I’m so very proud of this boy. When he arrived in our home he had a spirit so troubled and broken that he just had no idea how to behave or who to call a friend. He’s now about six and a half and he’s been our boy for more than two-thirds of his life. We hope he doesn’t remember much about his life before he came here and it’d certainly be true to say that over the years he’s softened and mellowed until now he’s just a normal boy.

He no longer gets spooked by people in the street or out and about while we’re on walks. When guests come to the house he treats them like friends rather than people to be afraid of. He realises, at long last, that he’s here to stay and that while he’s with us he has nothing to fear (except maybe the hoover, which as every dog knows, is alive and as hostile a critter as you can imagine).

We’ll never know what terrible things happened in his past. We’ll never be able to understand what it was that spooked him about men. His utter terror of a knock on the door is a secret that he’ll take to his grave. We can only guess whether the JD stands for Just Dog or Jermain Defoe or, as DM prefers to think, JD Salinger because he’s a great catcher.