The Year of the Dog : How One Tiny Terrier Ruined My Sofa but Saved My Life

‘Absolute heaven.’ Jilly Cooper A hilarious and heartfelt year following one woman and her puppy – from chaos and tears to healing and new beginnings. It’s a love story, but not as you know it.

Raising a puppy is simple – feed them, walk them, love them. Right? Wrong.

‘Absolute heaven.’ Jilly CooperA hilarious and heartfelt year following one woman and her puppy – from chaos and tears to healing and new beginnings. It’s a love story, but not as you know it. Raising a puppy is simple: feed them, walk them, love them. Right? Wrong.Armed with Pinterest-perfect plans and firm ideas about training, Sophia brings Dennis – a scruffy and defiant Parson terrier – into her life. But just as the puppy pads hit the floor, the rest of her world falls apart.Suddenly single and quietly unravelling, Sophia finds herself solo parenting a tiny, gleeful agent of chaos who devours foam earplugs, destroys her shoes, and has an alarming taste for spiders. He’s also the only thing keeping her afloat.As the months roll by in a haze of dodgy first dates, sleepless nights and meltdowns in the park, Sophia begins to make sense of it all: the grief of a life that didn’t go to plan, the weirdness of being single in your late thirties, and the surprising ways love shows up when you least expect it.By the end of their first year together, Dennis hasn’t just wrecked the furniture — he’s quietly rebuilt her life.For anyone who’s ever been through shattering heartbreak, this is a story of quiet resilience, unpredictable joy, and the quiet wonder of a small body curled beside you when it matters most.

Raising a puppy is simple – feed them, walk them, love them. Right? Wrong.When Sophia brings home Dennis – a scruffy Parson terrier with big eyes and even bigger opinions – she’s armed with Pinterest-perfect visions of puppy bliss. But after a sudden breakup, she finds herself solo-parenting a creature who snacks on foam earplugs and shreds slippers for fun. And yet, amid the chaos, Dennis becomes an unlikely source of comfort through a turbulent year.In this candid and laugh-out-loud memoir, between bad Hinge dates and scraping poo off the carpet, Sophia reflects on the oddities of modern life: the awkwardness of being single in a coupled-up world, the pressure to curate perfection online, the strange parallels between raising dogs and babies, and the realisation that building a life isn’t always linear – but it can still be whole.By the end of their first year together, Dennis has done more than turn Sophia’s world upside down – he’s remade it in his image: wilder, messier and infinitely more alive. Told with warmth, wit and total honesty, this is Sophia’s true story of heartbreak, healing – and one unforgettable pup.For anyone who’s ever loved a dog – or been saved by one – this is a story of quiet resilience, unpredictable joy and the soft weight of a small body curled beside you when it matters most.