My cat Maggie is sitting on my lap while I write for the first time since Monday when Zamboni arrived. Zamboni is a very well-behaved, but exuberant black Labrador. She hasn’t met cats before, so her natural reaction is to lunge and back.

We’ve been bringing Maggie downstairs and praising Zamboni is she doesn’t lunge or bark. Today I carried Maggie down, and Zamboni only whined and sniffed, then wandered off and lost interest. That’s great progress, so Maggie can sit in my lap while I work again.