I’m just back from my holiday in Singapore and no I won’t be giving you a verbal slideshow of the trip. That would be just too tedious for words.

I will spare you the photos too but I have just been reviewing them myself and an awful lot of them seem to involve dogs.

Because, like many of you, we love dogs. Ours is a nearly 14-year-old Maltese Shi Tzu called Sarge and anyone who knows us understands that Sarge gets all the attention (pardon the military pun) at our house.

And though we were only away for eight days we missed him terribly. He was being pampered at the pet hotel while we wandered around Singapore wondering what he was up to.

Consequently, whenever we ran into a dog, or dogs, we thought of Sarge. Our son, who lives in Sydney now, usually requires us to send photos of Sarge twice a day at least. He misses his little brother terribly.

He consoles himself by wandering around Sydney saying hello to dogs of all shapes and sizes, snapping them on his phone and sending us photos.

In Singapore we ran into dogs all day every day and took photos of them to send to him. We are dog crazy, I guess.

Even on busy Orchard Road where we were staying there were dogs everywhere … on leads, in prams, in slings and backpacks or just cradled in their owners’ arms. Lots of smaller dogs too because I guess most Singaporeans live in apartments. Outside the famous Takashimaya shopping Centre, we ran into a minor convention of dog walkers each with around half a dozen fur babies on leads.

That was quite a scene and yes, we stopped and took photos.

We walked the newish Rail Corridor trail in Singapore which follows a defunct railway line intersecting the island republic and ran into lots of pooches out for constitutionals with their owners. It’s never quite clear who is leading whom.

And we stopped and said hello and patted a few and took more snaps.

Now we are back at home and lavishing love and attention on our wee man who gives us so much joy. If you are a dog lover you will know what I am talking about.

Dogs have so much to offer and it’s always lovely to get home and be greeted with such unbridled enthusiasm. I always say that dogs are a gift from above. After all, what is dog spelt backwards? Exactly.