was very relaxed outside in the garden, perhaps due to the continuous socialising or the frequent exposure to lorries, trains and other loud noises.

On the Sunday, Ruby attended a party of a different kind, held down on the village playing field. It was thrown for one of our friend’s dogs, Blue, in celebration of his 13th birthday. There were ten other dogs in attendance, and Ruby had huge fun running around and playing. She also enjoyed a small doggie bag of treats!

During the week I met with Claire Lush for our monthly one-to-one, when we visited town with Ruby and sat in a cafe to practice her settling skills (Ruby’s, not Claire’s!).

Claire and I chatted for 15 minutes while Ruby quietly sat underneath the table and, despite the close proximity of a selection of discarded crumbs, eventually lay down and went to sleep! She was very calm throughout - a real star.”