Starfish Collar in Black & Gold

Watson was black. Properly black — the kind of coat that swallows light, and swallows anything you put on it. Most collars simply disappeared into him. You would buy something lovely, fasten it, and then spend the next six months wondering where it had gone.

So when I found the Coastal Cubs Starfish collar in black and gold, it felt like it had been made with him in mind. The black sat against his coat rather than fighting it, and the little gold starfish caught the light every so often — usually when he turned his head towards the window, or looked back to check I was still following.

The starfish mattered more than it should have. Watson was a beach dog. Not a swimmer, exactly — more of a supervisor. He liked the shallows, the smell of salt, the important business of inspecting whatever had washed up overnight. A starfish was the sea, worn quietly around his neck.

It wore well, too. Salt water, sand, wet fur, the endless drying and re-wetting of an Australian summer — the hardware stayed gold and the stitching stayed put, which is more than can be said for most things that meet a beach every weekend.

Mostly, though, I loved it because of the moment in the photograph above: Watson on the sofa, watching the street, the gold just visible beneath all that fluff. You had to look for it. Somehow that made it his.