Grayson Coutts

Grayson Coutts, makeup artist; and Yoshi Bear

His full name is Yoshi Bear. He’s a Samoyed — one of those breeds that is closest to the wolf.

I’ve always had a mild obsession with polar bears and I guess it’s the closest I could come, ethically speaking.

I got him when he was 8 weeks old, now he’s 9 and a half so we’ve been together a long time.

I still remember picking him up at the airport. As soon as I saw his little face I just knew his name. He had a big smile and a massive tongue hanging out of his mouth. There’s a character in a Super Mario

Brothers game called Yoshi — a dinosaur with a really long tongue — so I thought it was perfect.

He’s got so much fur. That fluff follows me round wherever I go. I think long after he’s sadly left us, he’ll still be here physically, all over the house. I have a very good vacuum cleaner, the Dyson V8 Animal. It’s essential. Yoshi has a double coat. An undercoat that is almost like down, it’s very sticky; and the top hair, which is long and silvery. Samoyeds blow their coat twice a year and he’s doing that at the moment so he’s losing thick, thick clumps of undercoat. I’m honestly vacuuming at least once a day, usually twice. I have a lint roller in my bag, one in my car and two in my house. I wear a lot of black for work, so they are life savers.

I’m quite strict with him in a lot of ways. He loves his food so I have to restrict his treats.

I’m into looking at species’ diets and where the breed would have come from. If you look at Siberia, these types of dogs wouldn’t have come across a lot of red meat. So Yoshi’s diet is mainly fish and vegetables. Every day he gets a carrot as a treat. He gets very excited about Carrot Time. He’s also happy eating celery sticks, apple, kumara and recently I tried him with cauliflower, which he seemed to like.

He stays at his grandma’s a lot during weekends when I’m busy with work and it’s a real free-for-all at her place. There are peanut butter sandwiches, leftover icecream, all sorts. So in comparison I’m the bad cop. He’s spoiled in other ways though. He’s allowed to sit on the couch and watch movies with me. He gets lots of cuddles and quality time. He’s beautiful. A very funny character.

He’s got arthritis now and has had two surgeries on his knees, so I can’t do extreme exercise with him like we used to. We find flat places to walk around, preferably when it’s cool or in the early morning because of his thick coat. He absolutely loves the beach and swimming so if anyone has a pool available, he jumps at the chance.

If he gets rained on, it doesn’t soak through to the undercoat so he dries off pretty fast but if he goes swimming he gets soaking wet and that takes a long time to dry.

He doesn’t enjoy being separated from people, so I take him with me wherever I can or leave him with my partner or a friend.

I think he knows more people than I do. It’s happened a few times that I’ve been walking along with him and people will stop and say, “Hi Yoshi.”