The velvet, pumpkin-coloured loveseat in our bedroom is where she spends her nights. That loveseat constitutes her bed. It represents her night-time resting place, one she chose years ago.

She is elderly and fragile now. Her memory is not what it once was, her eyesight and her hearing badly compromised by the inevitable ravages of age that arrive when a little dog is 19, as she is. It was a long time coming, but gradually her faculties began to ebb.

We are always on the alert for her safety. She has to be carefully guided, during our daily walks. She has forgotten the routes so long familiar to her, through the nearby forested ravine. She demonstrated, this winter, a tendency to walk into walls of snow, then became thoroughly confused. She also, from time to time, forgets the lay-out of our house, the only one she has ever known. She will make wrong turns and fall down the stairs leading to the basement, so that is now shut off to her.

When she scrabbles about, getting herself comfortable on the downstairs sofa she sometimes forgets the limits of her space, and falls off, causing further confusion to her, although not yet any physical harm. Last night, after four a.m. we both awoke, sensing something amiss. In the dark of the bedroom there is still faint light cast from various sources, and we could see she was not asleep as she always is, on the little loveseat.

We arose from bed and began calling to her, searching for wherever it might be that she had got herself. We both roamed through the house, looking for her, but she was nowhere to be found, and we became increasingly anxious for her whereabouts and her security. Finally, we realized she hadn't gone far, was in fact, curled up fast asleep on a black shirt that had been discarded for the laundry temporarily lying on the rug beside the bed. Black-on-black is difficult to detect in the dark.

We're thankful that neither of us stepped on her in our panic to find her. She obviously fell off the loveseat, was confused, found a haven on the discarded tee-shirt whose odour she obviously recognized and placed her trust in.