I thought I was really fit for 73 – have barely smoked or drank, no late nights, no raving, no greasy, naughty fast food. And I’ve have been striding about with dogs for 35 years. So healthy, compared with my chums: two with heart failure, two with endless coughs and pneumonia, one stroke, one double hip-replacement, two going blind and one with hernias, or are they really hernias? The doctors aren’t sure. What a fright.

Then an old pal turned up after 30 years of absence. He popped up on Facebook with a little message: “I’m still alive!” Fabulous news. He reappeared for a few months, we were thrilled to see him, and then he disappeared again. Was he still with us? I don’t know the people in his new life. Would they be able to tell me if he pegged out? Panic stations. I sent a little text message. “Are you dead?” No, but in hospital. Antibiotics not working, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, could only answer briefly. So I check every fortnight.

Now I’ve got to dog-walk briskly, up and down hills, or round and round Rosemary, resting on her bench

And I check on another one every few days. Is she still with us? Yes. Just about, but on a nebuliser. So life is rather hairy for us all. Checking, panicking, going down, rising again. I put my sprightliness down to the dog walking. Relatively, I was doing tremendously well. Or was I?

The truth is I haven’t really been striding anywhere. For the past couple of years I’ve only been plodding around with my old dog and Rosemary, two older ladies with sore feet and breathing difficulties, avoiding hills because they couldn’t manage the slightest incline and resting frequently. Compared with them, I was the goddess Diana.

Kennel Club dog photographer of the year 2016 – in pictures Read more

But only compared with them. Now I have a new, young, large, bouncy, enormously strong rescue dog, I see how weedy I really am, sweating and wheezing about, can’t manage inclines either, can barely run. But now I’ve got to dog-walk briskly, up and down hills, or round and round Rosemary, resting on her bench.

I already see a tiny improvement after only three weeks of dog. He is saving my life in more ways than one. Who rescued whom?