Today has been one of tragedy in our family. Despite a ‘mercy dash’ by my folks to pick up my grandmother from her home in Northampton to take her to her dying sister’s bedside, my Auntie Ethel died fifteen minutes before my Nan arrived.

I still feel ill, still can’t gather enough strength to do a simple task like cook a meal without feeling decidedly grotty. I’ve actually been past our boundary today for the first time in a week – but only because a complete lack of dog food necessitated it.

So, I decided to deliver the antithesis of all this gloom and tell you a happy tale of my beloved Archie – on the right of this photo.

I was trying to photograph him on his own (though why I think you’d like my pathetic attempts at a portrait of him when David took this sublime shot only a couple of days ago) – bribery with cheese, a dog’s favourite tipple intended to make Archie sit nicely and wait for my camera with its slow focusing to work. Rosie (madam gutsy) decided the piece of cheese in my hand ought to be destined for her tummy, not Archie’s so she muscled in on the act. She survived the cut because she looks so sweet.

Archie has lived with me for four and a half years. He has always been a model dog, deferent, calm, seemingly happy and endlessly patient with Rosie’s madness.

He, like Rosie, is a Battersea babe. He was found straying somewhere in London and had clearly been very badly treated indeed. The poor chap has so many spooks that jump out at him. He was taken to Battersea where he fared really badly. He hated kennels and behaved like the mad beast from hell all of the time. No-one wanted a mad dog like him.

After four and a half months of trying to re-home him, desperation crept in. The handlers at the Dogs Home always have a dog in the room with prospective new dog owners to see how people react to animals first hand. It’s one of their first checks on a person’s suitability to become the carer of a Battersea dog. Archie was chosen as an ‘interview room dog’ because he was so disturbed in kennels.

He rolled on his back to show people how good he was but to no avail – he still wasn’t chosen by anyone.

I came along. My heart was broken into a million tiny shards by the loss of Toby, my companion of thirteen years. I’d waited four months since he’d died, my life torn between the huge, aching loss of my best friend and the desperation to fill my home with a dog again. I couldn’t bear the thought of being ‘disloyal’ to Toby but equally how I hated putting my key in the front door and knowing there was no-one on the other side of the door to love me and protect me.

Archie and I both had lucky breaks that day.

You see, he’s a border collie, Toby was a collie cross and his intelligence and charm had always been his attraction for me. I had to have another collie. We didn’t meet Archie in the interview room. A tiny little dog was there.

I was so desperate to impress on the rehomer that I would be a good ‘dog mum’ I’d taken a carrier bag of photos and other stuff from Toby’s life that I’d felt sure would impress them. All it did was upset me.

I wandered around the kennels looking at dogs and after only one floor (the place has four) I’d chosen about four dogs that I felt would be right for me. That was the point at which our luck changed. I gave my list to Ali, who turned out to be the border collie specialist and she said ‘these are all collies, what about Archie?’. I agreed to meet him and five minutes later we were in the yard with Archie, who was rolling on his back saying ‘love me, look how good I am’.

I took him home with me. I didn’t love him. In fact I found it so hard to even like him for weeks. He was a monster dog. He tried to kill my rabbits and sent them into a terrified frenzy every time he went into the garden. I couldn’t bear the humiliation or the impact on him if I’d taken him back and so I persisted.

Colin came to stay. He’s really good with dogs. We took Archie into the garden with loads of toys and made it so exciting to play that he forgot about the rabbits and after that they were no problem. I started to think this could work.

I took him to the seaside. It was clear he’d never seen the sea. He tried to eat it….then he was sick!

He’s still very aloof, he just can’t seem to believe that he won’t be dumped again. He’s terrified of matches, fire, fireworks, microwaves, anything beeping and about as many more spooks as you can imagine. But he adores Rosie and he adores me.

When I started seeing David, Archie went into big-time trauma. Who was the man who came to the house and took his ‘mum’ away? Why couldn’t he just leave Arch, Rosie and me alone? He growled and snarled at David.

We decided that if we were to make a go of our relationship, we had to sort out Archie’s phobia of David. We took him to the woods for walks so he got used to David’s arrival in the house being associated with good things, not bad. David would throw a stick, Archie would chase it, retrieve it, bring it back to within six yards or so then drop it and pee on it. That put David in his place alright!

Now Archie adores David. He looks on him as provider, protector and friend.

The story is a happy one except that we just don’t know how much more pleasure Archie will bring us because we have no idea how old he is. None whatsoever. But what you should know now is that I love him now and have done since a few weeks into our relationship and I won't ever let him down or give him any reason to be anxious again.