The man who sells the mattresses at all the markets sidled up to me, hands in pocket, clope (fag) in side of mouth.

"Looks expensive," he muttered nodding towards the centre of the Halle. "Was it?"

"Yes," I answered. He named a figure. Bang on. "Thought so." After a pause he pointed to his wares, cellophaned and under cover in the fine mist of rain: "Want to buy a mattress?"

Well, fair question. Foreign. Obviously loaded - look at the pup. Pretty clueless - look at the trainer. Classic French rural thought processes when looking at us.

The trainer? Yes, the tall, slim woman wearing a jacket with 'educateur canin' embroidered on the back trotting César through the stalls, is his personal trainer.

Polly is no ordinary trainer; she is also a canine behaviour specialist - dog psych to you and me.

It took just two weeks living with my new pup to realise I needed both. And so did he.

I think I now know what it must be like to be a woman of a certain age who, having spent years with the same man, goes off the rails and takes on a toy boy.

How often, as she tries to match the zest and enthusiasm of youth, must she wish she could rest her weary old bones back in the marital bed of familiarity.

And how often must she peer into the mirror at the daily, not so subtle changes, and wonder how long she's got before he wishes for a livelier, more fun substitute. Or kills her.

Until her last months, Portia and I lived in a tranquil, parallel state. I don't like to rise early, so she adapted to her own long lie-ins.

In the summer she liked to do nothing other than luxuriate in the sun, moving at its peak to the shade of a eucalyptus tree. I like to crisp up on a sunbed moving to the shade of a parasol or briefly into the cool interior.

She liked long, long lunches lying outside little restaurants in a heat sodden, cobbled square, occasionally raising her head to accept a morsel of chicken or due reverence paid to her beauty from passers-by.

I like long, long lunches, although I raise my head only to take another swig of house vin and lazily admire the beauty all around me. My own goes strangely unremarked.

At night, we attended to ourselves before turning in; another uneventful day over of unspoken agreement.

Of course, unlike the late-life crisis fling, she left me and not by choice.

But, as the months passed, I knew my life needed an invigorating shake-up, even if nobody else agreed, and I started to eye once again the young males.

And so came César. His first few days you know of. It got worse, much worse. My arms were lacerated where his milk teeth had drawn blood. I took to walking like John Cleese, braced for the nips in the back of the knees after I'd turned from his full frontal attacks.

The unexpected snow delayed the erection of his compound encircling half of my front parc and trapped us behind child gates and cage.

I took to exhausting him, kicking balls around the kitchen/dining room; uncaring when plates went flying or he, like the standard bearer of an invading army, leapt around waving tee-towels and badly discarded clothing.

Anything just to have him collapse in sleep for an hour or so of peace.

Good behaviour I rewarded fulsomefully, and one day something just clicked and the biting stopped and turned to the acceptable, occasional puppy mouthing.

Two days later Polly arrived. Within minutes of crossing the threshold she had him bowing in submission, instantly obeying the few commands, in French, I'd taught him.

She didn't need to tell me my errors. I saw them immediately, right down to my body language, with shoulders often hunched, defensively waiting for a lunge, rather than straight and commanding.

The last two weeks have been spent socialising him and leash behaviour. I trudge behind them, revisiting markets I've not seen in years, at hours I once would still have been 'reading' the papers in the white robe.

The French are fascinated as she turns, twirls and reprimands him until he does what's demanded. They walk out from their stalls to ask me what he is. I stand with them explaining what she's doing.

I puff up with pride as they call him handsome, magnificent, intelligent, and when she runs him on an extended, tail-high trot, well, we all applaud as if at Crufts.

Kindly, they turn back to their work as I take the lead and perform an infinitely less polished re-run of her work. But I have no shame; better humiliated now than when he's six months and unwelcome everywhere.

Here, so long as controlled, we can take our dogs into shops, restaurants, and hotels - almost anywhere except most beaches in the summer months.

I think warmly of the new César emerging and catch his eye in the rear mirror. "Clever, clever, César," I coo.

He holds my gaze as he evacuates both bladder and bowel onto his rug.

There's still some way to go.