The photo to the left is Jock Dog - Jock Doggy Dogthing Dog to give him his full name actually. W and I got him January 1995. We'd moved up to Edinburgh the summer before, which should have been a big enough commitment for me; but no, for some reason I can't remember now, we needed a DOG to go with our new improved quality of life up north.

So we got Jock.

He came from an animal rescue shelter. We went in looking for a puppy, not necessarily a full breed - because come on, this is a rescued animal, and besides the best dog I'd ever had growing up was a mongrel anyways. Anyhoots, they showed us two tiny wee things, one of which obviously loved us, so we adopted him. All we knew about him was that he was male, "about 3 months old" and had been found abandoned.
Ahh cuteness. We had to name him there and then, and because an italian friend who was staying with us suggested it was lucky to give a dog a name starting with the same letter as the month he was born in, he was Jock.

So we took him all the way back to Edinburgh, and his tail never stopped wagging for the whole of the first day as we showed him our freezing cold flat, the local park, and our local pub.
And because the flat we were staying in was perishing (try getting through an Edinburgh winter with NO CENTRAL HEATING), he got to sleep in our bed - well it was only fair seeing's how we were sleeping in our clothes to keep warm anyways!
And because he was such a cute wee thing, and too young to train, he got away with murder..chewing his way through my walking boots, and W's trainers, joining us on the sofa for SNACKS, getting carried up the last flights of stairs to the flat...

And then I took him to the vets for his first immunisations.
And the vet said...."OK.... hmmm... uh huh How old did you say he was?"
"Three months"
"Oh no, I don't think so. Look at those teeth. They're all adult teeth grown in."
"......"
"Oh no, I'd say he's more like a year".

Yep. Jock dog has remained a puppy sized muppet all his life.

But wait, that's not the punch line.

All the time W and I were together we had a running joke, that he wanted a real dog, but oh no we got THIS one. He used to say that when we split up we would have a custody battle over the dog - as in "you take him...no you take him"

And yet when he moved out one of the first things he said was that he would take Jock.

Who'd have thought it? And hey now aged at least 15 years old, arthritic, blind, deaf and senile Jock dog's looking in better shape than W these days.

Sorry W, had to be said...