We have had our wee DorkyDog now for over five years, but I realised recently that I haven’t written about her since we were going through all the drama and stress of her total hip replacement – all the way back in 2022.

Ironically, I’m now making time to write about her just as we are staring down the barrel at another potential surgery. Poor girl has been in clear discomfort every evening for the last month or so, and after some x-rays and conversations with the vet it looks likely she’ll need the other hip replacing too – but there may also be a knee issue we need to sort out first.

I’m very grateful that we ignored all the folk who told us not to bother getting pet insurance. Even if we didn’t make any more claims for the next ten years, I reckon we would still come out ahead.

But needless to say, DorkyDog – or Luna Bear, as we know her – is far more than the sum of her sore and stiff joints. Although that overwhelming first year of puppydom, surgery included, was a real shock to our quiet household, I don’t think any of us were prepared for quite how deeply she would embed herself in the family, and how fiercely we would come to love her.

(I have paused my writing at this point to walk into the room off my office, where she is stretched out napping in a sunny spot on the bed. Just to give her a little kiss on the head.)

That is the first thing you need to know about Luna. If there is a warm spot to sit or lie in, she will find it. In the early mornings, our carpeted staircase catches some early rays of sunshine, and I will often find her with her backside on one step, her front feet on the step below, head turned to one side to soak in those glorious beams of light and warmth.

In the middle of summer, she will stand by the front door and stare into your soul until you haul one of her many mattresses onto the front porch. Here she will lie for hours, lazily snapping at flies and occasionally growling at a blackbird, until her fur becomes too hot to touch and she drags herself inside, panting, to lie on the wooden floor.

In winter we light the woodfire every night, and she sleeps as close to it as she possibly can, rousing herself very grudgingly and fixing you with a judging stare if you need to open the door and add another log. She doesn’t like to share the heat, and if a human member of the family tries to stand in front of the fire, she refuses to shuffle along, instead looking up at you with one fierce squid eye, daring you to challenge her.

The second thing you need to know about Luna Bear is that she insists on being at the centre of things. To be fair, the guide to her breed did mention this – “spoodles like to be in the middle of the family” it said – we just didn’t realise how literally she would take that.

In her ideal world, she would spend every day either lying on her bed or lying on our bed with all three of us taking it in turns to rub her tummy and tell her what a beautiful girl she is. Since that’s not actually an option, she just stays as close to at least one of us as she can at all times – beside us on a sofa, napping at our feet, or poking her nose into the middle of a job like stacking firewood or folding laundry to see if she can be helpful.

If there is ever a situation where the human Dorkys are split between the two levels of the house, she will nap at the top of the staircase to make sure she can keep an eye (and an ear) on our movements at all times; and if one of us dares to go to the bathroom and close the door, she will sit patiently outside and wait for us to be done.

The third thing to know about Luna Bear is that she likes to eat. After a giardia infection as a puppy, she has had a lifelong sensitive stomach and can’t tolerate many of the proteins – like chicken and lamb – that are found in most dog food. Instead, she eats a combination of duck and kangaroo dry food from the vet, and pea and algae wet food from Prime 100.

Treatwise – and for dental health – she gets split antlers, yak milk bones, pig ears, and some ridiculous vegetable-based chews shaped like toothbrushes.

She supplements all of this with a vast array of human foods, including scrambled egg, hard-boiled egg, fried egg, strawberry tops, fillet steak, tuna, cheese, Maccas French fries, toast crusts, and the last lick of every yoghurt pot. The only time I have ever seen her growl in earnest was when DorkyDad had a plate of scrambled egg and forgot to give her the plate to lick afterwards. He was in deep, deep trouble.

Given half the chance, she would also include possum shit, pine cones, rocks, and kindling in her diet, but we try to stop this as much as possible.

The fourth thing to know about Luna is that she is MOSTLY a very good girl. Mostly.

She has thankfully grown out of her puppy habit of eating the heads off flowers – a trick she would only carry out while making full eye contact with DorkyDad to make sure he had noticed.

She is entirely good natured but still a bit prone to over-excitement. She can be very bouncy, which definitely doesn’t help her hips. She gets over stimulated and struggles to settle when visitors stop by. She cannot be trusted with DorkyDad’s leather slippers. If her afternoon walk isn’t happening quite quickly enough, she will sit by the door and give you stink-eye. And there is nothing more she likes more than to hang over the back of the sofa and look out the window, barking at passers-by.

But none of these are deal breakers.

And luckily she has two big tells: a naughty walk and a naughty noise. If she has stolen a sock or is trying to sneak a stray paper towel past me, the jaunty little skip as she heads off to hide under the table is my first clue, and if I miss that then the high pitched little happy grunt – the I’M DOING SOMETHING I SHOULDN’T BE AND I’M VERY PLEASED WITH MYSELF noise – is the second clue.

The fifth and most important thing to know about Luna is that she is quite the sweetest creature to ever have lived. She is DorkySon’s first dog so he has no comparison, but both DorkyDad and I have known many dogs and we are in agreement that she is the biggest love muffin of all.

We have nicknamed her Nurse Luna, because at the first sign of pain or discomfort from someone in the house she comes running through at great pace, soft toy in mouth, ready to fix whatever ails.

She is entirely open-hearted, and quite baffled by aggressive dogs when she encounters them. In five years, I’ve never seen her respond to other dogs being cranky with a single snap or grouch, even when provoked.

There are several neighbourhood dogs that she is always excited to see, including a golden retriever called Ginny, a little terrier called Zorba, and a kelpie called Bonnie. She quite believes these three fellow canines to be her best friends in the world. As soon as she sees them coming her ears perk up, her pace quickens and her tail starts to wag. Alas these older, more reserved dogs are not quite so keen on her and will often go out of their way to avoid being bounced at.

She also seems to have a soft spot for black labs and there is one – Winnie – who she exchanges nose boops with when we pass her house. I suspect if they were ever to meet on the oval, off-lead, Luna would be completely intimidated by Winnie’s size, but for now, through the gate, it is a perfect friendship.

When we are at home, picking up a toy and walking around in circles with it, tail wagging so fast that it starts to spin like a helicopter, is her love language. Whether she is standing on the top step watching DorkySon head off for the bus each morning, or running to the garage door at the sound of the car engine because DorkyDad has arrived home, she is always bursting with love and enthusiasm.

She loves to play tug of war. She loves to sniff. She loves to nap with her head on my chest, especially if there is a heat pad in the vicinity. She loves to curl up on her bed with her brown Kong bear or her tiny monkey or any of the other animals in her menagerie. She loves to tear up the stairs in the morning and jump on our bed to let DorkyDad know that his coffee is on its way. She loves to dig. She loves to hide her stinky old pig ears in the pillows, or under the duvet, and then will whine pathetically until you follow her so she can ‘find’ it again.

The list of things she doesn’t like is very short, so far. Avocado and banana – you can safely drop either of these on the floor without her pouncing on them. Car rides. And pigeons. Something about their bobbing heads drives her absolutely wild.

Ultimately, Luna loves, with all of her heart, to be alive. Sunshine, food, walks, toys, people, other dogs who may or may not reciprocate her enthusiasm: she wants all of it. She has brought more joy, delight and laughter to our wee family than we could ever have anticipated.

And she is still just a young girl with many, many years ahead of her.

So, if there is another hip replacement coming, we will get her through it. If the knee needs fixing first, we will fix the knee. Whatever else is thrown at us over the next decade, we’ll do everything we can to keep her comfortable, mobile, and squeezing every ounce of pleasure from her days.

A doggo with so much love to give deserves nothing less.

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Final photo by Tom Dawkins Photography, all other photos by me.