I had a dog turn up on my doorstep one night. It was my second week alone in a new house, 100km from anybody I knew. I'd just broken up with my girlfriend and was feeling pretty lonely and miserable. This little brown staffy ran into my yard and straight up to me with a big grin (the submissive smile). He seemed really excited to see me, pretty much like most dogs when you get home from work. I let him inside, gave him a drink of water, then he jumped straight on the couch with me and curled up with his head in my lap. When I went to bed he did the same thing, jumped up and made himself comfortable in the best spot on the bed. I wrapped myself tight around him, almost in the fetal position but with him as a little spoon, feeling calm and not at all like I was going to cry myself to sleep.

The next day I walked out my front gate with him tied to a rope, hoping he'd lead me back to his house. The local ranger was driving down the road and saw me, pulled up and asked if it was my dog. I said "No".

He said "Didn't think so. Give him here, I know him.". He seemed kind of irate and turns out he was out looking for him because he'd gotten complaints last night about this dog terrorizing the neighbourhood cats, which was a regular occurrence. So, I gave the dog to the ranger and was all alone again.

A week later I saw the dog again, he ran up to me as I walked past a house with a couple of blokes working in their driveway trying to fit a rotary engine into an obviously stolen, recently sprayed, Datsun 120Y. We chatted about the dog for a bit, his name was "Boof" and apparently they were his fourth owners. As each previous owner had gone to jail he'd been passed to a mate. I said goodbye and went back to complete isolation.

Two days later I went past the house again. The owner was out the front and he was pissed because the dog was out again and they'd gotten $1000 worth of fines over the past three months because of him chasing cats. He said he was taking him to the pound so did I want him. Of course, I said yes straight away but nobody knew where he was. So I said I'd drop around tomorrow and see if they'd found him. I went for a swim at the beach then back to my empty house. About three minutes after i got home Boof runs in the door, has a drink of water and flops onto my floor as if he'd lived there all along.

Of course my new landlord said I had to get rid of him, before his wife called him an arsehole and told him to let me keep the dog. That was almost five years ago and he's carried me through the darkest years of my life, I'm pretty confident I wouldn't be alive without him. In five years we've spent about 5 nights apart and been together almost every second of every day as I've been (mostly) blessed dog friendly jobs.

I changed his name to Charlie but I hardly ever use that name. When I want him to come I say "Arf"; when it's ok for him to go, like to chase a cat kangaroo or goanna, I say "Woof".

I'm currently typing this from a sliver of queen sized bed that Charlie has left for me, he's waiting for the laptop to move from where his head is supposed to be.