I’ve been back to walking the little fellow long after the sun sets. A busy work schedule has seen us back home late recently and this means I could only take him out after 7pm. Sun set is around 5.30pm so it’s just dark by then.

He didn’t seem to mind too much and remains as excited as ever, bouncing around and trotting from one side of the walkways to the other, stopping every ten seconds to sniff at God knows what.

Sometimes he’d hear voices coming from houses we walked past and he’d stop, look towards the source of the noise, and turn towards me to check if everything was ok. I’d laugh, say “good boy, Scruffy” and that would set him off happy and trotting again. This makes me happy and while tired after a long day at work and wanting to just sip a glass of red in front of the telly, walking him under such circumstances made me happy and contented. I suppose such is the mundane nature of our lives now that it is little things like that which made me happy.

But sip a glass of red I do, and quite often, the little fellow would jump up onto the couch, and sprawl himself over my laps and occasionally lick my face when I look stroke his chin. I think that made us all happy – him, Tress and I…