As I sit here writing, he is curled up amidst a pile of cushions behind me on the bed. He appears to be asleep but he isn’t. He is alive to my every sound and movement. If I make as if to get up, one eye will open, peer out from inside his cocoon and he’ll leap into instant wakefulness and energy. He will follow me everywhere. He is, the family jokes, my shadow.

This book is about the dog who changed my life. It’s about a Chihuahua, the smallest of dogs with the biggest of hearts, who came into my life at its lowest ebb.

A diagnosis of breast cancer had been confirmed on 20 December 2006. It was the day my mother died after a long battle with the cruelly debilitating effects of Parkinson’s Disease. Quite how we struggled through Christmas I shall never know. My father suffered the immeasurable grief of a man who had adored the same woman for almost 60 years and had no desire to go on without her. He needed every ounce of energy I could muster. I had to face a mastectomy between Christmas and New Year, organise my mother’s funeral and then begin a course of chemotherapy which would last for half the year.

In the midst of the exhausting effects of the treatment – as I tried to keep the rest of the family, my two sons, Edward and Charlie, and my partner, David, in some semblance of normality and sanity – my father succumbed to lung cancer in June. Thus, within a few short months, I, an only child, lost the parents who had always been a reliable rock throughout my life, faced the possibility of my own demise, had to accept that my children were now grown up and becoming increasingly independent, and that my partner was in as great a state of shock as I was.

He and I would rattle around the family home, which now seemed over-large and silent. I grieved for my parents and my health. He too was full of sadness. We had been together for almost thirty years, so my parents were family to him as they were to me and my children. But the greatest pressure, in the aftermath of all this sorrow, was a doom-laden sense that we were now the older generation; that we would be next to face the draining deterioration that ageing brings, and we were uncertain that doctors who predicted a good prognosis for me were telling us the truth.

It seemed that any plans for a fulfilling and energetic middle to old age might be scuppered by my illness; and David, who had never known me to be anything but a cheery livewire, constantly occupied by home, children, work and friends, suffered an unspoken terror that he, like my father, might be consigned early in the middle years of his life to caring for a sick woman or, even worse, might lose her altogether. The days passed heavily.

And then came Butch. His name is not altogether incongruous. He may be a mere Chihuahua, but he has the heart and stomach of the fiercest Rottweiler, and when we stay in the Wuthering Depths of my London basement flat on the days I’m in the capital for work I no longer fear the night-time intruder, knowing he will warn me of any impending danger.

Butch began to replace tales of my children in the weekly newsletter that I write online for the BBC. He has become the star of the show, receiving presents – he always wears his gift of a black leather collar with the diamante inscription ‘bad boy’, confirming that he’s joined his mistress as a gay icon – and regular enquiries as to his health and his latest antics.

At the literary festivals I have attended over the past months to publicise my last book, Memoirs of a Not So Dutiful Daughter, the first question is frequently, ‘How’s Butch? Why didn’t you bring him with you?’

I am, I fear, upstaged, even in his absence!

His youth, verve and uncritical, unconditional devotion have made me look forward to getting up in the morning – food, a walk, a game in the garden and to coming home – no longer to an empty house, but to a smiling and enthusiastic welcome.

He is an affectionate, devoted and sometimes hilarious companion. He has made life worth living.

Chapter One

A Dog Is for Life

There was always a dog. If not real, then imagined. I don’t precisely recall at what stage it began to dawn on me that the most powerless creatures on the planet seemed to be little girls, but I can’t have been much more than a toddler when I developed a deep resentment of being bossed about. It had quickly become apparent that I was considered fair game for parents, grandparents, disapproving aunts and the gang of local big boys who tittered at any valiant attempt to join in with climbing a tree, kicking a ball or steering a tricycle. They made it quite plain they would as soon drown in the dirty duckpond as be seen actually playing with a creature that jabbered incessantly and sported (generally unwillingly) a ribbon in its hair.

But a dog, I knew – partly by instinct, partly from the books my mother read to me – would never snigger or criticise or make demands. It would revel in your company and obey the most peremptory of barked orders. ‘Sit, heel, stay, roll over’ would be music to its ears. It would fetch the ball you were doomed to play with alone. Should you find yourself being beaten up by the biggest bully on the street – a not uncommon occurrence – it would tear out his throat in your defence. Should burglars dare to enter at the dead of night, it would rip out the seat of their pants and hold them, terrified, until the constabulary turned up.

In my vivid, infantile imagination I dubbed myself ‘the mistress’ and ceased to be some pathetic, undersized weakling, expected to sit nicely, knees demurely together with neatly brushed hair and scrubbed apple cheeks.

At night, after the bedtime story, I dreamt that a heroic Shadow the Sheepdog lay snoring at the end of my bed as I slept or Lassie traversed the known universe to be at my side or Timmy and I strode about solving crimes and saving damsels in distress.

I begged and pleaded with my mother for a dog of my own. She was adamant that she had quite enough to do, thank you very much, with a house, a child and a husband to run around after. Why would she need the responsibility of a dog?

‘I know full well,’ she’d say, ‘that you’ll tell me you’ll look after it. But you won’t. I’ll be left to walk it, feed it, and I’ll be hoovering all day to get rid of its hairs.’

My mother was obsessively houseproud and, although I doubt she realised it at the time, had indeed articulated one of the first lessons in the canon of feminist commandments:

‘Thou shalt not buy any animal you are not prepared to clean up after. Men and small children have a tendency to lie about their readiness to attend to such matters.’

Thus the lonely existence of an only child continued until the happy coincidence of two not entirely unconnected events. The first involved my disappearance. I was four. This was the 1950s and, apart from reading, listening to the wireless and being helpful around the house, there was not much to keep a child entertained at home.

Parents were relatively unconcerned about their youngsters playing out. In fact, for a mother whose work was staying home, cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing, it was something of a relief to have her offspring out from under her feet for an hour or two. There was none of today’s dire warnings of stranger danger, nor were there enough cars on the road for incessant traffic to be seen as much of a threat. There must have been a degree of parental concern as I was frequently warned not to ‘go off ’. ‘Stay in the garden or the fields or the street where I can keep an eye on you.’

Only, on the day of my disappearance, I was George – the best fictional role-model any growing girl could have and the star of my favourite Famous Five books by Enid Blyton. How I longed to have a name that could be made to sound like a boy’s, to show scant interest in the making of cakes and sandwiches and be the protagonist in whatever adventure I could conjure. Naturally, at my heel, would be the celebrated Timmy. I don’t recall that Timmy was ever held on a lead in the books, he simply ran along obediently by George’s side.

But I knew, whilst still a tiny girl, that even slow-moving traffic could cause devastation. A small boy, the son of a neighbour, had been killed not long before whilst playing under the Co-op grocery van. He’d been crushed as it pulled away and all of us who were used to playing in the street had seen the white, drawn faces of the mothers who comforted the one who had lost her child.

We had stood at our kitchen windows as the cortège with the tiny coffin had driven slowly down the road and had sobbed in sympathy with our own parents. I know now that people would think it silly to compare the threat to an imaginary dog with that of an all-too-real child, but to me, at my young age, the danger was genuine. I was so worried that during our long trip looking for thrills in the village Timmy might run into the road, I had his leash clutched in my hand.

We were gone for hours. We popped into the Co-op store and trailed our feet through the sawdust on the wooden floor, sniffing the pungent aroma of freshly ground coffee and watching the man in the white coat and cap slicing through the huge smelly cheeses with an enormous wire – scary, just like a guillotine. Then he’d cut through a ham with a whirring circular saw, leaning over the counter and asking whether my dog might like a taste. We said thank you, I scoffed the lot and we left and crossed the street to Tom the fruit and veg man who’d been kind enough to return a lost and beloved teddy I’d once left behind. He too welcomed Timmy and me and offered an apple. I declined, explaining that the dog wasn’t keen on fruit and I mustn’t as it was nearly teatime. We set off home, climbing the steep hill, tired by now, and hungry.

For years my mother would describe in exacting detail the moment she saw her diminutive daughter come at last into view, dragging a piece of string behind her and demanding, imperiously, ‘Come along, Timmy, don’t dawdle. We’ll be in terrible trouble if we’re late for tea.’ Until I had my own children, I never understood why mothers, who are hugely relieved at seeing their child safe and sound after long, anxious hours, shout, scream and are furious rather than huggy, kissy and nice. Very cross was what she was. Timmy and I were sent upstairs to my room in disgrace and with no tea. I think she must have sat in the kitchen thinking how much more sensible it would be, should I ever dare to disappear again, for me to be accompanied by a real dog who might provide some protection rather than by a useless figment of my imagination.

Which is when we had the visit from Cousin Winnie. She shared my mother’s Christian name and her penchant for upward mobility. She bred corgis with a pedigree as long as your arm in tacit emulation of the Royal Family. She had a problem. Her prize bitch had shown scant regard for the preservation of the blueness of her blood and had indulged in illicit relations with some mongrel mutt from the wrong side of the tracks. The resultant puppies were far from pure bred. She was having trouble getting rid of them and just wondered if we might be prepared to take one off her hands.

Thus, on my fifth birthday, I came down to breakfast and was given a parcel of irregular shape to open. It contained a collar and lead. The lead had a tag on which was engraved, not Timmy, but Taffy. A minor disappointment, but an acceptable nod in the direction of his half Welshness, and my parents led me by the hand, trembling with anticipation, to the shed outside.

There, lying nervously in a far from comfy plastic bed (easy to keep clean, said my mother; he won’t be in it for a minute, thought I, he’ll be snuggled up on my blankets) was everything I’d imagined Timmy/ Taffy to be. Gingery brown, huge, meltingly dark eyes, stiffly pointed ears, spindly legs and the longest, waggiest tail I could have hoped for. The mongrel genes had won out big time over the short-legged, stocky corgi. He hopped out of the bed, wriggled over to where I crouched on the ground and licked my hand. I knew I would never be lonely again.

Taffy turned out to be the fulfilment of every one of my childish canine fantasies. He was a willing and uncomplaining accomplice in any silly adventure in which I chose to involve him, mostly concerning the tracking down of evil criminals hiding out in the woods near the house – he did the sniffing – or unearthing buried treasure in the garden. He did the digging, much to my father’s displeasure when the only things of any value we managed to uncover were the seed potatoes he’d put his back out planting. If there was trouble as a result of our adventures we’d simply escape to my bedroom and dig out an Enid Blyton for further inspiration.

We spent hours together strolling around the cemetery. It may seem strange that a young child should be fascinated by death, but I found it all quite touching. On days when it was too wet or cold to visit the graves I would read the notices in the Barnsley Chronicle and found the often trite poetic clichés utterly beautiful.

In the burial ground itself, which was a short stroll from our front door, there were long, carefully tended paths to walk along and then pause at the poor, simple headstones of those without much money and the grandiose mausoleums, almost like houses, that were the final resting place of the rich merchants and coalmine owners of the past.

We’d take a few sandwiches and a bottle of pop and sit by the elaborate gravestones of tiny children who’d died in the 1800s. There were Sarahs and Edwards, Pollys and Williams. In some families four or five babies had survived for only a few months and I would read the unbearably sad poems out loud to Taffy, ears cocked, ever attentive as the tears poured down my cheeks.

‘With angel’s wings she soared on high, To meet her saviour in the sky’ is the only one that sticks in my memory, apart from the scary one on a grown-up’s grave positioned near the great wrought-iron gates at the entrance and which I copied into my diary.

Remember well as you go by,

As you are now, so once was I.

As I am now so shall you be.

Prepare yourself to follow me.

I never failed to read it as we passed the grave and never failed to be absolutely terrified by it. We would run home to the warmth and safety of my mother’s kitchen and her wasted words of advice.

‘Of course you’re not going to die. They didn’t have such good doctors in those days. And if it upsets you so much, don’t go there.’ But for most of our walks I was irresistibly drawn to what Dad always tried to make me laugh by calling ‘the dead centre of Barnsley’. Not funny. Not funny at all.

An alternative route was the lane opposite my grandmother’s house which led to a bridge over the railway line and then the river. We would pause on the bridge and wait for a train to pass, the steam puffing up and over us. I loved it and the promise of bigger and better places it offered. Taffy hated it and would cower at my feet until the roaring noise was well past. But he loved the river. He swam and rolled around in the muddy banks whilst I paddled in the shallow water, dipping a fishing net in among the weeds and bringing out tiddlers and sticklebacks.

I had a jam jar with string tied around the neck for ease of carrying and at the end of the afternoon we’d carry our prize home to my mother’s ‘Don’t bring that smelly jar in here, and keep that dog outside – he’s filthy.’ We both had to hover around by the back door, whatever the weather, until she found time to turn on the hosepipe and give him a shivering wash down. He leapt at the warm, dry towel I proffered – old and tattered and kept for the job – and revelled in a good rub down.

I learned a lot from Taffy. As I grew older and struggled with the inevitable anxieties and tensions of the teenage years, he became my confidant when I realised that secrets told to a dumb animal were much less likely to be passed on than if they were told to someone you’d thought you could trust as a friend.

I discovered that kindness, low-voiced firmness and bribery tend to achieve far more than shouting, screaming or smacking. He would do anything he was asked as long as there was a treat clutched in my hand. He taught me that having a sense of humour was the best way of dealing with any sadness or worry. A dog has an uncanny ability of turning a lonely moment into one where there’s a companion who never takes life too seriously for too long. Taffy had the trick, as Butch does now. A head cocked to the side, ears erect, eyes full of love and mischief – one could even say a cheeky grin. You can’t stay miserable when faced with such innocent enthusiasm.

Taffy even managed to make me laugh during one of the greatest moments of shame and humiliation in a now rather long lifetime. I must have been 10 or 11 and, even though by now he was at least five years old, he hadn’t grown out of his puppy habit of gobbling up anything he found on the floor, no matter how seemingly unappetising. We’d just left the house and were walking along the pavement on our way for a tour around the cemetery with Mum (I’d persuaded her it was an interesting place to visit) when he desperately needed the toilet.

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