This is the column I never wanted to write but knew I would have to one day.

My lovely girl is gone and so, I fear, has a large part of my heart. The best part.

Portia was my friend, my companion, my fellow-traveller; the last creature left to put her faith and trust in me, and to be cared for by me.

At some point during the night her heart gave up, even though she never did these last few months as her body failed her with repeated, mysterious infections and the curse of old age.

The vet tells me it was quick and she didn't suffer. I'll hold on to that and not test its veracity; try to keep in my head the youthful image of her glorious speed across my parc, blonde hair streaming behind her.

It's almost eight years ago now since the pair of us decamped here; she in the back of the car, peering through filled bin bags, me shell-shocked and increasingly terrified at what I was doing.

As I wept and wailed to all back home on that first night in a hideous rented flat, she glanced up occasionally, sighed, then spread herself luxuriously on the threadbare sofa.

When finally I crawled to bed, sobbed out and exhausted, I heard the click-clack of her nails over the tiled floor, then her light leap to my side as she settled her length to mine, her warmth soothing me.

And so, if my previously rather neurotic, fussy Princess, as friends called her, could accept these reduced circumstances then I surely could too. The die was cast.

All my dogs, stretching back to my childhood, have been precious, loved animals, each with their own personalities and foibles.

Because having them brings so much joy we side-step the knowledge of their short lives and take pleasure in their mere existence.

That is the price of loving a dog and I have wept many, many tears at their leaving.

And love it is, was - no, will always be.

But Portia, because of our intense togetherness with few other demands on my time, became an extension of me, or me of her.

Odd to think of one without the other. (At this moment I cannot imagine it.)

She took to this life far better than I have ever done. Suddenly she was free, no longer confined to city parks and concrete, blissfully liberated to run leadless.

My heart soared and sank with terror when my son first gave her liberty on that first night in Las Molieres as we stood under a star-drenched sky, the sound of the frogs battering our ears.

I swear she ran that night like a young pony, kicking her heels in unbridled ecstasy.

I, meanwhile, felt - and feel - trapped, not liberated, in a rural, dull life with little meaning or purpose. One, though, that I could never take her away from.

That is love, even to a mute creature, when another's needs are more important than one's own.

Her physical beauty - as with all my afghans - gave me great joy to look upon. Of course, unlike us, dogs have no awareness of themselves in that sense and neither preen nor strut or compare themselves to others.

But it was the gentle, sweet soul who grew from the mad, clown pup, that all who met her loved, beyond the sometimes aloof facade of her race.

The most overtly giving of my afghans, she insinuated her long nose under a resting arm, demanding a pat, or laid her head on a knee, pressing down to stamp her presence.

I apologise now to those who've lost a human friend or relative. No death of a pet is on the same scale. Not in a million years and this grief-ridden column may madden and irritate some of you.

But love is love and we should be grateful for its many forms. I am. I am not, as you know, a tactile person and shy from open affection, but never with my dogs.

So, at this moment the sun is high. All doors and windows are open and I have removed and had taken away all the rugs, the feeding bowls, the bits and pieces of Portia's life.

It is what I always do when my dogs die.

But her fine hair still clings to my cushions and chairs and even now suddenly blows along the tiles in a whispery ball that has come out of nowhere.

Her puppy gnawing is an ever-present reminder in some of my furniture and always will be.

Even as the tears continue to pour as I write, I know I'll eventually be OK and she will fade to a warm, never, ever forgotten memory and I will tell tales of her without weeping.

But tonight when I close the shutters and the dark overwhelms me, there will be no comforting clack of nails on floorboards to check me in my bed.

It's now just me, not us. And I have to end this column and face this coming night. Alone.

Pathetic, isn't it, with all the human tragedies in the world?

It is. But no less sad to me.