Category: Needs photo

Everyone loved Timothy, and often people wanted to spoil him.  In one office that I went to, the girls in the office went to Waitrose one lunchtime and bought a packet of dog treats.  Each time we visited that office, he had some.

In another office, after realising that Timothy LOVED crisps, the guy would get an EXTRA bag of crisps for lunch, and share them with timothy.

At an old lady’s house that we sometimes visited, there was already a dog there.  Timothy was supposed to share half of one of that dog’s normal type of treat chew.  He NEVER did.  Each time we went, he’d refuse the dog biscuit.  The old lady upgraded her offer to shortbread, and Timothy accepted.  The other dog sometimes got some too, but not always.  Timothy knew how to make sure he got the best.

Timothy LOVED shortbread biscuits.  Like they were made of crack.  Sometimes Annette had a shortbread finger with her cup of tea in the mornings.  Timothy knew where the tin was, and what it sounded like when it was opened.  He’d ecpect a cut of any biscuit – at least the last 5mm.

Often we’d come home from shopping with all the food in bags, take out a Mini Markies box, empty the biscuits into a container, and put one Markie back in the box for Timothy to tear open and get to.  It took a bit of encouragement and reassurance that he COULD do it, but he learned.

He learned so well that one day we left the shopping in bags and went out, forgetting about the packet of shortbread fingers.  10 fingers in a packed.  Timothy sound it, opened it, and ate EIGHT, leaving only two.

Heroically, he still ate his dinner that evening.  He maintained his love for them, having had some most weeks, including in his last.  Shortbread biscuits will always remind us of Timothy.

Timothy was very well behaved and would hardly ever steal anything that wasn’t his.  If we gave him something that seemed “too good to be true”, his first reaction was that it was a misunderstanding.  We’d have to reassure him that it WAS his.  He’d look at us in the eye to check,m and then yawn with the stress and pressure of digesting such a thought.

“But Timothy you’re a GOOD BOY, the chicken wing is YOURS!  Take it, GOOD BOY” – we’d have to say.  Once he was sure, he’d pick it up, take it to somewhere carpeted so that he’d be comfortable, then work through his prize.

Before we took most of our photos of Timothy in his bag, we’d have to ask him to sit still for a photo.  He MUST have known something was happening because SO often he’d lift his chin as if actually posing for the camera.  He was very photogenic and really seemed to love his photo being taken – maybe because he was the centre of attention, or he learned that we were very happy with him after he’d posed for us.

He woke me up one night, yelping at about 4.30am.

I looked in the office, he wasn’t there.  I looked in the bathroom, he
wasn’t there.  I ran downstairs, he wasn’t there.

He yelped again, I could tell he was upstairs, so I came back onto the
landing to try and figure out where he was.

He was on the floor, against the tall red bookcase in the office: *inside*
the orange fleece jacket.  He had somehow managed to climb *into* one of the
sleeves, and had disabled himself completely by getting all of his limbs
stuck in the sleeve.  Just his nose was poking out of the cuff!

He was *very* excited to get out, and licked my face for as long as he
would’ve done if I’d have been out all day!

If I left the bathroom door open when I was in the shower, sometimes Timothy come in and put his face against the glass door of the shower.  He would stand there for a few seconds while he made sure that I was there.  I opened the door a couple of times but he made it clear he had no intention of getting in!

I never knew what the pattern was, but sometimes he’d settle down on my jumper if I left it on the bathroom floor (after first digging through them to make a nest with a suitable pillow).  If he wasn’t feeling great or was unsettled, I’d make a point of leaving the door open and clothes on the floor – then he’d ALWAYS accept them, and I think, he very grateful.

The morning routine for the last few months was that we’d get up at 05:45 and I’d carry Timothy downstairs, put my clean clothes in the downstairs bathroom, turn on the kitchen lights, open the back door, and put him out on the patio.  I’d then make tea while he checked the garden and did his wee.  Id it was wet, he’d be quicker, but the cold didn’t affect how long he took.  He’d stand on the doorstep when he was ready to come in.  If I took too long, he might scratch on the door, but not often.

I’d carry him through the conservatory to the sofa, where he expected his biscuits to be in place already.  Sometimes he’d turn his head as we passed a different chair – implying that he wanted that one.  I’d move his biscuits, apologising for putting them in the wrong place.

I’d give Annette her tea upstairs, then have my shower.  If I took too long in the shower, he’d be waiting for me on the carpet in the extension hallway – having sniffed under the door to check that I was still in there.