THE trouble with animals is that their life expectancy tends to be so much shorter than ours. Inviting them to play a part in our lives, therefore, is ultimately setting the scene for eventual heartbreak, as experienced recently, by my two young granddaughters.

Olaf wasn’t particularly old for a guinea pig and although he had lost a little weight, no-one was expecting him to die; but he did, and quite suddenly. People deal with grief in different ways, as was demonstrated very clearly by my girls. Bethany, elder granddaughter, was very sad and tearful as one would expect, but younger sister Maisie appeared to be, for want of a better word, cross.

"Why do all our animals die?" she demanded. To put this into perspective, not all their animals have died, but they did lose my daughter’s horse, two years ago and Blossom, another very elderly guinea pig the year before that.

"And why now? Why did he have to die today?" demanded Maisie.

"What difference does the day make?" asked her Mum.

"Because if it had been tomorrow, I could have had another cuddle."

Maisie also wanted to know all the finer details, all the ins and outs. Things like where exactly had Olaf gone and what was going to happen to his body now? Gently, it was explained that Olaf, just like Toban (the horse) and Blossom, had gone to heaven and that his body would be buried in the garden.

"Do I have to watch this?" she asked. And was relieved to discover that her presence was not obligatory.

Out walking with my son-in-law later, he told me how he felt almost guilty for allowing the girls to have pets when it ultimately caused them so much sadness, but I disagreed.

Firstly, I believe that we all need to experience some adversity in our lives in order to develop into caring and considerate individuals.

Secondly, nothing lives for ever and experiencing the death of a pet must go a little way, I have always thought, in helping us to begin to accept the concept of loss.

The girls have only one guinea pig now, Olaf’s mother, Elsa. Now Elsa is a fairly mature pig, and what with the recent cold snap, not to mention the fact that she might have been feeling lonely outside, living in the grand guinea pig palace on her own, the decision was taken to move her indoors. Space inside the tiny family cottage is very limited, especially now the girls are growing up, but none the less, space for an indoor cage was made at the foot of the spiral staircase and Elsa is now enjoying a much more active role in family life.

Although Maisie, aged six, is a very clever, artistic and creative little girl, enjoying school immensely, most of the time, she does not really, like reading books. She likes being read to, but picking up a book and reading it herself is something of a chore, or at least it was until recently. While chatting one day, my daughter happened to mention how that when she was a little girl, she had 10 guinea pigs and that she sometimes used to go out to her guinea pig shed to read to them. "I wonder if Elsa likes stories?" she mused, out loud.

Well the rest, as they say, is history. Elsa, so it would seem, loves listening to stories, and will sit quite happily on Maisie’s knee, listening attentively, until the weekly library book has been read from cover to cover. If only all life’s problems could be solved so easily.

Last month in the piece about Ryedale Dog Rescue (RDR) I stated that the rescue had been founded in 2005 by Rosie Stephenson. Although Rosie became a very active RDR member just a few months after inception, the rescue was actually founded by Judith and Alan Evans, Jackie Bath and Sue Dixon. Apologies for the error.