We all know him as the wise doc who can fix any qualm our furry friends face, but who is it Dr Harry Cooper turns to in his time of need?
Well, the TV veterinarian’s family life has been somewhat complicated.
WATCH: Dr Harry helps a pup with a rock obsession
While the doctor’s love for all creatures great and small has proved unconditional, sadly the same can’t be said for his own love life.
Dr Harry, 78, married his second wife Janine in 1985, spending 26 years together and sharing a daughter, Heidi, before going their separate ways around 2012.
The Better Homes And Gardens star confirmed the split to Woman’s Day revealing he had moved on and was “happy”.
“You get to the stage of your life when you drift apart – and for the past five or six years we’ve probably been going like that – so I thought, ‘what’s the point?’, as she wanted to stay there [in Tasmania] and I didn’t,” he told them.
Soon after, Dr Harry moved from his historic farmhouse in Tasmania to a modest block on NSW’s mid-north coast to start all over again.
That’s when he met his current partner, Susan, 63.
The couple met at a relaxed barbecue 10 years ago now, but it wasn’t exactly love at first sight.
“I think everyone knows who he is, but on that particular day he was busy on the phone and I thought, “Nah, he doesn’t really do it for me. He’s too busy doing other things’,” Susan told New Idea in 2019.
“But as the night wore on, we started talking and we didn’t stop talking. He is very genuine, warm and generous – just as you see on TV.
“There’s lots of laughter, too,” continued Susan. “He’s quite witty and he makes me laugh out loud all the time. And he constantly surprises me.”
The couple live together on the NSW north coast on an idyllic property that is, to no surprise, a “menagerie”.
Susan was also there for the TV star when he lost his eldest daughter, Tiffany, to cancer.
“She loved sunflowers, and when she died I said, ‘We have to get some sunflowers for the funeral’,” Harry said.
“It was the wrong time of year for sunflowers, but Suzi managed to get on the phone and organise them. It was quite amazing really.”
Earlier this year in January, Harry popped the question and asked Suze to marry him over cups of tea on the front porch.
Dubbing it “the worst proposal in the world”, Harry told Woman’s Day that he could have handled the special moment a little better!
“I put it to her, ‘We’ve been together for 10 years, we can either stay the way we are, go our separate ways or get married… and I’m thinking we should probably get married’,” he said.
The pair finally said “I do!” at their 125-acre property in Port Macquarie, in an intimate ceremony in front of 42 of their closest family and friends earlier this month.
“It was a magical day and I wouldn’t change a thing!” Suze told Woman’s Day. “I’ve waited all my life for this bloke… he’s a real genuine person – what you see is what you get.”
A besotted Harry added: “She’s very caring, she’s so hardworking and I’m so lucky to call myself her husband.”
Want your own fairytale romance? Sign up for eHarmony today
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
