There has been an outbreak of human hypochondria syndrome in our house. Normally it’s the male who gets it; he always needs copious amounts of Kleenex and red wine, and the main symptom seems to be a fear of dying. This time, however, it’s the female. There has been a lot of hopping around on one leg, bad language and strange exercises on the floor. No Kleenex, and unusually for her, no wine either. She must really be sick.

I, however, am on the alert, and am not letting her out of my sight, so I can monitor the situation. There’s a very good reason for this. I used to think hypochondria syndrome was confined to humans, but a couple of years ago we experienced a strange manifestation of it, when the humans projected the symptoms onto the household poodle. It hasn’t happened since, but I’m worried in case they do it again one day, with me as their victim.

It all began when the male human suddenly started treating the household poodle with exaggerated care for no apparent reason. “Poor Ziggy, what a terrible thing,” he would say. “I’m really sorry, mate, I wish I could do something.” All accompanied by extra cookies and special treats at mealtimes. We dogs couldn’t figure it out. The poodle seemed fine. He wasn’t sick, or limping, or infested with fleas. He hadn’t managed to get to the chocolate stash, which we know from bitter experience will send humans over the edge. But now, every time the male human looked at the poodle, it was with a wince and a shake of the head. One time, I’d swear there were tears in his eyes.

And then there were the strange dinner table conversations.

"Do we really have to do this?” the male would say, looking at the poodle. The female would get that stubborn look on her face and start banging crockery around in the kitchen.

“You know we do. We don’t have a choice.”

“But it’s so unnecessary! Poor little dog.”

“Look, just stop it, will you? It’s hard enough as it is. It has to be done. It’s one of those things.”

We dogs were worried. They were clearly planning some kind of attack, but we didn’t have enough information to prepare for it.

Then, one morning, the dreaded words: “Time to go. The vet’s waiting.”

The poodle panicked, ran off and hid in his crate, but the female human hauled him out and carried him to the car. The male stayed behind, staring at the door. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, “what a horrible thing to do to a dog”. And off he went to his den to sulk.

Sure enough, the female came back without the poodle. Nobody spoke for the rest of the day. I wondered if I’d get extra treats, being the only remaining dog, but none of my usual cues worked on either human. They were nervous and bad-tempered. I thought it was probably a manifestation of human grief, so I decided to leave them alone for the rest of the afternoon and reinforce their training the following day.

But then, the strangest thing happened. The poodle came back. They’d installed a very inconvenient white plastic cone on his neck, but otherwise he seemed exactly as he was before. And he still felt fine. We racked our brains to figure out what they’d done and why, but we couldn’t. It was a complete mystery.

The new cone was a nuisance, one of those weird human things that have no rational basis for existence, like soap and hair ribbons. And like those things, its only purpose was apparently to make life more difficult for the dog. We were easily able to dispose of it, of course, but the first time we did so, it triggered a bout of human rage. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, it’s for your own good, don’t you dare take it off again” and the like. Human rage can be dangerous to dogs, so we decided to leave the cone in place for a while, so as not to risk an escalation. The poodle was annoyed, but resigned. He actually found the cone helpful when manipulating the humans – they seemed to feel sorry for him, even though they’d installed it – so he was willing to put up with it.

The humans continued to behave strangely for over a week, yelling at us if we tried to play with one another, and carrying the poodle up and down the stairs. He wasn’t allowed to jump onto the furniture – he had to be lifted. And he could only go outside on a leash. Neither of us could figure out what had happened. This was such a peculiar manifestation of human hypochondria. We just hoped it wouldn’t last.

And in the end, it didn’t. One day, they picked up the poodle, poked around his penis for a while, and then took off the plastic cone. We were allowed to play again, and the special treats stopped. The male human seemed relieved. “It hasn’t changed him at all,” he kept saying. “He’s still the same as he always was.”

That’s what’s so odd about it. A perfectly healthy poodle went off to the vet, came back with a plastic cone attached to his neck, was subjected to reactive human hypochondria for over a week, and then was suddenly allowed to become a normal dog again – well, as normal as a dog can be in this household.

Sometimes it’s not worth trying to understand what goes on in the human mind. This, we think, was probably one of those occasions. We’re just keeping our paws crossed that it doesn’t happen again.

However, incidents like that are unsettling. I don’t think I’ll be able to relax until our female is back on both feet again.

My humans were obviously not well-trained when they were young, because they’re pathologically unable to share their food. If I even think of approaching their bowls, they become extremely aggressive, and if I manage to snatch something, it’s like Armageddon. Still, I’ve always felt stealing is worth the risk because their food is so much better than the dehydrated dust nuggets they serve for us. But there was an unpleasant incident this week that nearly changed my mind.

The humans must have been especially distracted that evening, because not only was I left alone in the kitchen – something that’s never happened before – but there was also a nice bowl of grapes on the table. Needless to say, the humans had barely left the room when I was up there, gulping down fruit like a canine disposal unit. I just had time to empty the bowl before they came back. I thought I’d better cower in the corner for a while, in case they started exhibiting signs of human rage syndrome, but to my surprise they didn’t. They simply made their dinner, sat down and started chatting as though things were normal. I actually began to relax.

Then the female human spotted the empty fruit dish and went very still. “Who ate the grapes?” she said, in the hushed, serious voice that never bodes well for dogs. The male human shrugged and kept shovelling down his dinner. Suddenly, the female leaped out of her chair and began wailing. “It must have been Ruby! We have to do something!”

Next thing I know, I’m flat on my back and she’s prying open my mouth, pouring liquid down my throat. I fought her off and spat it out. She glared at me. “You have to drink it,” she said. To be honest, it didn’t taste all that bad, and since my choice seemed to be either a full-blown bout of human rage or drinking the liquid, it seemed like a no-brainer to me. I lapped the liquid obediently off the floor, and we all sat staring at one another.

“What is it?” said the male human.

“It’s peroxide. It will make her throw up,” said the female.

This was news to me. I didn’t feel sick at all, but pretended to gag for a while, just to calm her down. It obviously wasn’t enough. She grabbed the phone and called the vet.

This, I thought, is not going to be pleasant. And what an understatement that turned out to be. The human hung up the phone, snatched the salt shaker, and backed me into a corner. Once again, my mouth was pried open, and this time a large handful of salt was thrown down my throat. I didn’t even have to pretend to gag. The stuff was disgusting – dog only knows why humans put it on their food, it tastes worse than the soap they keep in the bathroom. I gagged and gagged, and eventually threw up a few grapes. A small scuffle ensued, as the human tried to grab them and I tried to eat them again. The human won. She always does.

Then she started counting and weighing the grapes.

“There were a lot more than this,” she said.

“Look,” said the male, “there are no teeth marks on them, and they’re still on the stalks. Shall I wash them and put them back in the bowl?” I think he was joking – although he might not have been, you never know with him. In any case, the female didn’t seem to think it was funny.

“I have to take Ruby to the vet,” she announced.

The vet! And I thought fruit was supposed to be good for you.

So off we went to the vet, where there was a lot of earnest conversation about intravenous drips and other tortures invented by humans for dogs. In the end, they settled on eye drops. I put up a decent struggle, but they managed to squirt some liquid into my eyes, enough, anyway, for them to let me go. We all sat staring at one another again.

“What will it do?” said my human.

“It will make her feel dizzy and throw up,” said the vet. “It always works.”

Well, it didn’t. Nothing happened – literally nothing. The human took me outside to walk around the car park for a while, and on the way back into the office I managed to grab a nice piece of rawhide from the store shelf and swallow it before the human could get at it. That’ll teach her to make such a fuss about a few grapes.

In the end they got fed up of waiting. The human handed over a bunch of money (she does that a lot) and took me home. I slept really well; it had been an exhausting evening. And in the morning, the rest of the grapes came out naturally – whole, of course, because there hadn’t been time to chew them. The humans seemed pleased to get their fruit back, and moved the bowl onto the top of the fridge.

Still, it was a worrying incident, by far their worst bout of food bowl aggression. Vomit-inducing liquid, handfuls of salt, and stuff squirted into my eyes – all for a kilo of grapes. I could understand them making a fuss about steak – but fruit? I think I’d better stay away from their bowls for a while, so as not to escalate matters, but eventually I’m going to have to tackle this issue again. They have to learn to share. I won’t tolerate aggression.