Jamie Moore and his little dog, a chihuahua called Jackson, stretch out on a single bed that has been set up in his front room while the former boxer continues his recovery from being shot twice last month. Jackson sleeps blissfully on a Manchester United duvet while Sky Sports News flickers silently on the wall-mounted television that helps divert Moore from the intense nerve pain he still suffers.

In the early hours of an August morning Moore was shot at repeatedly in Estepona, near Marbella on the Costa del Sol, where he was training his past rival and now great friend, Matthew Macklin, in preparation for the middleweight’s next fight. Two bullets smashed into Moore. The first fractured his right hip bone and Moore lifts up his vest and rolls down the top of his trousers to reveal the purple scar.

He jokes about the next tattoo he might get, spelling out “Lucky” on his left calf, as he points to two holes where another bullet entered his leg and then passed through the sinews and flesh and burst open the skin on the other side as it left his body. The first bullet came close to killing him for it missed an artery by millimetres.

It is an ordinary weekday afternoon on the outskirts of Manchester and Moore lies on his bed and talks with friendly but gripping immediacy. The 35-year-old remembers the blood pouring out of him in a way that made him understand, even amid the shock, that his life was draining away.

“I thought: ‘I’m not going to make this,’” Moore says as Jackson snores softly. “I thought I was finished and it’s the emptiest, most horrible feeling ever. I felt helpless and lonely – lying on a driveway at night bleeding to death. I thought: ‘I can’t die here … how am I going to leave my kids with no dad?’”

Moore pauses in the hushed peace of home. His wife, Colleen, has just made us coffee before leaving the house to pick up their son and daughter from school. The fighter quips that when he managed the school run himself that morning he was besieged by anxious mothers all wanting to kiss him and wish him well. “Maybe getting shot has one or two perks – with all the women fussing over me at the school gates.”

He needed much more luck, as well as resolve, to survive. “Considering the circumstances,” Moore says, “I was really calm. It all relates back to boxing and staying calm under pressure. It instils discipline and composure. I could have easily panicked and stood up and I would have bled even more then. But I reached for my phone and got lucky. My phone usually goes dead every time I’m on a night out. But that afternoon I was a little tired and I knew I was in for a late night. So I had a sleep and put my phone on charge. That saved my life because I could dial 911. I had no idea what was the right Spanish number but, apparently, no matter where you are, if you dial an emergency number it works.

“A woman came on and I said: ‘I’ve been shot. I’m at a house in Estepona but I don’t know the address.’ She needed the address but I said: ‘If you don’t trace my phone I’ll die. I’m bleeding really badly.’ So she got on to the police and they traced my phone. She was telling me to stem the blood and try and stay conscious. I was trying, but I was in and out.”

Moore shakes his head and his face clouds briefly. But then, as Jackson charges off the bed to bark furiously at the postman, Moore grins at the comforting realities of normal life and continues. “It was 25 minutes before the ambulance got there – and I remember saying to the woman in the back: ‘Please don’t let me die …’

“In the hospital they said: ‘We have to operate because you have a bullet inside you.’ It’s very blurry but I remember them putting a drip inside me and it really hurt – much more than the bullets. When I woke I felt delirious, seeing all these nurses, but I was happy too. ‘Yes, I’m alive …’”

The gunman’s identity remains a mystery because Moore describes a shadowy figure whose face was covered in a ghoulish rubber mask – “like a horrible Frankenstein”. It seemed as if he was aiming a toy gun at Moore. “I thought it was a mate taking the piss because we’re always having a craic. It happened so quick I said: ‘Aw, fuck off!’ and carried on walking. Then I turned around and said: ‘You know what? That’s not even funny.’ And then he shot me in the hip. Bang. I hit the floor. He kept shooting and I could feel my body shaking so I knew I’d been shot again. I heard the car drive off and he basically left me to die.”

One of Jamie Moore’s scars after surgery on his bullet wounds. Photograph: Courtesy of Jamie Moore

In the British tabloids there has been speculation that Moore was an innocent victim of Irish gang activity in Marbella. He was shot outside the property belonging to Daniel Kinahan. Kinahan and his father, Christy, have allegedly been subject to police investigation. “I’ve known Daniel eight months and never seen any problems. I’ve just seen him in the gym working with the lads. He’s a great bloke and I cannot see that being the case,” Moore says. The Spanish police told me there are problems with Russian and Ukrainian gangs and they were looking into that.

“But I’ve not had one phone call off the Spanish police since I returned home. Even the British police haven’t been to see me. The Spanish officers said they had contacted the British police and they would take a statement. I said ‘sound’ but I’ve heard nothing since. Without wanting to sound too dramatic it was very harrowing – especially as it was so unexpected. If you live your life doing shadowy things you expect this to happen. You’re always looking over your shoulder – whereas this came absolutely out of the blue.”

In an uncanny coincidence, Kell Brook, who recently became the IBF world welterweight champion, was stabbed last week while on holiday with his wife in Tenerife. But Moore was in Andalusia to train Macklin – who opened a gym in the plush resort of Puerto Banús three years ago. The former opponents began working together last October with their close bond being a typical example of boxing’s ability to unite previously ferocious rivals.

Eight years ago this month, Moore stopped Macklin in the 10th round of a brutal fight for the British light-middleweight title. It was one of the most memorable British contests of the decade but it took an enormous amount out of both men – before replacing everything they endured with a deep friendship likely to last their entire lives. “Hardly any human being will experience what me and Matthew went through together,” Moore says. “That was the ultimate. It was the toughest thing I’ve been involved in my life – even more than the shooting – because there was real hurt, fatigue, so many aspects of pain. To dig so deep takes something special and you don’t know if you can ever go that far until you’re in that situation. You have the devil and the angel. The one says: ‘You’ve had enough, stop now.’ And the other one says: ‘Don’t you dare quit.’

“Colleen was seven months pregnant with Olivia. The fight was so hard she kept walking out. She couldn’t stand it but she could hear the crowd and didn’t know what was going on. At the end, after I finally knocked him out, I knew Matthew was hurt. He was still on the floor and my stomach sank. I tried to stop the crowd cheering because it wasn’t right when Matthew was on the floor. But then Kerry Kayes [Macklin’s conditioning trainer] said: ‘He’s OK. He’s speaking.’ I went over and knelt down. I said: ‘Well done, Matt. I’ll come and see you in hospital,’ and I gave him a kiss.”

Jamie Moore on his flight back from Marbella to Manchester after the shooting. Photograph: Courtesy of Jamie Moore

Moore rubs his face as if reliving that night affects him more deeply than the shooting. “It makes me feel emotional now,” he says. “But that’s what boxing does. I didn’t sleep that night because Colleen kept nudging me to make sure I was all right. She was scared of me going to sleep. So, basically, we sat up talking in bed and I kept remembering how it felt to have seen Matt in hospital. His eyes were badly swollen and almost shut – just like mine. It was like a scene out of Rocky. I walked in and we just started laughing. I gave him a hug and Kerry stood there crying. Me and Matthew were also crying and I said: ‘Wow, what have we done tonight?’ It was an unbelievable moment. That’s why we’re so close now.”

Macklin turned to Moore a year ago and asked for his help as a trainer. “Matt said: ‘J, you know me inside out. You know all my attributes and weaknesses. You can get the best out of me.’”

Moore was in the corner for Macklin’s next fight – a convincing win over Lamar Russ, a previously unbeaten American, in Atlantic City. Macklin was training last month for a world title eliminator scheduled for 30 August in Dublin but the shooting forced a cancellation. He will now fight a tune-up bout this month, with his former trainer Joe Gallagher working his corner while Moore recovers.

“I’ve told Matt my main concern is that he does the best for him. I’d like to train him again but we’re mates first and foremost. He must do what’s best for him and he understands I can’t go back to Marbella. It scared the kids and my wife half to death. So if Matt wants me to train him he’ll come back here.”

Moore has already returned to work as a pundit on Sky’s Ringside programme, appearing on their first show of a new season last week. He is also targeting a return to the corner for his lightweight boxer Tommy Coyle’s next fight on 25 October. “That’s my goal. To be jumping up and doing what I love. As a fighter, when you retire, it’s like you’ve lost a part of yourself. It’s like grieving. That’s how I felt when I retired [in 2010]. I thought I’d never have to dig so deep again – until I got shot. I’ve used all my attributes as a boxer. I thought they were gone but they’ve come flooding back. That mental toughness, determination, hard work, pain management and stubbornness have stood me in good stead.

“My outlook on everything has changed. My mum and dad were scared to death – and now every time I see them I tell them I love them. It’s the same with the kids. Every day I tell them I love them. I used to leave it to bedtime because it was a natural habit. But I think they’re getting sick of me telling them now.”

Moore scoops up his little chihuahua and laughs. He can always say the same words out loud to Jackson and remind himself how lucky he is that life, even at its most ordinary, goes on.