Asked to explain how I feel right this moment I would have to hesitate for some time before answering.

It's not that I don't have the vocabulary to put the thoughts into words; it's more that my brain has forgotten how or where to find them.

In place of the mots juste, there is a misty grey cavern where letters dangle and tantalise with half-remembered outlines.

Perhaps I should instead describe my physical state and gradually build up to the rest.

I'm wearing the clothes I put on five days ago, although the jumper, new, now has several holes and pulls in it. It's just, well, simpler that way, involving no 5am decisions.

The boots aren't too bad until you notice the fake fur trim straggles like a tail to the heel. The tiny nicks in the jeans are barely noticeable, but they're there.

As I haven't had a shower either, the hair hangs flat, periodically stuck with sweat to the pasty face it surrounds. My red-rimmed eyes have that staring, glazed, in another world look, that comes with trauma.

But the overwhelming impression I would say is of a woman exhausted almost to the point of collapse.

While I'm unlikely to actually keel over, several times a day I find myself swaying over the Mac, snapping to as my nose hits the H key.

The eyelids have their own life and close down periodically to compensate for the four hours sleep I'm averaging a night.

My very bones feel leaden, suffused with a tiredness so deep I fear I'll never be rested again.

Even my physical surroundings are semi-squalid. In front of me on the table, six cushions spill over in a pile; an oven glove has its stuffing overflowing from a rip in the cloth; a lavatory and a kitchen roll stand side by side, a tiny teddy-bear, its leg hanging off, wedged between them; a stack of newspapers and two half drunk cups of coffee completes the scape. An ashtray overflows.

There is a faint odour of urine and disinfectant, a whiff of wet paper that not even the powerful fig and pomegranate candle can dispel.

I'm thankful though, for the near silent clicks of the keyboard, as sound is my enemy, as is, it seems, the fiend sleeping in his cage.

Cesar has arrived. All hail. Curled up, briefly spent, he is a classic Afghan puppy, legs and nose all waiting to morph into the platinum blond his destiny it is to become.

For now he's dark sand with tufts of the black fur he was born with, and awake, his almond shaped Eastern eyes gleam with defiant intelligence.

For now, thank you God, they are closed and I can whisper this column into being. His enormous paws occasionally pat the crate's side and I start, settling only when I know he's not on the move - yet.

Just eight weeks old and he's brought me to my knees, in every sense.

When not holding his water outside to run and pee on the paper inside, he's swinging off my jumper, gripping my jeans, ripping the boot off my foot, chewing into the books, gnawing at my chairs, dancing around with the cushions.

This time I'm going by the Cesar Millan rules, projecting my 'calm, controlling energy' as pack leader on to him.

I forget the theory a lot and end up shrieking like a banshee, to no avail, as his sharp teeth grip my knee and he drags me to his lair.

Exhaustion is my Achilles' heel, but I try to keep the madness from my eyes and remember the Dog Whisperer's mantra: Discipline, Exercise, And Love.

Love at these initial power wranglings is not too present in either of us. We're at the circling, wary stage and it is totally conditional.

After a long mopping, training, frustrating day I practise the praise part by sitting on the step by the child gate into the sitting room.

I tell him how handsome he is, how good, and stroke his puppy pelt. He grabs chunks of my hair, shakes them, his paws scrabbling at me all the time.

I release my hair and he clamps on a wrist, an elbow or an ankle. The love bombing is well and truly over and I want to put my head on my knees and scream.

I can't for I swear he would grip me in a killer back of the neck clutch.

Was it like this with all my dogs? Is it like childbirth? That the pain is forgotten as soon as the baby is delivered?

Listen, I reminded myself every day of the bloody pain of childbirth (although I did have an epidural) so that I would never, never do that again.

Or maybe it's just because I have got too much time on my hands and am concentrating too much on taming this wolf? Trying 'energy dominance' instead of just gently cuffing the bugger and nipping his ear when he hurts me?

Merde. Have I become a new age 'mother'?

So far there is one positive. I have no time, no energy left for existentialist thoughts.

I mop, therefore I am

Oh God. The beast awakens.