Dear Evie… A Doggy Love Letter

How a Dog Helped Me Recover From Physical and Mental Trauma

I was that kid who harassed her parents for years about getting a dog. I loved all animals, but I knew a dog would be extra special. A companion. A playmate. A partner in crime. A comforting presence when times got tough. And of course, a best friend.

Mum could be swayed, but Dad was dead against. He’d had a little black Scotty when he was a kid. He had the scars to prove it on his hand when he’d dragged him out of a fight with a much bigger dog. He also had scars on his back from when he was attacked at a garage by their guard dog – that’s a whole different dog story.

Dad knew how much work was required looking after a dog. He appreciated the commitment involved. And he knew that, as a family, we didn’t have the lifestyle, and simply weren’t home enough, to give a dog a good life. But as a kid I just thought he was totally unreasonable.

When I was small I remember being given a little mechanical brown dachshund, probably in the hope that it would stop me asking constantly for a dog. You had to put a gazillion batteries in his tummy and then when you pulled on his lead it flipped a switch, and he’d toddle forwards with little staccato steps. Warm and cuddly he wasn’t – he had rough fake fur stretched over his hard mechanical body. But I could dream that one day he would come to life.

I couldn’t have a dog, but instead I was allowed to have a succession of other pets. There were goldfish, brought home from the school fair. One I remember I named Sooty. Was he black? Nope, he was actually a pinkish off-white!

He was followed by a couple of rabbits who had several guinea pig companions. There was also a succession of (escapologist) hamsters of various sizes. All too frequently we’d wake up to see that the roof of their sleeping pod had been pushed aside, and the little buggers had run off around the house. One even turned up in the bath – how he got in there we’ll never know. I think he was called Houdini from then on.

Finally, in my mid-teens, I got what I thought was the closest thing to a dog – a cat. And yes, I now appreciate the dramatic differences between having a cat and having a dog in your life. Back then I had no concept.

She was a tortoiseshell kitten from a local rescue center, called Hania. I adored her and while she was a kitten she didn’t mind us most of the time – perhaps apart from the first night when she decided to hide behind the dishwasher in the kitchen. Dad and I came home to find Mum lying on the kitchen floor trying to coax her out (unsuccessfully) with food. She, Mum that is, didn’t seem so enthused about the kitten after that.

Image caption: taken by a random repair man (and amateur photographer) who happened to come to the house just after Hania came to live with us. She was the most beautiful kitten.

As Hania grew older she became a true hunter and protector of her human family. Repeatedly she brought us gifts – usually headless mice – and left them on the back door mat each morning for Mum to find. I don’t think that we were as appreciative as Hania would have liked!

She was not a lap cat. Cuddles, strokes, and sitting on humans, were not important in her world. At best she’d sit by the door to the lounge guarding it from intruders, while quietly napping with half an eye open.

That parade of childhood pets is all long gone. But each and every one was much loved, and each death brought me to tears, sometimes for days at a time. I wonder sometimes if the people who now live in my parent’s old house have found the (unmarked) pet graveyard that was in the vegetable patch at the back of the house. There was logic in there somewhere when it came to selecting a burial site.

Kim and I talked about having a dog for years – he grew up with a dog and loved the idea of having one again. But we worked too much. We travelled too much. To give it the best life we had planned to wait until we retired and had more free time. I guess I assumed we might never have a dog of our own.

But the world keeps on turning and things change. The pandemic stopped us travelling and in Kim’s case it changed his routine to more work from home than work from the office. During the pandemic we built a new house with a large garden that would work for a dog. And post-pandemic we decided it was now or never.

In 2022 we started to look around and think more seriously about what type of dog would fit us. The more we talked the more we realized that we wanted something fairly small, but with plenty of personality. Small was a positive – baths could be done in the sink, not too much fur around the house, and hopefully lots of cuddles.

We thought of how much we enjoyed spending time with Stella – Mathilda’s (my stepdaughter) little dog. And when I say little, she’s on the tiny end at only a bit over 2kg, so under 5lb for those of you on the other side of the pond. Stella is a ‘papchi’, a chihuahua and papillon/miniature spaniel mix.

I found a puppy…

But then Dad died. It wasn’t the ideal time to get a dog after all. We had to go over to the UK for an extended visit to support Mum and to say goodbye to Dad.

I remember saying to Kim “If she’s still available when we get back from the UK then it’s meant to be”. “If not, then it wasn’t.” I wouldn’t even let Kim contact the owner to talk to her. I was convinced the universe would make the decision for us.

We couldn’t stop thinking about her. We spent hours talking about what it would be like if she came to live with us. Thank goodness – we got home, and she was still there. Waiting for us. Fourteen weeks old, a single pup from a rescued mother, and a ball of high energy fluff!

Within a couple of days this little black-and-white bundle of joy came to live with us. Gorgeous, funny, sassy, strong willed, and totally averse to listening to any human. It took a whole ten minutes for her to start zooming around the house and jumping on and off the sofa! She knew she was home.

Image caption: Evie with her ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ look. Generally demonstrated whenever she’s trying to get a treat and wants to convince you that she’s a poor puppy who hasn’t been fed for days – when she had dinner about five minutes ago!

Before we got her we had planned to call our dog Lulu. I have no idea why we came up with that name. I think the basic premise was that it was short, and we wouldn’t sound stupid when calling her in the park. But her original owner’s daughter had named her Evee after a Pokémon – a bit of a mis-spelling as I now know as it should have been spelt Eevee – a character that looks like a very weird rabbit, fox, lion hybrid!

Our plans were scuppered as she already knew her name. We could already call her and get her attention – generally for a second before she’d rush on to something else. We didn’t have the heart to change it. In the end we just adapted the spelling to ‘Evie’ and decided to keep it. I can’t imagine another name for her now.

The night after she arrived it snowed. Anyone who has had a puppy will tell you that it’s best to get them during the warmer months of the year when house training is much less painful in terms of the outdoor temperature. Standing in the garden for what seems like hours, waiting for them to do whatever they need to do, is no fun. And to add insult to injury Evie was permanently distracted by this fascinating stuff called snow which was totally new to her – so it took even longer.

I was incredibly excited when we got her. But we didn’t get off to a good start. Never having had a dog before, I was quickly overwhelmed by the way she took over our house and rode roughshod over all our routines. Our lives suddenly revolved around her. I hated it.

I spent the first two weeks trying (very hard) to give her back. I kept pushing Kim. Saying that having a dog just wasn’t for us. Asking him to call the woman we got her from. Some days Kim also wavered. Luckily we never felt the same way at the same time, so she managed to hang on – by a thread some days.

Image caption: Evie checking out the view. Her favourite time of day is her morning walk. A good bench simply can’t be walked past without a quick jump on it to check out what she can see from up there.

We’d had her for just four weeks when I got sick. On top of me suddenly being critically ill in hospital Kim (and Mum) also had a mad puppy, who was not fully house trained, to deal with. According to Kim she spent the first week I was gone sniffing under the closed bedroom door. Trying to work out if I was in there. After a week she finally gave up. Not sure what had happened to me or why I’d disappeared.

I remember the day I came home from the hospital so clearly – mostly not for pleasant reasons. We drove into our garage and Kim sat me on a chair and went to get Evie. We knew that when she saw me, she’d do that puppy thing of sprinkling pee everywhere. So, the garage floor seemed like a better bet than in the house itself.

She rushed through the door from the house and out into the garage. She was ecstatic that Kim and Mum were home. She shot past me, ignoring me totally. Not even realizing who I was and that I was back. It was only when I called her, and she heard my voice again, that the penny dropped. She galloped over – desperate to show me that she still loved me – and proceeded to pee all over my shoes!

When I finally made it to the lounge and parked myself on the sofa Evie tried to bounce all over me – a little 3kg ball of endless energy. I was terrified of her. So scared she’d jump on my wounds and burst all those horrific stitches in my abdomen and my leg. I grabbed at the loose cushions. Attempting to build a padded fort to defend my ravaged body from her.

All she wanted was cuddles and my attention. For me to show her that I still loved her. She had all this energy and was dying to just be with me, on me, beside me, whatever bit of me she could get at. Trying to lick me to death. It freaked me out.

In my head, I was asking myself if she could have been the source of my infection? There was no evidence to say she was, but still, I couldn’t help but think about it. And I barricaded myself behind even more cushions - physically and also mentally. (Note. In all the research I’ve done there is absolutely no evidence that Evie had anything to do with the flesh-eating bacteria that invaded my body.)

It took time for me to get that out of my head, appreciate her unconditional love, and to rebuild my relationship with her. She stuck it out and never wavered. She was beside me every day. Snuggled with me while I lay in bed. Glued to my side when I made it to the sofa. And she was my little shadow following me everywhere I went around the house. She knew I needed her even if at times, in the early days of my recovery, I wasn’t so sure.

She made me smile, and even laugh, a million times when I didn’t feel like it. And she gave me a reason to get up in the morning.

She warmed my heart every time I was greeted by her wagging tail or another lick attack. Whether I’d been out of the room for a whole five minutes or been out of the house for a few hours to yet another hospital appointment, she was always there bouncing around and just dying to give me a wonderful welcome home.

Before we got Evie I swore to myself that we’d never be ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’. It sounded so absurd. Why would you use those terms in relation to a dog? I thought it was ridiculous and silly. But I’d never had a dog before. I had no idea.

Well, the best laid plans and all that. It took no time at all before we were (yep, you guessed it) ‘mummy’ and bloody ‘daddy’! These days she will even go to find ‘daddy’ when I ask her, so I guess he’s at least loved as much as her favorite teddy whose name she also recognizes. I try to avoid using the terms when we have other people in the house – I just assume they’ll judge me just like I did other people.

Kim is her ‘alpha’ – what he says goes – at least most of time. I’m her safety blanket, the one she runs to when something happens that makes her anxious and she needs reassurance or a safe harbour. Always ready to save her from whatever frightens her, even if it’s just a leaf or a stray twig stuck to her tail!

From the beginning we started to teach her to ring a bell by the garden door to let us know when she needed to go out. I can’t remember but I think the idea came from a Puppies for Dummies book that I read. And sitting in a draw I happened to have a ‘bear bell’ – the kind of big bell you put on your rucksack when hiking in bear country to let them know you’re around and give them time to quietly depart. It hung perfectly on the pull chord for the blind by the door.

Image caption: the infamous purple ‘bear bell’ that Evie uses to get us to do her bidding. If we’re too slow she’ll smack it extra hard a second time to remind her silly humans to move faster!

Every time we opened the garden door we’d ring the ball. She learned very fast – ring the bell and someone will come let me out. It’s a brilliant trick, especially as our home offices are at opposite ends of the house and we can’t keep an eye on her all the time to see if she’s loitering by the garden door. Guests are always gob-smacked when she stands up on her back legs and purposely smacks the bell with her right front paw before she turns and stares at us – willing us to get a move on and open the door.

But our dog isn’t daft – well, most of the time. And it didn’t take her too long to work out that she could use that bell to manipulate her humans. Whether it’s a ball stuck under the sofa that she can’t get at and she needs you to face plant on the floor and stretch an arm into the dust bunnies to retrieve it. Or using it to get me out of bed to take her for a walk – when I open the garden door to let her out (as the stupid human assumed that was what she wanted), she’ll just stand in the middle of the lounge wagging her tail and obviously thinking “gotcha, now you’re up let’s go for a walk mummy”.

She knows all her toys by name. We can ask her to “go get teddy”, “go get blue monkey”, or “go get ball”, and she’ll immediately jump to attention. Her little head will start to swivel - looking around trying to remember where she last saw whatever toy we requested. And then she’ll dash off to pick it up and bring it back to us.

Image caption: Evie with her beloved stinky little teddy… he was the first toy we gave her when we brought her home and he’s still her favorite. His internal squeaker is no more and he’s looking increasingly battered after multiple trips through the washing machine. But I’ll tell you a little secret – we have a replacement stowed away in a draw for the day when he finally meets his maker.

She can play fetch for hours, but only with the right toy that she’s selected. Try to get her to play with a different toy and she may run after it, but then she realizes that it’s not her preferred toy and she’ll just saunter away.

Her toy chasing doesn’t always go quite to plan, and we’ll hear the ‘umphhh’ as she slides into a kitchen cupboard or misses the jump onto the sofa and ricochets off its soft padded sides. Of course, she styles it all out as if whatever happened was totally intentional!

All that may make her sound overly intelligent. Sometimes she is amazing. But other times I’ll ask her to “sit”, and she’ll look at me, with a totally blank stare. You’d swear that she’s never heard that word before in her life. Her little brain cells definitely take a vacation occasionally.

She’ll turn three years old this summer, but is still a 4.5kg (around 10lbs) furry ball of mad energy and excitement. People that meet her when we’re out walking just assume that she’s still a puppy. Her thirst is unquenchable when it comes to walks and she’ll trot along for 5+km, so around 3+ miles, without blinking. She adores running rings around us doing zoomies and thinks that making us laugh is the best thing in the world. The more you laugh the faster and longer she runs.

Image caption: taken by me while yelling at Kim to keep our daft dog away from the swans! Evie demonstrating her totally lack of fear when it comes to any kind of bird. They’re all there to be chased in her mind. Even when they’re downright huge!

Evie loves humans. All humans. She may have a few obvious favorites, but we’ve never seen her dislike anyone. Sit down in our house and you can guarantee she’ll launch herself on to your lap. Sometimes she just wants to be up at human height so she can be part of whatever is going on. Sometimes she just wants a stroke or a cuddle. Other times she’s after your food or offering generously to clean up any crumbs that you may have left on your T-shirt. Sometimes she’ll have a toy in tow and she just wants you to play with her.

She’s a fantastic companion – happy to just be with us, ideally all sat on the sofa where she’ll insist on positioning herself so that she can watch the TV. Woe betides you if there are any four-legged creatures or birds on the screen. She will make a mad dash for the TV and dance around on her back legs barking her head off and telling them what’s what. This is her house, and she makes sure they know it. As far as she’s concerned this house and garden are most definitely hers to defend. Anything on the TV is an intruder.

If Kim and I are in separate rooms she’ll insist on finding a middle ground where she can lie somewhere in-between us. In her little brain I guess she wants to be as close as she can be to both of us. If one of us moves then she’s there, trying hard to lead us with her wagging tail, to the room where the other one is sitting. Her ‘parent’ herding instincts are strong – she wants everyone close together.

Image caption: Evie napping in a sun puddle - she is so utterly adorable when she sleeps that all I want to do is to wake her up and tell her how much I love her (again).

Her funny mannerisms, desperate efforts to try and understand what we’re saying (head tilted to one side for maximum cuteness), mad tail wagging that gets her whole body in on the act, chasing after a ball in totally in the wrong direction, and sometimes epic fails when trying to jump on various pieces of furniture, have made us laugh more than we have in a very long time.

I love this little dog more than I can say. She has played a huge role in both my mental and physical recovery. She’s truly part of our family. And I hope that she’ll be here to share our lives for many years to come. I can’t imagine my life without a dog anymore.

Do you have a dog (or perhaps dogs) that you adore and that brings something special to your life? I’d love to hear about them.

While you think about that I’m off to go give Evie a hug.

If you enjoyed this post please do click on the heart, add a comment, and/or share it on as that will help more people find Hold My Hand and my writing.

COMING ON 1^st MAY – my ‘book in parts’. In weekly posts I’ll be sharing my book Hold My Hand: A Journey Back to Life chapter by chapter. I’m so excited to finally share my story with a wider audience and to get your thoughts and feedback.