THE saying goes that a dog is a man’s best friend – and in one Suffolk village those words are particularly true.

Jason Bloomfield, of Creeting St Mary, is celebrating after he was allowed to keep the puppy he saved from an A14 lay-by bin last month.

The council worker discovered the aptly-named Dusty during one of his shifts but had an anxious 28-day wait before he knew whether he could keep the pup.

It remains a mystery as to how Dusty ended up in the bin but it is believed his previous owners must have dumped him there. He said: “When they said he could stay we had a little party and a get-together to mark the day.

“I walk him every morning at 5.30am and he’s up waiting for me – he’s an energetic little dog. Everyone takes a liking to him, he’s a lovely old boy.

“He is absolutely brilliant, he loves his ball. I think he has done a little bit of training, he comes bounding back all day. I love him to bits.”

Mr Bloomfield will take Dusty to the vets in Stowmarket to be vaccinated and micro-chipped in the next few days.

“He does miss me during the day,” he said. “He knows exactly when I’m coming home, he gets up and goes to the door at 4pm.

“He loves getting on my lap but if I’ve got tea he looks up to see if he can come up – but he won’t until I tell him.”

Dusty and Jason have now become local celebrities, with people approaching them in the street to see how the pair are.

“It’s weird being famous, I go into the dentists and Asda and they say, ‘tell us about the little dog’.

“I find that everyone seems to know me at lots of places, they say ‘you’re the bloke off the telly’.”