The dogs that made us

No matter how you come to meet them, and however long they are in your life, there is something truly special about your first canine love

- Madeleine Silver

JEANNIE was like a talisman. Everybody always expected me in my yellow wellington boots with my white dog,” remembers the gardener and author of The Apprehensive Gardener Griselda Kerr, who began a lifelong love affair with West Highland White Terriers after being given Jeannie in her late teens. Kerr is now in her seventies and the dogs are still a fixture at her Derbyshire home, where her current Westie Hebe, who has turned 17, still faithfully gardens with her, always settling down exactly where she wants to work.

“Dog number one, Jeannie, came from a very smart breeder in Longtown, Cumbria. She was a fantastic character and went everywhere with me in my twenties – including shooting, like all my Westies have done. She worked underneath the hedgerows where the labradors couldn't get, and she put up pheasants beautifully. If there was a wounded partridge, Jeannie would run after it and sit on it until I reached it,” recalls Kerr, who fell in love with Jeannie’s loyalty and big, affectionate eyes. “Westies are terribly endearing. They are so responsive (more dogmatic in old age) and very good at following off the lead. They never run off and they look so sweet. Everybody thinks they're the prettiest dogs in the world when you're out with them, and they are.”