SINGAPORE – Singaporean actor Desmond Tan made a huge commitment when he started dating his then girlfriend. In 2009, about a year into their relationship, the couple decided to get a dog – a male cream-coloured English cocker spaniel named Hoshi – and raise it together.

It was a leap of faith, says the 38-year-old star. 

“Although I entered the relationship with marriage in mind, we were so young then and didn’t think much about it,” he says.

“I’m so glad our relationship turned out well. Who’s going to get the dog if things don’t go the way you want?”

The couple exchanged wedding vows in 2021 and are now parents to a one-year-old daughter.

Tan announced via Instagram on April 3 that his non-celebrity wife is pregnant with their second child, a boy.

When Tan and Hoshi moved out of his parents’ home to his ground-level condominium in the southern part of Singapore in 2013, the dog experienced separation issues at the new place.

“Not long after I moved in, the condo’s security guard said my neighbours had complained about Hoshi’s howling,” Tan says. It seemed the dog had bayed for six hours when he was out.

“I did not have a helper then,” says Tan, “so Hoshi was alone at home, and I didn’t know he had a hard time with that.” 

He decided, for Hoshi’s sake, to make some lifestyle changes and stayed at home more than usual.

Tan says: “The idea of having a second dog crossed our minds. We thought, perhaps Hoshi needed a playmate.”

In 2017, when he was volunteering at animal shelter Voices For Animals, he bonded with a male mixed-breed puppy.

Tan initially suggested fostering the black pooch, but the couple ended up adopting it and named him Udon. 

However, Hoshi did not take to the younger dog as well as they had hoped.

“Hoshi was a mature dog then, about ei...