It's unfortunate, but given little Jackie's condition at the moment, it was clear that there was no point planning to take him out to the ravine again, as we did yesterday afternoon. On that occasion, expressing walking distress, he was carried throughout a short walking circuit. If it is indeed an injured leg that is causing him to behave unusually, it needs time to heal. If his distress is being caused by something else, then we'll have to return to the veterinarian clinic to try to discover what, exactly, is happening with him.

He's eating well, and he's sleeping well. He no longer pants and shivers and there's no more rapid heart beating, but he's certainly not behaving normally. His trips out to the backyard are mostly fruitless; he seems to be withholding waste. When he does urinate, he squats instead of lifting his leg as usual. He tends normally to evacuate two, three or more times daily, and now it's just once. He seems to feel otherwise well, his usual enthusiasm for being petted and gently played with are intact.

So no walk in the ravine for Jackie today again. But there was no reason why Jillie had to be deprived. She went out with my husband early in the afternoon for a good, long jaunt in the ravine. It's a pleasant, if cool day, with a high of 11C, wind, and mostly sunny skies. After my husband left with Jillie, Jackie, sitting beside me on the sofa, strained to hear where they were, obviously wondering at their sudden absence. Seemingly certain that if he peered hard enough from his perch, they would reappear. But unwilling to stir physically to satisfy his curiosity.

For her part, once in the ravine, Jillie seemed loathe to proceed as she usually does. She kept stopping and looking back, waiting for her brother and me to 'catch up' with them. This lasted awhile, my husband continuing to encourage her to accept that they were on their own, and finally, she did. I asked my husband to take the photographs I would normally snap while we're out on our daily rambles and he did.

In fact, he returned with double the number of photographs I usually take. It's his artist's eye, for he is fundamentally artistic, able to express himself beautifully in so many mediums, from painting to stained glass, furniture making, interior design and outdoor hardscape construction. I am, by contrast, incapable of producing even the most basic of drawings.

He snapped photographs of all the areas and landscapes of the ravine we're so familiar with, but interestingly enough, from an angle different than what my own snaps reflect. And since this is the brief, transitory time of fall when the Beech trees have surrendered to autumn and with that surrender the bright green of their foliage, replaced by the warmth of a coppery orange, there were ample shots of one of the valleys where beeches proliferate.

There is another, separate discrete valley where maples have colonized themselves among large old pines. And in that area, which is an elongated copse of maples, they too have turned, not the kind of red we usually associate with sugar maples, but a dense, deep egg-yolk yellow, creating quite the colour spectacle, awash with gold. Trouble is, digital cameras seem to encounter problems in capturing yellows which manifest as green. So though the maples in reality are a blaze of yellow, in the photographs they appear as though autumn has made no impression upon them at all.

This year has seen a bumper crop of American bittersweet growing in many disparate places along the forest trails. Their bright orange or red berries have been popping up here and there, and they're hard not to notice, particularly as they remain intact while foliage all around them is steadily dropping, revealing their presence.

It's clear from our conversation afterward, that this was a hugely successful romp through the ravine. Moreover, when they finally returned, we had an enthusiastic reunion, Jillie delighted that we were reunited, leaping joyfully at, over and around her brother and me. And then hanging around me in the kitchen, patiently awaiting her reward.

Usually, when we return from our daily tramp through the forest trails they're accustomed to being rewarded, and their most favourite of all rewards is a good-sized raw cauliflower floret. Jillie's treat this afternoon was a large floret of a hybrid cross between a cauliflower and a broccoli, which she found greatly to her taste.