As Tilly slobbered over my face with her rough pink tongue, I managed to get a closer look at her beautiful face. People might question my choice of the word beautiful, but that is truly the only word which comes even close to describing the pure love radiating out of that little face. Dogs can be beautiful, and Tilly is the truest beauty I have ever seen.

Tilly had perky velvety black ears lined with orange, which flopped as she tilted her head in concentration and which heard EVERYTHING. Her eyes and orange flushed cheeks were encircled by more black. Between her ears she had what my brother describes as a smiley face, where a slapdash sprinkle of black formed a shape like a smile and eyes. The rest of her face was white except her little inquisitive nose, which was once again dusted with little black specks, and which we were to discover was constantly sniffling around places it shouldn’t be! Tilly’s eyes were a deep brown, unblinking and imploring, capable of achieving anything from anyone who she had just met. If Tilly was a girl she would have been cheeky and playful with laughing brown eyes, surrounded by dozens of freckles and a constant blush. This description honestly does not do her justice. At first I was worried about writing this because I am not the best at saying things, and I want to really show people accurately who Tilly was. However, I believe the lessons Tilly taught me throughout her life were far too important to not share and even if I can’t portray everything how I wish I could I have done better than if I had not tried at all. You might question why all this is important, but to understand the importance of Tilly in my life you need to understand a little more about her. I promise that later there will be more about Tilly’s adventures and mishaps, her friends, and foes, so please stay with me. I just want you to really be able to visualise Tilly first and get to know her how I did when I was 10.

So back to the journey home. My brother met us getting out of the car with a lead and collar, because Tilly didn’t have a proper one so luckily we had saved some of Mos. We took her in the house and the first thing we did was bath her because the more we looked at her the more we released she wasn’t really supposed to be a mud colour. Honestly the water was FILTHY by the time we had finished, I would say it resembled the colour of gravy, and Tilly looked like an RSPCA case. Gone was her playfulness. She stood in the bath her fur flat, dripping with water and her tail between her legs. This changed as soon as we took her out. Safe to say we were all covered, as she shook from head to tail before we could rub her with the towel. Then she was off. This was the first time I was to witness what we could go on to name “cracker dog”. Tilly raced out of the bathroom into the kitchen, into the sitting room did a flying jump onto the sofa, then turned as though pirouetting in mid-air to zig zag back through the rooms. Tilly kept this up for some time, and by the time we managed to get hold of her she had succeeded mostly in drying herself.

Tilly settled in very quickly and soon became a very important member of our family. I cannot wait to tell you about all the things we did together as we became best friends