They wouldn't allow the dogs in there,

There are no bad dogs, only bad owners.

Harriet resisted, until Tara pulled out the big move...the combination "lean-against nuzzle, with a slight lick and an adoring glance." In dog-land the move had a degree of difficulty of nine point seven, and as far as I know, there is no known defense against it.

Almondine

Eventually, she understood the house was keeping a secret from her.

All that winter and all through the spring Almondine had known something was going to happen, but no matter where she looked she couldn’t find it. Sometimes, when she entered a room, there was the feeling that the thing that was going to happen had just been there, and she would stop and pant and peer around while the feeling seeped away as mysteriously as it had arrived. Weeks might pass without a sign, and then a night would come, when, lying nose to tail beneath the window in the kitchen corner, listening to the murmur of conversation and the slosh and clink of dishes being washed, she felt it in the house again and she whisked her tail in long, pensive strokes across the baseboards and silently collected her feet beneath her and waited. When half an hour passed and nothing appeared, she groaned and sighed and rolled onto her back and waited to see if it was somewhere in her sleep.

There were 10 million nails everywhere you stepped. There was hazardous waste. There was sewage. The dogs don't have nice steel-toed boots that they can wear. They have to walk through the muck and they are decontaminated and washed every time they get back from a search.

I told him, 'I'm not going to allow you to be the cause of (stroke) number three.