Tilly’s next greatest love, and probably THE greatest was food. Food of any kind. Tilly would eat literally ANYTHING (except lettuce and a couple of other vegetables which she stole on occasion and then spat back out in a disgusted manner), edible or inedible. We constantly had an uphill battle on our hands when walking her, since living in the middle of a town there was inevitably litter. If Tilly saw it before us, which she often did, she would lunge forward for it and engulf it whole resulting in a tussle between us and her in the middle of the street. Any tactic possible would be employed to try and get her to open her mouth and spit whatever it was that she deemed suitable for a little snack. I got rather good at continually scanning the ground as we walked and identifying any possible target before she could strike, nevertheless she still would grab things now and again. The food which presented the most difficult challenges for me to cope with and distract her from, was anything which there was multiple of, chips or sweets for example. To avoid one, you would accidently lead her to another, and you would be zig zagging up the pavement with Tilly excitedly trying to gobble up this trail of yummy goodness. Generally, in this instance the only solution was to pick her up and carry her past, but as you can imagine she would wriggle and her wag her tail making it difficult to do so.

Even when we returned from the walk Tilly was still entirely focussed on her next morsel to nibble. We lived above a shop, and having many dogs come in with their owners had a treat box. Tilly knew this was there and would plonk her bottom on the floor and not move, doing her best impression of being well behaved until a biscuit was given to her. Sometimes I would try and carry her past, but she would only plonk down later on and steadfastly sit there until we turned around to go back for one. 

Despite the difficulties walking Tilly would entail due to being constantly on the lookout, her love for food was also a source of happiness for us all. Never did Tilly cease to be delighted when you gave her breakfast in the morning. She would be sat on my feet staring up at her dish with her tail sweeping the floor in an enthusiastic blur of joy, which would occasionally lead her to shuffle as she struggled to contain her excitement. As the dish was lowered to the floor she could barely sit but would begin to lean up towards it balancing on her back legs, however she knew she must sit before she was given it. The same routine would happen every evening at teatime, where once again she would anticipate her food with such delight, anyone would think she hadn’t eaten for weeks. This is one of the key lessons Tilly taught me, to never stop taking pleasure in the everyday “little” things and to never take these things for granted. If we were all as grateful as Tilly every time we had a snack to eat, I truly believe we would be less dissatisfied with our lives. Tilly never thought about “the grass being greener elsewhere”, but just focussed on how truly lucky she was.