I never liked small dogs. But then along came Ferdie

July 18, 2026 — 9:30am

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This is a story about changing yourself. George Bernard Shaw said, “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” We live in a time, seemingly, of deepening entrenchment. If Shaw was right, this rigidity is not strength but powerlessness.

I never liked small dogs. Growing up, we had medium-sized dogs, proper dogs. We had one seriously big dog: my brother, a vet who should have known his stuff, brought home a beagle pup that didn’t stop growing until he’d become a giant fox hound, who looked like Snoopy but was bigger than his kennel.

Years later, my family adopted Bruce, a rescue blue heeler-kelpie cross, another proper dog with a beautiful loyal intelligence, a classic best mate. Since 2021 when he died, I was mourning Bruce. His collar still hung from the car’s rear vision mirror. Our children moved out. My beloved kept telling me I needed a dog, but I couldn’t replace Bruce (or, for that matter, the children).

I didn’t replace him. Instead, I changed.

Plenty of people dislike small dogs, and I was one of them. As for very small dogs, which even the pet industry classifies as toys rather than actual dogs? Bulgy-eyed, yappy, precious little tyrants who travel in handbags: you might as well get a ferret. I didn’t want another dog anyway.

Sometimes change comes because something deep inside you says if you don’t do it, you are giving up on more than you know. The dog change was like that. We dogsat a friend’s chihuahua, and he was unexpectedly loveable. My wife began haunting chihuahua rescue sites. A certain momentum built. Of course, it wasn’t really about a dog; it was about whether one of us had become........

© Brisbane Times