I confess: my dog does sleep in my bed

I'm with my esteemed colleague Karen Hardy on not liking the phrase "fur baby". It gives me the ick.

But, like it or not, a scruffy little maltese-cross called Bobbi who has since gone over the rainbow bridge will always be my first child. (I also hate the rainbow bridge thing, which is a euphemism for dogs passing away. It seems to be a relatively new explanation. My parents used to always tell us our dogs had "gone to the farm". What farm? Where? For how long? Questions we never, ever asked. Just accepted that little Boofy or whoever was living somewhere else now.)

But, yes, Bobbi was with us for 16 years, way before kids, and she was our baby. Not. Saying. Fur. Baby.

With the whole dog pampering industry thing, I've indulged in a few things. But to me, it's not really pampering. It's just making the dog a part of your life. And giving them a good life.

With my son on a fishing trip with a mate, my daughter and I did a quick overnight trip to the South Coast during the last school holidays. Cookie, our English Springer Spaniel, was, of course, coming with us. Seeing her bound through the waves and race along the sand on the dog-friendly Tomakin Beach is one of my life's great joys.

We booked in for a night at Abode Malua Bay, specifically because it was dog-friendly. Usually we seek out dog-friendly Airbnbs, but for a night, a motel was the go. Upon arrival, we were even given a soft toy for Cookie. I have to say, it did feel weird going in a lift with my dog and then padding up the carpeted hallway and into a hotel room with pristine white sheets. Alarm! Alarm! But we made sure she was nice and dry before going in and we took our own quilts for the beds so Cookie could still sleep on them with us. And made plenty of trips downstairs for toilet stops.

I've also, in the past, put Cookie into doggy daycare, especially when she was young, and it was the best thing I've ever done. It was just one day a week at Pups4Fun in Fisher and Cookie was socialised and exercised to her heart's desire. When I'd pick her up, she'd be asleep by the time I'd driven out of the carpark.

For people with dogs who work during the day, leaving them at home is a real stress. It made me feel much better that Cookie was having the time of her life with Pups4Fun. She'd be loaded into the van with the other dogs in the morning, taken out to their special exercise yards in Queanbeyan and didn't stop all day. Photos of all the dogs would be posted on a private Facebook page so you could see what they'd been up to. Indulgent? To some. But when I hear the heart-wrenching cries of one dog in my neighbourhood who never seems to leave its yard, I was happy to pay.

As for sleeping in bed with my dog? There's nothing better. She's a nice, heavy, comforting lump next to me. When people talk about dogs in beds, I always think of this passage from the Australian novel Romulus, My Father:

"I took the dogs to bed with me and listened to the radio until I fell asleep. Years later I heard someone speak contemptuously of how Aborigines slept with their dogs for comfort and warmth. I remembered how I had done the same, and was amazed at the speaker's stupid contempt. I doubt that I would have coped without the dogs".

There is a saying "three-dog night" which describes a very cold night. I love it. Dogs are better than an electric blanket.

Cookie turns five next Sunday. We won't have a party. We're not that crazy. LOL.

But I will put a candle in her dog food and sing happy birthday to her. She is my baby.