How our 'last chance' dog has transformed our lives

Let me tell you, it did my wizened, wintered heart good to think of that dog bringing happiness to someone. It seems that I'm not the only one clinging on to the press equivalent of cute dog videos at this time of year: another recent article in the Guardian explored "last-chance pets and the people who rescue them". Featuring tales of incontinence and bad knees and yet untold rewards in spite of it all.

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I can personally heartily recommend a senior pet. Johny, our staffy-labrador mix (read giant, muscular, a canine bottomless pit for both food and physical affection) was already nine years old by the time we adopted him. The grown children of his former owner said that they hoped he could enjoy the last years of his life but that it was hard to find someone to take an old dog. Before he found himself in our chaotic little household with our toddler and our astoundingly incurious cat, Dora, he'd already been through three foster homes.

The problem was not that he was high maintenance, in fact, as a senior dog, he only needed a few short walks a day, food and cuddles. The problem was that Johny, enormous as he was, was unruly on walks, reactive to other dogs and big enough to pull an adult human over and along the street (I speak from experience). But he was so good in every other respect, I believed with love he could be tamed.

The first time I met Johny he leapt out of the back of a car on a Prague street and ran straight into my arms pushing his face against mine. I had just recovered from emergency life-saving surgery and he had just lost his owner, a lovely Czech woman. We sat on the pavement, on the distinctly Czech square cobble streets, in the sunshine of Prague, like reunited relatives.

I understood he needed us. What I didn’t realise was how much our family needed him. I'd always scoffed slightly at the idea of emotional support dogs but after my surgery, I got extremely unwell again. We abandoned our new, hard-earned life in Prague and moved back to Glasgow where, somehow, I got even sicker. There were whole weeks, sometimes months, where I barely left my bed. While my husband looked after our toddler, giving him the life I should have been giving him too, and friends occasionally offered to pop by, mainly I spent a lot of time alone sleeping through springtime, the curtains closed against the kind but inquisitive neighbours in our communal back garden.

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All that time, Johny was by my side. He laid with me, kept me company, and when there were tears, and there were a lot last year, he would come and sit his full 30-plus kilograms on my lap as though he was a chihuahua. When he came back after walks with my partner, he ran to the side of my bed, his tongue lolling out in excitement, as if to tell me all the things he had seen that day, bringing his excitement for the outside world into my sedentary bubble.

That same year we were given our notice on our flat and moved from Glasgow to an ill-fortuned houseboat. Johny, now 10, made friends with a little black dog with one blue and one brown eye called Betty. The two roamed around the marina hopping on and off the boat sterns as though they were born sea dogs. When a winter of storms forced us into bricks and mortar in Sheffield, he learned the new smells of our neighbourhood, got a new pal in the shape of a spaniel puppy called Mango, and developed a habit of lying between my husband in bed, a farty, dribbly, snoring third wheel that we never have the heart to evict.

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Scientific research tells us that dogs dream of their owners and that, neurologically, our dogs actually do love us. It’s not even slightly surprising news to any dog owner. Having our senior "on his last legs" dog has been, and I don’t use this term lightly, a blessing to our family. Johny is such a calming influence on our household - unless someone knocks on the door in which case he goes full riot mode. After one or two tentative swipes our cat realised he was warm and soft and so now curls up with him. Her black fur and his white tan make a furry yin-yang on whatever bed they have chosen to regally occupy for the day. After an initial bout of confusion, our toddler came to adore Johny too. Our kid now stands almost at Johnny's height and throws his arms around his meaty neck saying, "I love you Johny" and sneakily - he thinks - feeds him dinner scraps under the table.

Johny, our gentle brown-eyed dog, who's been through five adoptions, even more house moves, still lets our misanthropic black cat curl up with him and our little boy kiss his big chocolate brown nose. He still dumps his giant weight on my lap when he smells tears even from another room. I very much hope we’re offering him the same comfort in his final years. Our "last chance" dog, who’s returned the love we’ve given him tenfold.