FOR THE LOVE OF TILLY


If photographed by Wegman, with those massive doe eyes in a face framed by huge ears as symmetrical as a Sassoon bob and legs as thin and long as a thoroughbred, she would be dressed as Twiggy in a Flapper dress and ostrich feathers. I took one look at the little bag of nerves and bones standing in front of me and Hector’s status as “our last Weimaraner” slowly slipped without further thought into the sunset.

When the call came that there was a little female in the Animals Shelter that needed help, I was only going to go down to offer any words of advice that were practical. I was informed by Colin that draft divorce papers could, no doubt, be obtained on eBay these days and not to even THINK about bringing her home. With this in mind I stood there and thought about it ….. for all of two seconds. They phoned on the Tuesday, I saw her on the Thursday and by Friday she was in my van and I was on the phone saying I wasn’t bringing her back from her trial walk with Hector. She was 17 months old, had been on her own for 10 months and was as skinny as a whippet and wasn’t eating in the kennels and had lost her voice through stress, so of course divorce was the lesser of two evils and besides that, Colin has been divorcing me since I first brought Jazz home fifteen years ago.

Do we regret it? Well, when she first started screaming in the van and wet the entire vet bedding in it, no. When Colin started having to wear aircraft noise ear defenders to drive – sort of! When we watched her eat without coming up for air and collapsing into the deep sleep of the secure on our sofa, no. When she woke me up at 2am in the morning and presented me with three piles of puke and one wet carpet – sort of!

Within the first two weeks of having her, Hector has given me that “ok, I’ve done my bit you can take her back now” look. When that failed he tried to drown her. She loves to run, more to the point she loves to run Hector down. With this in mind Hector ran into the rough sea and promptly timed his dropped ball with the onset of the next wave. As she lowered her head to pick up the bobbing ball, she disappeared under the froth. Hector was out of the water and up the beach doing a victory roll with a vertical tail. Mummy was doing a Pamela Anderson (in her dreams) and diving, ok, clumsily wading, into the water to drag one winded and half drowned dog out of the incoming tide. I am not sure whether I consider her fearless in following Hector into the sea like that or just plain stupid. In which ever case the word stupid was pretty germane as I squelched back to the van.

Twice she fell for Hector’s tactics these first few weeks, until she turned tables and tried to suffocate him. She has no body awareness. Now before I hear your cries of “silly girl, dogs don’t do body awareness”, please let me re-word that. She has no awareness of other person’s bodies – two or four legged. I have had to scrap Colin off of the bedroom ceiling a couple of times and been in receipt of a high pitched “that does it” – well I think that is what he said but he was kind of red faced with pain at the time. I’ve also woken up to being stood all over and with a bum parked on my nose. But with Hector it was pay back time. Hector loves getting under the bed covers, yes, yes, awful habit I know and one not MANY Weimaraner owners indulge in (you are all liars). She, so far, has treated this conspicuous lump with respect borne of a couple of fang marks from said “lump”. Not so this night. She looked at me, then looked at the lump, then looked at me again, her little neck straining and her ears framed forward like a hooded Cobra ready to strike. Hector’s fate was sealed. Up she came and sat on his head, pining him face first into the mattress. She further confirmed her intent by placing her two front legs on his shoulders preventing him from twisting up and out from underneath her. Hell hath no fury…..as Hector learned.

She has been introduced to our family and friends and all their “you are doing the wrong thing” comments have been forgotten upon sight of this little Bambi like dog. Even the postman adores her. Just one look from her beautiful amber eyes under those long eyelashes make me forget that two seconds before, whilst being dragged by a dog that thinks the only way to walk on a lead is on her stomach in top gear, I really WAS going to drive her straight back to those kennels.

I am forever grateful that I have a superb dog in Hector. He has been holed and howled at, prodded in every crevice of his body by her demanding paws and now never gets the opportunity to be first at anything without being pushed out of the way by her. He accepts this all as he knows he is loved and we will still be there for him tomorrow to get cuddles off of. He knows she needs to understand that she too will have us here for all her tomorrows.

We have a long way to go with her, but we are committed to getting there.

Our Tilly is certainly no clean slate, but she is a totally open book and we are all waiting to fill the her next chapter with our love for her