And another thing PHIL BROWN

My son is overseas at the moment living in France for five months. He and his buddy started their trip touring northern Italy and photos have been turning up intermittently on the Whatsapp group we have set up.

The funny thing about his photos is they are mostly of dogs.

Because he loves dogs and we love dogs. I think he’s missing his little brother, our 12-year-old maltese shih tzu, Sarge. The two have spent a lot of time together in recent months and now Sarge is bereft.

We are dog people. You either are or you aren’t. When we travel it’s the same, we come across pups everywhere and stop to say hello. We went to an event the other night at someone’s residence and there was a pooch in the house so we spent half the evening talking to her. I have always had dogs and one of the earliest photos of me as a baby is riding on the back of an old black labrador named Terry.

We had dogs all through my childhood including a dynasty of pooches called Tiny. There was Tiny I, a terrier we had in Hong Kong and who we had to leave behind when we came back to Australia. There was Tiny II another terrier we had for years on the Gold Coast and when he died it was on to yet another terrier, Tiny III. There the succession ended, with a dog called Charlie that my late mum had.

I never wanted another dog because I didn’t want to get too attached but one day 12 years ago when I had a migraine and was shut up in my bedroom with the pillow over my head, my wife and son went out and bought Sarge.

What could I do? Now Sarge is the centre of our household and when we’re away and missing him we bond with other small dogs.

I remember running into a lady in Bangkok once who had her pomeranian in a baby carrier. So cute.

I’m inclined to pay more attention to dogs than babies, I’m afraid. Dogs are so precious and I think they are a gift from above. To prove my point … what’s dog spelt backwards? Exactly.