The only time that Mark Birley, that quintessentially reserved Englishman and ruler of the nightclub Annabel’s, sent me a love letter, it began: “Darling Belinda, I know I only saw you last night, and will see you again in a few days, but there is something I wanted to put in writing. I want to tell you how much I love and admire you” (here, I caught my breath) “for rescuing that divine dog.”

The rest of the letter was not about me at all. It was all about Goofy, the mixture of spaniel and scamp with the wonderful, intelligent eyes that I had brought home, after nightmarish battles with official-dom, from the Greek island of Paxos.

From the moment he scrambled over a Greek wall into my arms, in flight from the very short chain on which he had been imprisoned, my fate had been sealed. “That is Goofy,” said my Greek friend Spiro. “Belinda, that is a great dog; he spent part of the winter with me.”

That night I had to drive to town. To my astonishment, Goofy leapt onto the back seat of the car. Thrusting head and both front paws out of the rear window, he positioned himself like the figurehead on the prow of our ship, showing off to the world.

The night continued and still Goofy didn’t seem keen to go home. Eventually, he was deposited by a girlfriend on the path beside his owners’ house. “What a terribly nice dog,” I said. “Stop it,” she said. When I awoke next morning there was Goofy. He had spent all night on my doorstep.

Over the next few days Goofy followed me through the olive groves, running in delighted circles around me. Whenever I returned him to his owners, he’d make amazing escapes to find me. Details of Goofy’s life began to emerge. In the Paxos winters, people have plenty of time for family and other animals. In the summer, they are working in the tavernas, the cafes or tourist businesses until the early hours, before rising at dawn to do the whole thing all over again. Goofy’s owners worked day and night, so the dog was left chained for interminable periods at home. His coat was good; he was fed; but whenever possible he escaped.

I was alone on the island that year and Spiro was worried about my safety; a dog, he said, would be company and protection. If I liked, we could go together to Goofy’s owners and offer to look after him while I was on Paxos. The owner shrugged his consent and Goofy was – temporarily, I thought – mine.

My funny little timeshare dog and I became a familiar feature, walking miles along cliffs, stopping in villages so that he could cheek the basking cats. Everywhere we went, old ladies in black clucked and fed him, children on bicycles called his name. An old fisherman on the quay observed, stroking Goofy’s ears: “Einai filos me ollous” – “He is friend with everybody.”

In the morning, when lying on the terrace to start my exercises, I would complain when Goofy clambered all over me. But he learnt quickly; within a week I found him taking a position exactly parallel to me. As I stretched forward, one white furry leg stretched out in imitation.

Then one afternoon Goofy started growling – unheard of – and his hackles rose. As a motorbike made its way to my garden gates, he shot behind my legs as if to hide. His owner made his way up the path, wanting the dog back. Stiff-legged with resistance, Goofy had to be dragged towards the motorbike. Held tight by the scruff of the neck as he was driven away, he looked back at me, mute and beseeching. I found I was in tears.

It was suggested that the dog would probably have a better time at home if he forgot me. His owners couldn’t have liked hearing how content he was and it is irresponsible to take a dog’s affection if you can’t commit long-term. But occasionally he still escaped and I would find him waiting at the house. Once, in the early hours in the village car park, I returned to my car to find Goofy curled up in a ball by the driver’s door in the certainty that, eventually, I must come back to it. There was no escaping his total devotion.

That autumn, back in Britain, I called Spiro often for news of Goofy. It was then that he told me Goofy’s owners didn’t want him any more; that they would probably dump him on the mainland, where the average life expectancy of a stray dog was about a week. I knew what I had to do.

First, Spiro was briefed to offer Goofy’s owners an absurdly large amount of drachmas; then I frantically juggled to conjure up a week off work so I could go to Greece to rescue a dog who might, perhaps, have forgotten me. I need not have worried. When I finally arrived at the home of his owners, Goofy – tethered on his short chain – stood absolutely stock still for a second when he saw me. Then he went frantic with joy.

I chartered a boat to take us to Corfu to visit the nearest vet, who injected Goofy with a microchip and gave him rabies shots; a month later, he’d have to go back for blood samples, to be sent all the way to Italy. As I boarded a boat after that first week, Goofy saw me leaving: he broke free from Spiro, then hurled himself off the jetty. The sight of my little dog frantically trying to swim for my boat until he was pulled, bedraggled, out of the water by a fisherman, left me with tear-stained cheeks all the way to Athens.

The blood samples were lost; the whole process had to be repeated, losing me three months. Draconian quarantine laws then forced me to leave Goofy in Greece for six months – so I sneaked back to see him for Christmas and the new year of the millennium, when I rented a house above the Eremitis cliffs and took long walks with him in eerie red winter sunsets.

Finally, we started travelling back to England – during a 40C August heatwave – by taking a flight from Corfu to Athens. Disaster: when I arrived at Athens airport there was no sign of Goofy’s crate. Only after flashing a pompous-looking leather folder embossed with an impressive crest – in fact, it read “Formula One 50th anniversary”, a legacy from a charity dinner I’d organised – was I permitted to enter a depressing warehouse 20 minutes away, where I eventually tracked down the crate containing Goofy.

It had been turned upside down; his water bowl had spilt, so he had no water. I was sick with worry. All the way back to London, I thought of Goofy in the stifling hold; I even asked the captain to notify Heathrow to have an air ambulance on standby. I need not have worried: when I collected my new permanent companion from kennels four days later, he was fit as a fiddle.

From then on my life changed. I bought a car to transport him – the Goofy wagon. I rented a place in the country – the Goofy cottage. I did so much dog-walking that I began to look like E L Wisty in shapeless mac and muddy boots.

I had lost my heart to a character. A long body set on short Queen Anne legs gave Goofy a perky, comical look and he carried himself very proudly, which made people smile. “You have the stretch-limo version,” said Geordie Greig, editor of Tatler, kindly.

Very unusually for a dog, Goofy looked one straight and openly in the eyes; he actually studied people’s expressions. Begging for food was a proven survival tactic and he was a master of beguilement. Meanwhile, he quickly learnt English (“Goofy, don’t even think it”). One day I found our postman, impressed by Goofy’s mastery of two languages, stroking his ears: “You’re bi-woofal, you are.”

Goofy was a big flirt: with one paw raised, he would focus on some beautiful girl passing by and she would melt. My brother, after an evening trot with Goofy, reported with awed respect: “That dog is a babe magnet.”

How did a dog who had never been allowed in a house, cope with a London flat? Magnificently. He embraced London life as effortlessly as he did life in his cottage in Wiltshire. Mayfair was his patch: Allen’s the butchers and the tailor Doug Hayward for breakfast; last thing at night, he’d go to Harry’s Bar for cheese straws; or the cafe Richoux for a sausage; then he’d take me to the ristorante Serafino, where he’d have two amaretti biscuits for dessert. A goodnight to his friend the doorman at the Connaught hotel, then bed.

When I started Travelpets, an advisory service, Goofy became a celebrity. Taxi drivers knew him by name – especially after he had appeared on Richard & Judy, where he behaved beautifully despite my fears that he would be the only celebrity guest to lick his own genitals on their sofa.

When the marshal of the Diplomatic Corps gave a reception at St James’s Palace for ambassadors (whose pets suffered from our quarantine laws), I spoke about pet travel. Hearing my voice, Goofy mounted the platform and posed with one paw on my foot to soppy aaahs from the diplomats. A silver tray arrived bearing dog biscuits.

My alpha dog was bossy; I suspected he did my bidding out of consideration for my feelings. He was competitive with men. He enjoyed rogering the legs of such opinionated authors as the historian Paul Johnson; he was especially roguish with a gay vicar we knew. Goofy wasn’t a clinging lapdog; he was a boisterous free spirit. But he seemed to worry what might happen to me if he wasn’t there to oversee things. As a result, I was the one on a short lead.

When I dressed up in the evenings, Goofy would react with a deep sigh of disapproval at the sight of my high heels. High heels meant dinner parties, which were often dog-free zones; he approved of stout boots, ready for dog-walking.

The RSPCA advises that one should not leave a dog alone for more than four hours; Ted, another of Goofy’s besotted coterie, was delighted to babysit and walk him if I had to go out at night. Early on in my life as a canine spinster, I went to the white-tie annual Royal Academy dinner and Goofy not only gave me a wintry look as I climbed into a long dress; he struggled towards me, groaning and pleading with his eyes. Decidedly off colour. Worse still, his favourite supper lay untouched.

In consternation, I left Ted a note asking him to keep a close eye on the dog and ring me on my mobile so that I could rush back at any moment. Long dinner, longer speeches – and then the opportunity of drinks with such luminaries as Sir David Attenborough. I gave my apologies – I’m afraid I have a sick dog at home. I hurled myself out of the taxi, heart racing.

Ted looked unperturbed. “Belinda, I don’t know what you were talking about. Goofy wolfed his supper as soon as I arrived and has dragged me round the entire neighbourhood.” It had been a try-on.

Thereafter, the balance of power had to be adjusted regularly; as he got older, Goofy wanted me more and more. When I had the temerity to go away for a week, he would sulk in his kennels and refuse to eat for three days and cheered up only when they introduced a bitch to his quarters. He sent me to Coventry for two whole days on my return.

It was true that I didn’t go out as much, or venture as far – foreign travel had lost its allure. Why bother, when we could go out, the two of us, and I could witness the absolute joy of my dog, bounding through the long wet grass in the fields behind my cottage?

So I became a country girl and summers passed with lunches on the lawn; Goofy would take his own chair at the garden table so he could join in conversations. In vets’ waiting rooms, he would jump onto the chairs reserved for owners; when his name was called, he would affect lofty indifference (Me? No, I’m not a patient).

Gradually, he ensured that our world contained just the two of us. Leaving him meant that wherever I went, I would see that little face, eyes fixed on the front door, not moving till I returned. So we were always, always together. He came each day to my office, where he curled up beneath my desk, a soothing, loving presence. He regulated my day, punctuating it with walks, pauses for snacks or cuddles.

I walked around with a smile on my face because people smiled when they saw him; we strutted along, each idiotically proud of the other. I avoided travel or late nights out; shopping was no longer a matter of browsing through boutiques – shopping was for essentials, like liver and pig’s ears.

There seemed nothing lonely about a cottage in the woods, miles from a road, when there were two of us by the log fire, sharing roast chicken for supper. At night the owls hooted, but I had the reassurance of Goofy, curled up at the end of the bed, dreaming of the day’s rabbits . . . paws twitching, a tiny corner of pink tongue visible.

Goofy had been bashed about a bit in Greece: tests showed a broken shoulder, a wasted foreleg, a fractured spine and hip that had left him twisted and arthritic; he had even been swung by his legs, which had damaged his tendons. His hip or back could be put out if he overdid things – so I had to watch anxiously for signs, then supply rest, drugs and massage until he was better.

He was frequently in pain until Richard Allport, a conventional vet who had turned to acupuncture, transformed Goofy’s life. He bore the needles each week with equanimity, greeting Richard with licks of doggy affection.

One grey day, Goofy fell ill with a set of symptoms I hadn’t seen before. He was hunched over with pain; he couldn’t eat and he was very cold. At the vets’ they were perplexed; they put him on painkillers, lots of antibiotics and a drip. There were many agonising visits; when I left the vets’, I would fight back tears in the car park, pierced by Goofy’s heartrending struggles to escape and come home.

One vet mentioned “letting him go”; nobody could identify the cause of Goofy’s problem. After two weeks he had swollen horrendously with fluid and the vets said I should drive him to a referral hospital more than 100 miles away. There was only one precious 9.30am appointment with a specialist and if I didn’t make it . . .

If you’ve seen House, the American TV series about a brilliant diagnostic doctor who specialises in solving medical mysteries, here was a fitter, more approachable House – for dogs. I stayed near the hospital for days, as Goofy bore with a kidney section and lumbar puncture.

I asked the marvellous doctor, Clive Elwood, to tell me if I was being foolish or selfish, keeping Goofy alive; but he said the dog hadn’t given up, so I shouldn’t. But there was serious kidney damage; in quiet straightforward words, the doctor prepared me for the next stage: I would be taking home an emaciated and weak dog who might have weeks, not months. I said I understood, though I couldn’t comprehend fully what he’d told me.

From the minute I got him home, Goofy fought for life. He could not rest easily and every groan or turn made me anxious; if he was restive, I got up to soothe him; if silent and still, to check if he was still alive. I nursed him through each night, both of us near exhaustion; and with titanic effort, he came through.

Soon he wanted walks in the fields; he dug a delightfully muddy hole in the garden; he got out his favourite toys; and he regained weight. I began to nurse wild fancies that he would beat the odds. Then he started to be unable to keep food down.

I took him back to the vets’, where mercifully the senior vet Pip was on duty. Goofy was bright and alert, he agreed, and, no, he didn’t think it was time for euthanasia; he’d keep him in for injections and tests – I could return at midday.

Exhausted and fearing the worst, I wandered aimlessly from shop to shop, where the shopkeepers were Goofy’s friends; some kept special bowls for him. The news at midday was reassuring; I could come back at six and take him home.

But at six, Pip had news. “I’m afraid I was misled in my first diagnosis because Goofy is trying to pretend he’s all right, in order to come home to you. It’s bravado. He is much sicker than I originally thought. You asked if it was time . . . I think now, or in the next few days, it is.”

Part of me wanted to rush through the hospital and grab my little boy (because he was my little boy) and run away. But somehow, with Pip’s support, I found the courage for my decision.

I will never, ever forget the next 20 minutes, as I prepared to kill the dog who loved me. Goofy leapt out of his pen when he saw me, pushing at the door for us to leave. After he was given a sedative injection, I was told – to my horror – that I could walk him round outside for 10 minutes, while it took effect. Outside, Goofy saw the car and rushed to it . . . Mummy, let’s go home.

When he looked at me aghast, no longer able to move, I carried him into the hospital onto the bare operating table. I wish I could say what followed was dignified or beautiful. There, while he was still conscious, I had to hold him tightly, too tightly, as the lethal injection finally turned him into something very different and alien. The vet’s eyes, too, were a little wet: perhaps because this is an area of unsung heroism in vets; or perhaps he saw the very moment my heart broke.

Clutching an empty collar, I drove home alone for the first time in 10 years. No furry face would ever again pop up in the driving mirror, excited at our homecoming. Never again would I hear a bump, bump, as he made his way downstairs in the mornings, to ask for the hairdryer to warm his sore shoulder. Now he is gone and his absence is everywhere. The patch on the bed that he had made his own; the countless moments each day when I would feel a lick on my hand or a pressure of a paw on my lap.

After his death, I would wake up and find myself standing alone on the bedroom floor at four in the morning, still checking in my sleep on a dog who was lost for ever. Walks in the fields and woods round the cottage became painful and somehow pointless.

People may say he was only a dog; that, childless as I am, I allowed him to mean far, far too much. But our deepest communication is without words; and what Goofy gave me was a canine lesson in love: utterly single-minded, total devotion. He gave me his whole heart; so I simply did the same.

Losing him means bereavement of such depth that it has astonished and marked me: cold days and nights of grief – and, my Goofy, I wouldn’t have missed a minute of them.

© Belinda Harley 2008

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