Timmy Scott 2002-2011

Well Timmy, trust you to die the very week the cat gets her eulogy written - you could always be trusted to take the spotlight and your death is no different.

As soon as Dad green-lighted getting a puppy in the middle of summer of 2002, I insisted we adopt one straight away - I had just picked up one of your siblings and was about to take her home when you were brought out, a fawn-coloured pup who looked like she was wearing perfectly-applied black liner round her eyes. You were on another level of cute altogether and we knew we had lucked out.

After a couple of days of living with us you were duly named 'Timmy!' after the South Park character. Nan put it much more mildly, 'Any other family would have that dog shot,' but you seemed to fit right in regardless.

On the first day in your new home when Uncle Jacky popped in for a visit, you made as much noise as a 5-week old puppy could muster, literally barking yourself out of balance, 'That dog's got good instincts,' he said, and this never changed - you protected our house from day one. The second day you waddled into the center of the living room, paused, and spewed out intestinal worms like the little girl off The Exorcist. I didn't like you quite as much suddenly, but no matter how much you cocked it all up, whether it was smashing through a glass window (and being diagnosed with Separation Anxiety Disorder), pronounced the first dog to have ever successfully escaped puppy preschool, crapping and pissing over my school books, or humping my leg as I tried to sleep ('Maybe Timmy won't have puppies because she's a hermaphrodite'), you would always hang out and want nothing more but to share our company. You were so easily loved.

You liked to attack fire, water, newspapers, possums and hedgehogs, liked to spaz your way up trees, and liked to sleep on my bed. When anyone asked you to leave a room, except for me and Dad, you'd simply ignore them (and you were never really on Ainara's good-side because of it). Louis knew he was taking up your side of the bed after you leapt on his balls. But in reality, you didn't really listen to anyone, and you were always happiest running away and doing whatever you wanted, especially if someone was running behind you getting angrier by the second, preferably waving something menacingly. You made pissing Dad off an art-form. Like the time you peed all over his bare-feet when he greeted you at the door, or when he was trying to sell a table to Ellie and you bit her Border Collie that was infinitely more expensive than you because you cost $0 to buy (your mouth full of incriminating black and white hair), or when you tried to take on a cow, or when you'd determinedly charge into the telephone wires and disconnect calls ('Oh, here comes Timmy-' *click* beep, beep, beep), or when you had 9-puppies underneath the house, or when you'd run away when your flea-treatment was due, or when you'd channel the fury of Hell when the meter reader happened to walk up to the house or a four-year-old child on a tricycle pushed itself down the footpath.

You were as good a dog as I was an owner - I spewed up on you the first time you had puppies, I did a quick U-turn when you were in the passenger seat and you crashed into the dashboard, I fed you too much Weet-bix that one time, and I would throw lemons for you to fetch. I designed the blueprints for a wooden go-kart named the 'Timmy Mobile' which you would exclusively power, but fortunately for you, it only went as far as having two pieces of wood nailed to each other and the project was soon abandoned.

You were the best dog. You knew when I was sad to stick by my side and you would even try and console me with a lick to the hand or two; when Dad took you to the workshop with him, you would spend half the trip to Kingseat thanking him, getting in the way of the stick shift as you groveled; you would wink at just the right times and have the oddest human mannerisms. You were everything I ever wanted in a dog and your lasting legacy will be that every dog I have in the future is going to be fucking lame compared to you.

There are just too many stories to tell. Knowing you, you'll probably reincarnate into a rock star creating another legend, making heaps of noise and being destructive and entertaining simultaneously. I love you Dog.