In December 2011, my two wonderful Weimaraners, Krakow and Warsaw, who’d lived together for almost 10 years, died within three weeks of each other.

Officially it was a brain haemorrhage which claimed Warsaw though it’s conceivable his heart was broken following the loss of his half-brother.

They certainly broke my heart. But I had a saviour.

Returning shattered from the vet after the loss of the second dog, someone with a suitably mournful face greeted me at the front door.

It was Elgar, my beloved Basset Hound.

One of the many reasons I'd bought Elgar last May was the realisation that my ageing Weimaraners may not be long for this World, and therefore I needed another beautiful four-legged friend to help me through the inevitable agony.

I was right. It worked. Elgar reached out to me with one of his chunky paws that sad homecoming, and had his limbs been long I'm sure he’d have wrapped them all around me.

Cynics will point out that dogs offer paws all the time anyway. But we owners of canines know "they know" how we’re feeling at any given time. They understand. And, best of all, they care.

Furthermore, Elgar made it clear there was little time to sit and mope with him requiring his own attention and love, not to mention food and water.

It was as if he was saying to me: ‘Come on, Dad, I know you’re sad, I am too, but let’s get on and get through this together’. And we did. For a while anyway.

I cried occasionally, as one does for one’s dear departed, though always finding comfort in a cuddle with the generously-coated Elgar for whom the word ‘cuddle’ could well have been invented.

But then a few nights on, after following the usual routine of putting him to bed downstairs and myself to bed upstairs, I was subjected to the most almighty racket from the living-room.

Elgar was yelping, barking, baying, and kicking furiously at the door. I went down to see what was up, and managed to calm him . . . only for him to do it all again the moment I returned upstairs. Ad infinitum. He could not face being alone. After all, he was then only 10 months old.

I believe that that night it dawned on Elgar that the two companions he'd grown up with thus far were never coming back. He was suddenly lonely. And I needed to get him a new buddy.

Did I mind? Did I heck! I'd been thinking about it from the moment he and I were left bereft.

I’d also been left, living in a detached house, without a guard dog. Weimaraners, while stunning to look at and gentle to those they know, can appear and act scary enough to send the most determined intruders running in the opposite direction.

Conversely, even the baffling minority who “don’t like dogs” would consider it worth smashing a stranger’s door down just to stroke the wrinkly fleece of the absurdly endearing Basset.

So a second Basset was out of the question, much as I adore this one. And I vowed not to get another Weimaraner, because I wanted to remember the ones I’d had as the best of that breed.

There was another breed, however, which not only had I long desired but they can also seem as welcoming to burglars as nightclub bouncers are to drunks dressed in denims and trainers. The Great Dane.

After much research and consultation, I sought and found a harlequin Great Dane - whose distinctive black splurge patches on white make them resemble long-legged Dalmatians whose black spots have run in the rain.

I’d been widely advised to only bring a bitch into the home of my male Basset and so I did. Though so feminine, graceful and pretty was this one that to use the word “bitch” with its modern alternative meanings seemed somehow wrong.

But the big issue was what I would actually call her.

The Weimaraners had been known as Krakow and Warsaw because I was then married to a Polish lady whom I wanted to make feel at home while living here.

As for the Basset, well I was on the long drive home with him to Sussex from the breeder in Nottinghamshire when Classic FM mentioned Elgar. I'm a firm believer in a dog’s name comprising two syllables and being sufficiently different for no other canines (or humans, for that matter) to come running when you yell. And this one instinctively fitted like the kind of glove he’s prone to pinching from unsuspecting passers-by and toddling off with. The choice of Elgar has been universally appreciated - other than by the hard-of-hearing who’ve thought I’ve called him Helgar - and prompted many a quip about Pomp, Circumstance, Variations and Nimrod. So I felt a female Great Briton would be a perfect complement, hence my Great Dane became Bronte.

If I feared Bronte’s arrival at the house might be met with indifference if not envy by Elgar, I needn't have. He warmed to her from the outset and the pair wandered into every room like a senior pupil showing a new girl round a school on her first day. They were immediately inseparable.

That night they needed to be parted, as I sleep new pups in a comfy cage while their house-training threatens to transform my lounge into a smelly re-enactment of The Somme.

But following their late visit to the garden, Elgar grabbed his basket in his teeth and edged it to an outside corner of the cage while Bronte nipped inside her friendly prison and settled in that same corner. They didn’t just stare at one another through the bars; they licked one another. It was true romance.

The following day nothing changed, except that night Bronte swerved her cage door and lay right beside Elgar in his basket, refusing to budge. In my head I could imagine them chanting “We shall not, we shall not be moved!” The loss of Krakow and Warsaw had not long before brought home to me what I’d always known but not always wanted to accept: that a dog’s life is tragically brief. Who was I to break up this happy pair, even if I was to face a farmyard scenario come morning? So I dismantled the cage and let them be.

Most nights since Bronte has waited for Elgar to settle, then she’s gently placed her head on the groove of his back above the hind legs, and they’ve slept harmoniously in that position ’til sunrise.

And all day every day, they rest and play together . . . and occasionally chew things they shouldn’t - most recently my extremely expensive B&W speakers, which now need replacing - but of course one guilty look from puppy eyes and all is forgiven.

I really believe Elgar is desperate to talk to Bronte. Since Bronte’s arrival, Elgar has grabbed every squeaky toy he can get his teeth into. They give him a voice . . . albeit only the voice of Joe Pasquale.

If I had a Bonio for every person who’s commented on the contrast between a Basset and a Great Dane, I’d already have a lifetime’s supply. In fact they require similar amounts of exercise and are both famously good-natured. After all, one once advertised a brand of casual shoes while the other portrayed Scooby Doo.

Of course it’s the differences in size and shape people are referring to. Within a few weeks, Bronte had gotten taller than Elgar. Now she frequently leapfrogs him. Soon she'll look like Sophie Dahl standing beside her husband Jamie Cullum.

As Great Danes do, Bronte is growing at the sort of rate Alice In Wonderland did after consuming the cake labelled ‘EAT ME’. I was advised to not let either breed upstairs, but Bronte's head may force its way through my bedroom floor by the Autumn. The love between Bronte and Elgar also continues to flourish, albeit in equal measure.

They are the furry Romeo & Juliet of Goring-by-sea, only I’m hoping their story is never-ending.

WORDS AND IMAGES BY PETER ROBERTSON ©2012.