Tilly

As you have read in past posts we have not had the best of luck with some of our pets. My son wanted to be able to get a puppy and give it a good life. A long life.

I was at a friend's house one afternoon. We were sitting on the porch enjoying a nice spring day. Next door was a cute little puppy tied to a stick planted in the yard.

It was so warm in the sun and the puppy had no water. When the small children who lived there came out to play they naturally wanted to play with the puppy. Unfortunately their playing included poking it with sticks.

When I took a small dish of water to the puppy to distract the children their mother came out. I nicely expressed concern for the puppy. She told me that it did not matter. She was taking it to the pound the next day.

I told her to give it to me instead.

I took the puppy home  with me. My son and daughter were the only two of my children left at home. Both fell in love right away.

We discovered that she was a female. We named her Tilly. Later my son expanded her name to Tilly T. Wonderdog. She became his dog.

Tilly was just a little ball of fluff at the time. She had blond hair.

We had cats too. Tilly began to copy them in many ways. There was a window in the living room where the cats liked to nap and sun themselves. Soon Tilly would get up on the windowsill and lie there to nap and sun herself. Eventually she got too big and fell off a few times. She had to stop.

Tilly was such a Lady. She hardly ever barked. She refused to eat human food. She had her own food thank you very much. The only exceptions were cherry cough drops and Frostys from Wendy's. She also liked money... the folding kind.

My son had shelves next to his bed. He kept things there that most of us keep on a nightstand. Money that he did not want to carry around. She would pull the money off onto the bed and roll luxuriously in it.

Because Tilly never bothered our food we did not worry about her when we ate. One day we were watching something or other on TV. We had ordered take-out food from Wendy's. We sat in the living room to eat.

I was regaling the group with a fascinating story. They were really enjoying it. I could tell because they were all smiling and chuckling. I had never had such an attentive audience.

I reached down for my Frosty (I drink them like a shake). What I felt was the dog with her face in the cup. She could not help herself and she stole my Frosty! That was when everyone finally laughed out loud. They had been waiting for me to find out what was happening.

Tilly led a sheltered life. She would go out in the back yard. Once in a great while we would let her ride in the car with us. She loved it and got so excited. She was not the best rider.

As she got older Tilly became restless. She was non-stop pacing in a circle from the end of the hall to the front door. When she was totally exhausted she would sleep but was soon up again and pacing in her circle.

We took her to the vet. She said that Tilly had a brain lesion causing the strange behavior. She let us know that eventually she would have to be put down and that we would know when it was time.

One Sunday we had a big family outing at a lake one of my sons knew about. We took Tilly with us and she actually slept the whole way.

When my son was trying to put her leash on her she was actually energetic. As soon as she was hooked to the leash she took off running toward the water. She swam all afternoon and had a good time. She slept all the way home.

Tilly had been having seizures.  My son came in late the night after our trip to the lake and told me to call the vet. I called. Then my son could not bring himself to take her in. He took her to bed and she seemed to improve a bit.

The next morning he knew it was what he had to do. We took Tilly in to the vet. She seized the whole way.

The vet saw what was happening and prepared the injection immediately. Tilly looked to my son to make it all better and began to seize again. The shot worked instantly and she was gone.

They provided us with a box of tissues and gave us all the time we needed to compose ourselves.

We had Tilly for a lot of years. My son had given her the life he had wanted to be able to give a dog. The end was hard but she brought a lot of joy to our lives.