I HAVE never known life without a dog. Jack came first — before memory, before language. He lay under my bed when there was no nanny, alerting my mother when I cried as a newborn, following me around on my walker as though he had appointed himself my first guide in this world. We took our dogs everywhere, including a cruel six-month quarantine in the UK in the early 1990s, because that is what you do when an animal is family. You do not leave them behind.

Chia arrived 12 years ago and immediately made clear she had her own terms.

She trained beautifully for her trainer — sat, stayed, heeled with the precision of a dog who understood exactly what was being asked of her. The moment he left, she returned to her natural state, as if to say: ‘he gets the obedience. You get my irreverence.’ I stopped being frustrated. There is a particular intelligence in knowing which rules apply to you and which don’t.

She was an equal opportunity lover. She did not discriminate — not by class, not by disposition, not by whether you liked dogs. She would work her way through the entire galli, disarming the harshest critics one by one, until even the most committed dog-hater had softened. A neighbour kept a........

© Dawn