Caption: Digby's latest litter, a few days old. A warm heap of paws, ears and twitching noses.
If you have a dog, you'll understand.
Dogs don't just share your house; somehow they gradually take up residence in your routines, your conversations, your plans and your memories until it becomes impossible to imagine family life without them.
Our two working cocker spaniels, Digby and Daisy, are very much part of our family.
In fact, Digby has recently become a dad again. His third litter arrived a few weeks ago and, although the puppies don't live with us, we are lucky enough to see them because their mum belongs to the wonderful lady who runs Digby and Daisy's doggy daycare.
There is something about a litter of sleeping pups that no amount of money, technology or entertainment can quite compete with.
For a few minutes the whole world shrinks to a warm heap of paws, fluffy ears and twitching noses.
And it turns out that is more than enough.
Caption: Me and Digby, out in the fields near home.
Digby's great love, as a typical working cocker, is having a job to do.
Although I have never had any ambition to work him in the traditional sense, he possesses that extraordinary instinct to learn, to train and, perhaps most importantly, to please. He doesn't simply tolerate training sessions; he actively seeks them out. There is an eagerness about him, an almost childlike desire to show you that he understands and can do what is being asked of him.
He comes from an impressive pedigree of field champions and, every now and then, those genes quietly make themselves known.
The two places where his working dog ancestry really comes alive are out on the running trails and on the golf course.
Caption: Wet, filthy and entirely in their element.
Running with Digby is a humbling experience. He seems to possess an endless reserve of energy and enthusiasm and would quite happily disappear into the woods with me for hours if my legs and lungs were willing to keep up with his.
But the golf course, like his owner !, is his one true happy Elycium.
Over the years he has become the perfect golfing companion. He sits patiently beside the green while we putt out, he waits quietly as each shot is played and somehow seems to understand the rhythm and etiquette of the game. Between shots he is free to explore the rough, sniff out the edges of the fairways and conduct his own entirely separate round of golf among the trees and hedgerows.
For Digby, it appears to be the perfect combination of purpose, freedom and adventure.
And for me, a walk around a golf course is made immeasurably better by seeing it through the eyes of a very happy working cocker.
Caption: Digby. Thoughtful, measured, and quietly aware of his own good looks!
And then there is Daisy.
Daisy is Digby's daughter from his second litter, puppy number nine as it happens, and she arrived in our lives two years ago with all the subtlety of a hand grenade.
Where Digby can be thoughtful and measured, Daisy is pure enthusiasm wrapped in a whirlwind of Ewok fur. She attacks life at full speed and with complete commitment. Every walk is an adventure, every visitor a long-lost friend and every object in the house a potential toy, that needs to be retrieved and brought to us, regardless of whether it was ever intended to be one.
She is an extraordinary bundle of fun, fluff, energy and mischief.
What has been most remarkable to watch, though, is her relationship with her dad.
Caption: Daisy, never more than half a step from her dad.
Her devotion to Digby is absolute. She follows him everywhere with complete and unwavering admiration, watching his every move as though he possesses the answer to every important question in life. If Digby gets up, Daisy gets up. If Digby goes outside, Daisy is half a step behind him. If Digby decides it is time for a nap, Daisy usually decides that sounds like an excellent idea too.
For his part, Digby tolerates this shadowing with the patient resignation of a father who has long since accepted that personal space is now a thing of the past.
There is something rather lovely about seeing them together. Despite all the breeding certificates and pedigree papers, their relationship feels reassuringly familiar to anyone with children of their own, one calm and experienced, the other convinced that life is a race that must be run at maximum speed and volume.
Somehow they work perfectly together.
Digby brings a little calm to Daisy's chaos.
Daisy makes sure life around Digby is never too calm for long.
Perhaps that is why dogs become such an important part of family life.
They get us outside when we would rather stay in. As a orthopaedic surgeon, I spend my days helping people get moving again, and the dogs are a daily reminder of why that matters. So much of recovery, whether from an operation, an injury or simply a long week, begins with the unglamorous business of putting one foot in front of the other. Digby and Daisy have never read a rehabilitation protocol in their lives, but they understand the principle better than most of us - “Motion is lotion” They make us laugh when we least expect it. They introduce us to people we would otherwise never meet. They celebrate our return home as though we have been away for years rather than twenty minutes and somehow manage to improve ordinary days simply by being there.
Caption: Two early risers, on a frosty morning before the rest of the world is up.
They ask for remarkably little in return. Not a bad lesson for the rest of us really.
