When a new puppy smashes its way into your heart

The Saturday afternoon plan was to head into Geelong, find costumes for a ’70s party and return a faulty boogie board. Easy. But on the way back, life got both more complicated and much better. At a time when we needed it – who doesn’t right now? – the universe smiled on us.

Bunnings flashed past. And the Maccas, the Italian function centre. Then, a sign: “Groodle puppies”. I told my husband. He did a U-turn. We rolled up out the front of a farmhouse and dialled the number: “You’re here now? Come in and meet the puppies.”

It was like that Kath and Kim scene where Brett is lured into a real estate agency. Come in Brett. I don’t have any money. Don’t worry about money Brett, come in. My wife won’t like it. Don’t worry about your wife Brett. Come in.

Cue rolling lawns, fragrant hedges, six puppies tumbling in a ballet of unbearable cuteness and our heads pretty much exploding. One little girl chose us. She was calm in our arms, wiggled at our feet, smashed her way into our hearts. But we left her with her mum, brothers and sisters, said we’d think about it. Drove home to our first priority, Maggie, our almost 14-year-old groodle.

Maggie found us when we didn’t know we needed her. Short of cash one Saturday in 2009, I went to Medicare at Altona Gate with a handful of claims. My daughter was bribed to come. She could look in the pet shop next door. I was third in the queue when she appeared, sobbing: “There’s a member of our family in the window”.

Sadie has never been dramatic. Her life motto is “cop it”. But she was distraught, adamant, tugging me out of line and into the pet shop to meet my destiny. I’d never even heard of a groodle – it was long before oodles took over the world or pet shops stopped stocking live animals.

Maggie sat in the back on Sadie’s lap on the way home. The one photo snapped of the two of them that day, the tear-stained girl and pup with too-big feet, is one of the things I’d run into a burning building for.

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