It’s not that I’m inconsistent, or lacking in will-power, or even (perish the thought) any less stubborn than the archetypal terrier. It’s just that this house, this sceptred toybox, this little Ulster, turns out to be less safe and predictable than I had imagined.

It all started last night. Now most house-humans, as you no doubt know, have a large box (or several) called a television, that sits in the corner of their living room and talks to them. In general televisions are not of great interest to us dogs, their conversation consisting largely of human mating behaviour and territorial disputes, with little or no mention of sausages or dead rats. Moreover, they are absolutely devoid of interesting smells.

My own collection of humans, being somewhat odd, even by anthropological standards, don’t actually have a real television. Instead, they watch films, quizzes and so on, most of them featuring a thing called a steev’n'fri (I may have spelled that wrongly) on the small grey trays they call their laptops. (I assume that the word laptop is related to the French lapin, which would explain how there are such an extraordinary number of them.) The sound, which is almost invariably the most interesting part, is then piped through more boxes, conveniently placed on the carpet at terrier-ear level.

Apologies for the diversion, but the house-humans tell me that this set-up was the root of all my confusion, and, though not entirely convinced, I felt that I should lay these facts before you at the outset. To return to last night. The Dad decided to watch a film called Fluke, despite its catastrophic reviews on rottentomatoes.com, and the rest of the family duly joined him in front of the screen. I was mooching about in my usual sophisticated manner (all I need is a silk dressing-gown to become a veritable Noel Coward of the canines), trying to pretend that I hadn’t missed my usual fresh-air-and-exercise, All of a sudden I heard a terrible sound. It was the heart-rending cry of a small puppy, the kind of whimper that can only be occasioned by the loss of a mother or a particularly savoury piece of chicken. I rushed to the source of the sound and scrabbled to find its maker. Somewhere, hidden behind the furniture, a fellow dog was suffering. “No!” cried the Aidan. “It’s not real!” But I knew better. I knocked down the boxes and searched behind them. Nothing. Yet the sounds continued, with more dogs adding to the excitement. I sat back on my haunches, head on one side. The house is semi-detached, but there was no dog I knew of on the adjoining side. Could there be a secret passage between the houses, an unknown portal into a parallel universe of canine domination? I tried more investigation, but still in vain. Or worse – could the place was haunted by the spectre of dogs long past, only audible on the feast of the New Year?

After a couple of hours the noises died away, replaced by the usual human babble. “There you are, Robbie.” the Aidan reassured me. “It was only a film after all.” Maybe so, but I’m not convinced. Since when did even a sympathetic, dog-friendly bunch like our boys watch a movie clearly made exclusively for the canine market? There’s something fishier than Friday leftovers about the whole business. I know one thing – I’m not going to risk being trapped behind that wall. So it’s back to walks, despite the Fermanagh climate. There are worse fates than a little rain.