Author: Daniel

Written January 2011

Maverick and Meatball came to stay yesterday morning.

Lucy drove down from Liverpool and left them both here while she took the tube into London for an interview.  I took Meatball and Timothy out on a walk to the tube station with her, and then round the block: they didn’t much mind each other… Meatball didn’t really want to be out but was just walking so that she could get back inside and Timothy was out as normal and ignored her completely.

Meatball never asked to stop for a sniff, but sniffed whenever we stopped.  Timothy was as normal, from side to side sniffing everything he wanted to.  He complained only once, while we were stopped outside the tube station he was sniffing a bit of wall and Meatball dared sniff the same bit – so he wanted me to know he got to the wall first.  Other than that, I might as well have only had one dog with me.

After we got home, they were both loose in the living room and still ignoring each other.  Meatball decided to either play rough or to give Timothy a piece of her mind, so they tumbled and barked in a blur.  Timothy wouldn’t go near Meatball again after that, he didn’t even want his ball while she was around, and wouldn’t come into the office with me while she was (in her cage) under my desk.  She busted out of the cage (breaking three cable ties!) so after that was left in the conservatory.

By then, Timothy had Poorly Eye.

Lucy came back around 7pm and Meatball went with her.

First thing this morning, Timothy came downstairs with me and would only go into the conservatory with me, but while I had his back, he approached the empty cage and checked there was nothing in it.  He’d not go too close though, and had all of his weight on his back legs so he could escape if he needed to.

Happy that there was no-one in it, mid-morning he went and ate the biscuits near the cage.

Maverick is here until Saturday evening, and is better behaved than Meatball, and also better behaved than he was last time he was here.

When we went somewhere Timothy couldn’t go, we left him with a few people he knew or who he had met before.  My mum (his mum, originally) obviously, but also our neighbours Barbara and Janet, our ex-post lady Marian, and my friends/customers Tony and his daughter Ann.

Most recently he also stayed for a day with Jody when we were going to go to Silverstone for WEC – we didn’t actually go in the end, but she was so looking forward to Timothy’s visit that he went over anyway.

That was the first endurance race that I’d watched without Timothy – and the first of any race including F1 for a long, long time that I’d not watched with him.  He liked watching racing because it was a time that I’d sit still with him for hours on end.  He preferred that people sit still and didn’t keep escaping his watch.  During that race, I ended up following it on the radio and painting the fence in the front garden: he’d complain that I wasn’t inside, not settle well in a bed in the garden, and keep asking to come in and out otherwise.

After Timothy had his teeth cleaned at the vets in Borehamwood, we followed the lady vet’s advice and got Timothy to “clean his teeth” with raw chicken wings.

It was a chore that he didn’t mind doing at all.  Sometimes we bought a bag or box of wings, but usually just gave him the wings from a whole chicken.  We’d but a chicken to chop up and cook with, or to roast, and took the wings from that for him.

He KNEW when we’d bought a chicken, and would press his nose against the bottom drawer of the fridge whenever we opened it, reminding us of his share – making it hard to close the fridge door.

Chopping each wing into halves, he’d have a bit of wing each day for four days from each chicken.  He had his last wing at lunchtime on his last full day: I “dropped” it on the kitchen floor.  He sniffed it, yawned, and looked up at me to check that taking it was OK.  I told him that he was good, he asked no questions, picked it up, and skipped into the living room.  Once finished; he’d always follow it with a big drink of water.

When we chopped any meat on the chopping board, Timothy would expect to be able to help by “cleaning” it.  We’d leave as much blood and as many well-spread-out scraps of meat as we could.

If he was getting particularly stuck in, he’d stand ON the chopping board to make sure that it didn’t get away.

He’d lick the board rather than it his dinner, given the choice, so we made sure never to confuse matters by offering both at the same time: if his dinner went soggy because the biscuits had absorbed the stock or jelly, he’d often reject it – holding out for a fresh serving.  And he’d get one.

In his later years, Timothy ate once a day around 6pm, and the last couple of years, ¼ at breakfast time and ¾ at 4pm.  He had dry biscuits mixed with a serving of meat, often specially bought and prepared (shredded beef, chopped and boiled chicken, lamb or fried minced pork, chicken hearts boiled in stock etc – usually we kept a variety in the freezer so that there was a different meat each week).

We’d take his dinner and bowl with us on a daytrip – so he could stick to normal meal times even when we were out.

He forced our hand really: once when he was very young we went to Brighton and realised on arriving at Victoria station on the way home that it was past dinnertime, and we were still over an hour from home – with no food.  We bought a box of Bakers Complete from Sainsbury’s and made a “bowl” for him.  He ate a normal sized dinner on the shopping parade floor, and we headed home.  When we got home, he waited by his bowl for his ACTUAL dinner.  We gave it to him, and he ate it!

We learned that he expected his dinner in his own bowl, and nothing else counted.  So we made sure to live by that expectation ever since.

I was impressed and proud beyond words when Timothy took his “giving no fucks” attitude to a whole new level in January 2018 when we went to see Emma’s few-months-old baby.  Tim was sitting on my lap, Annette beside me, with the kid on her lap.  The kid started to stroke Tim and he didn’t budge.  We knew he’d never snap or tell the kid to go away, but the kid started to pull his fur – getting a fist full of fur, pulling as hard as it could, lifting Timothy’s skin up a bit.

He didn’t react at all.  Not bothered.  I’m she he knew that he could trust me to sort it out if it got out of hand.  We were impressed that he didn’t even complain – even though we knew he wouldn’t actually snap.

On the rare occasion when there was a vicious dog or something threatening, I would “helicopter” Timothy out of danger by lifting him up.  He always wore a harness, and after a close shave when he was once on an extendible lead, I never used one like it again.  I only used his leather lead, or the Royal British Legion “poppy” one.

I think there were only 3-4 helicopter incidents, but I remember that after them, Timothy’s heart was RACING and he was very grateful for having been rescued.  He knew I’d done it for him, and he’d lick my face for a few minutes in thanks.

When he was very young and needed “a carry” he’d ask for one only after walking for a long way, or after passing a big dog.  Every time after we’d passed a big dog.

When he was younger – maybe until he was 9-10, as we walked past a bigger dog, Timothy would prefer to be on the other side of me from the dog – but if not, he’d walk past and just ignore it.  He never really wanted to sniff another dog or say “hello”.  Hilariously though, after we passed another dog (and after it was out of the danger zone) he’d turn around and BARK at it – knowing that I had his back if anything kicked off.  It rarely did.

After he became an old man, he no longer gave any fucks, and just ignored all other dogs.  Perhaps he trusted that I’d keep rough dogs away, or knew I’d rescue him if it kicked off.  He’d rarely even glance at another dog.

SOMETIMES he wanted to say “hello” – most recently only two days before he died when we were on the street behind our house and the lady from two doors down was passing on the other side of the road: Timothy actually skipped forward (but had no intention of actually crossing the road).  The was the last time he saw the neighbour and her dogs.