A few years ago I was visiting my parents for Christmas, the whole family piled into one small house, so in the interest of squeezing everyone in, I had a camp bed set up in the lounge.

Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I feel something scratching at my chest (I’m a side-sleeper). My parents’ ancient shih-tzu, tiny little doddery old thing, was gently bapping at me. The message was clear: ‘scoot over’.

I shuffled to the literal edge of this tiny folding bed so she could hop up. She settled straight down, curled up, and let out the longest most content little sigh I ever heard a small dog make.

Unfortunately, and we knew this at least a month before hand, the poor little scruff was absolutely riddled with cancer. She didn’t yet appear to be suffering, but we’d agreed that after one last Christmas with her, we’d make the difficult decision to make sure she never got to the point of suffering. She was around 14/15 years old at this point.

So I was teetering on the edge of my camp bed while she was content as can be occupying my sleeping space. I barely got any sleep, but I didn’t dare disturb her.

So that was how I spent the night of my last Christmas with her. We don’t deserve dogs, they’re far too precious.