Exiled to the upper house crossbenches amid donation rort allegations, veteran NSW Liberal MP Marie Ficarra deployed the dog defence to explain why she gave false evidence to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
She and property developer Tony Merhi gave conflicting evidence on Thursday over how he came to pay $5000 to alleged Liberal slush fund EightByFive.
And central to the conflicting evidence was the condition of Ms Ficarra's pet miniature schnauzer.
Mr Merhi told the ICAC he met with Ms Ficarra in a cafe in the Cumberland Forest just weeks before the 2011 NSW election to discuss his concerns over mooted changes to planning laws.
She told him he needed a lobbyist, he said, and she already had one in mind.
"When she recommended EightByFive, it was like a godsend," Mr Merhi said.
"I recall she mentioned that someone would call me."
The firm sent him a contract and duly invoiced him for an agreed $5000 consultancy fee, Mr Merhi said, but never produced any work.
"If you knew that that company account, EightByFive, was associated with the Liberal Party - as a prohibited donor, it would have been wrong for you to transfer that money," Ms Ficarra's brief Greg Walsh said.
"If it was a donation, yes," Mr Merhi replied.
"How would someone like me work out that this is a donation? This is a set-up, sir, I've got no idea - I was duped into this whole process."
Yet Ms Ficarra says when she met Mr Merhi, he wanted to know how he could help out with the NSW Liberal election campaign.
She reminded him that as a property developer he was barred from donating to the campaign but he might know businessmen who would like to donate to Liberal volunteers.
Then, she says, she passed him on to NSW Young Liberals official Charles Perrottet and headed off to collect her sick dog in the southern Sydney suburb of Sylvania.
Counsel assisting Geoffrey Watson SC said she was fabricating evidence after realising ICAC investigators had been able to track her movements on the day she met Mr Merhi.
"You're making this up, aren't you?" Mr Watson said.
"Absolutely not," she replied.
Asked to explain why she told ICAC interviewers last year that she left Mr Merhi for a day of doorknocking in western Sydney, Mr Ficarra said she had since spoken to her vet and realised her pooch had undergone a "full blood count" that day.
"This is the story that I gave in camera. It hasn't altered much except for the sick dog," Ms Ficarra demurred, to laughter from the hearing room.
"I believed it to be true on the day."
Commissioner Megan Latham said: "There's a bit of deja vu about this, Mr Watson."
Former premier Barry O'Farrell made repeated references to Oscar the cocker spaniel when attempting to explain his movements to the ICAC last month.
He resigned the following day after it was revealed he had given false evidence.
Ms Ficarra will continue her testimony on Friday.
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