Meet Our Family - Cooper, Mia, Henley & Harper

Meet Our Family

Every family has an origin story. Ours starts at the RSPCA in Burwood, Victoria, with a seven week old Blue Heeler who weighed almost nothing and already had my whole heart.

This was back when outdoor concrete pens were considered normal. When glass pet shop enclosures were still widely accepted. A different era of how we thought about animals - one we've come a long way from since.

I was nineteen twenty at the time. Living out of home. Going to uni and surviving on a McDonald's wage. In no position, realistically, to be taking on a puppy. And yet there she was.

Mia.

She had a brother in that pen with her. He appeared the 'cheekier' of the two and the reason we thought best to adopt the 'quieter, calmer one' - jokes on us. It took a heck of a lot of reasoning to walk away with just one adorable heeler that day. But the realist in me knew one dog was all I could afford, and so Mia came home and became the centre of my entire young adult life. Twelve years of loyalty and friendship that I couldn't have anticipated and couldn't have survived without.

She is why MCC exists. She always will be.

Then came Cooper.

Two years later, me a little older, a little wiser, marginally more financially stable, Cooper arrived. A Border Collie cross Jack Russell. Don't ask how that works. We've never fully understood it either.

He was Mia's brother in every sense except blood. Together they were the dynamic duo for a decade, completely inseparable and yet entirely their own individual creatures. Mia the protector. Cooper the independent soul who did everything on his own terms and expected the world to adjust accordingly.

When Mia passed, we knew Cooper would be sad, take some adjusting, but for the most part we thought he would be ok. What we didn't expect was what actually happened.

Throughout his entire life, Cooper had two accidents inside. One on his final day. The other during a clap of thunder when he was young (and for the next 17 years under our bed was his place of refuge during a storm). Toilet training was a breeze. No digging. Our boy a Unicorn. And then in the weeks after Mia left us, we started finding holes in the backyard. We'd watch him look us directly in the eye, walk outside, and dig. Deliberately. Clearly. As if to say, I see you watching. Good. Look at me.

We knew our boy. We knew what he was telling us.

We weren't ready. But he was.

Finding Henley.

In the thick of Covid, finding a rescue dog was near impossible. Finding one that felt right for our family felt even harder. And then Henley appeared, an eight week old Cattle Dog cross Border Collie rescue who came home and immediately made us feel like we'd been here before.

We swear she is Mia 2.0. We cannot be convinced otherwise.

The mannerisms. The protective nature. The particular quirks that are so specific they shouldn't belong to two different dogs. And the moment Henley arrived home, Cooper stopped digging. Instantly. As if whatever he'd been asking for had finally shown up.

The first few weeks were an adjustment. We're fairly certain Cooper spent that first month plotting various forms of quiet revenge on all of us. But the holes stayed filled. And we couldn't shake the feeling, still can't, that Mia had something to do with it.

Three became four.

For three years it was Cooper and Henley. Cooper passing the torch slowly, showing her how to demand dinner the second the sun went down, how to get through the fence at their grandparents' place to sample the neighbours' leftover barbecue, how to take the possum fence watching shift seriously. His grey face getting more distinguished by the day. His presence still enormous even as he slowed.

By the time Cooper was nearing thirteen we started thinking about Henley. About what it would mean for her when the time came. She was so completely devoted to her brother that we knew a few holes in the backyard wouldn't be her way of telling us. We needed to think ahead.

And so we found Harper. Or Harper found us, depending on how you look at it.

Our local Vet nurse and Foster carer Mikayla had posted on a noticeboard about, then called Roy, supposedly a girl, coming down from northern NSW to her in the Yarra Valley. Another family applied ahead of us and we didn't really think much of it. A week later Mikayla reached out. The other family hadn't followed up. And also, Roy was a boy.

Now there is a story here, because Dana's cat of 16 years, whom she had spent her whole life thinking was 'Sporty' spice the girl cat, actually turned out to be a boy this WHOLE time. So straight away we knew we had to meet Roy non-Roy.

Three days later Harper came home.

Batman and Robin.

What we thought would be a careful, considered transition for Henley turned into something none of us planned. Cooper, the old man we'd gently worried about having a sixteen week old kelpie in his face, took one look at Harper and made it very clear who was in charge.

Harper, spent those first few months doing everything in his power to win Cooper over. Seeking his approval. Following his lead. Earning his place the way any little brother has to with a big brother who wasn't entirley sure he asked for one. The dog however we'd brought home for Henley some how became Cooper's dog. They were Batman and Robin. Henley, for her part, played the role of slightly put-out sibling with great dignity.

And then Cooper passed. And it was Harper, not Henley, who struggled most.

We've thought about that a lot since. Whether the bond between them was so strong that Harper felt the loss in a way we hadn't anticipated. Whether the plan we'd made for Henley, bringing Harper home early, giving her a companion before Cooper left, had worked exactly as we'd hoped, just not in the direction we expected.

We'll never fully know. But we know what we saw.

The photo.

This is our family. All four of them, the two still beside us, and the two who live in the garden now, grinning in the way they always did.

We talk about generations in families but not often from a pet perspective. This photo is ours. Our history, our story, our gang, complete in the only way it can be now.

Mia started everything. Cooper showed us what it was really for. Henley arrived when she was needed most. Harper came when we weren't looking and stayed when we needed him to.

The family we could never have planned but some how always knew we were building.

Cooper. Mia. Henley. Harper.

The gang is back together xx