The cat glides past, avoiding eye contact.“I know it’s you, you little shit,” I say.“He just sees a big expanse of raked earth,” my wife says.“Everything is clearly labelled,” I say.

At that point we’d been married five years, and I’d never heard anything about a tortoise.“I thought he was giving me some kind of memento,” my wife says.“He was,” I say.

That said, I’ve been touched this time by how many have understood that a dog becomes part of a family.The final gift a dog gives its family is the lesson of loss .

Once out of the carrier, he walks round the kitchen table in unsteady circles, knocking into chair legs.“He’s still groggy,” the middle one says.My wife is washing up, and the youngest is at the table making guacamole, surrounded by a growing mess.“How is he?” I say, looking at the cat.

I watch as the tortoise attempts, not for the first time, to leave through the cat flap; I know from experience that he’s about a centimetre too wide.

"On the day that Jacqueline was going to the home, she was advised by text that the dogs were, as they normally were, out of their crates, with no warning to be extra careful or anything like that," John Durand told TODAY by phone from Coppell, a suburb of Dallas.

The cat never really mastered the old flap anyway – he sat in front of it for hours, delicately prying it open with one claw and watching it fall back into place.“You don’t pull, you push it, you idiot,” I would say.

An hour before, she comes into the kitchen with a cat carrier.“Where did that come from?” I say.“We had it,” my wife says.Looking again at the picture of the kitten, I notice it’s sitting in a brand-new cat carrier, on the back seat of our car.

I look down.“Not now,” I say.‘No, of course I don’t like corgis.’ Illustration: Peter Gamlen/The GuardianA few days later my wife rings me.“Do you like corgis?” she says.“What does that mean?” I say.“We’re going to look at a kitten,” my wife says.

Cromer, a University of Miami facilities manager, told the station that he and his wife untied the flag from the railing when they saw the cat clinging above them.

When the oldest one surfaces at about midday, I am still sitting in a chair watching the cat on the sofa.“The cat’s not well,” I say.“Isn’t he?” the oldest says.“Dad thinks he’s about to check out,” my wife says from the doorway, being unnecessarily faithful to my phrasing.“So take him to the vet,” the oldest one says.

He plays eccentric Edwardian artist and illustrator Louis Wain, a lively and arguably brilliant man who might today be considered neurodiverse, and who certainly suffered from depression.

As the front door closes behind him, my own summer holiday begins: a week with no dog sleeping on my feet or barking every time the bell rings, or staring at me intently as I try to write, or read, or watch TV.“I hope they make it down OK,” my wife says.

Animal welfare activist Dominic Dyer started the campaign, and said he has been in touch with Mr Farthing after his wife tried to leave Kabul.

My wife sits up in bed.“What’s going on?” she says.“The dog is barking,” I say, standing up to look out the window.If you open the front door at night, the dog will often run out between your legs to chase the fox down an adjacent lane.

Getty ImagesWhen Prince Philip married then-Princess Elizabeth over 73 years ago on Nov. 20, 1947, he assumed the arguably difficult role of a prince consort, one very few men have held in royal history, requiring him to forever live in his wife’s shadow.

“I think that looks pretty good,” my wife says, standing back.“In the box,” my wife says.“Fix what?” the youngest says.“These are dog attachments, but whatever,” I say.He looks at me, and the youngest one, and then me again.“I’m good,” he says.

Queen Elizabeth II received her first corgi when she was seven (Picture: Lisa Sheridan/Studio Lisa/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)In 1933, when Her Majesty was seven years old, her father King George VI brought home Dookie, a Pembrokeshire Welsh corgi.

Later that night, I find my wife at her desk, looking at what appears to be a website dedicated to the adoption of abandoned dogs from around the world.“What are you doing?” I say.“Look at Lucky!” she says.“Are you trying to adopt a dog?” I say.“To live on our farm!” she says.“But we have a dog,” I say.

"President-elect @JoeBiden and his wife @DrBiden won’t just be bringing their German shepherds, Major and Champ to the White House,” a Friday evening tweet from CBS Sunday Morning read.President-elect @JoeBiden and his wife @DrBiden won’t just be bringing their German shepherds, Major and Champ to the White House.