Tilly McGillivray AKA Tilly Two Treats

Tilly McGillivray AKA Tilly Two Treats was born a English Springer Spaniel dog on September 8, 2017 to Sir Wyatt and Paris in western Montana. She was the first female of a litter of seven. Sir Wyatt was no where to be found when the litter was born. Paris was left to raise the seven puppies as a single mother. About 60 days after being born, Paris's puppies were mature enough to be adopted. That is when Becky and I were lucky enough to adopt Tilly and she quickly became our furry addition to our budding family.

The first day with Tilly was a long day for all of us. Tilly met an Aunt, Uncle and two furry cousins, Lilo and Luna, in Montana and another Aunt, Uncle and furry cousin, Penny, in Idaho. Lilo (dog) immediately became a mentor to Tilly and Luna (cat) avoided the new puppy like the plague. Penny (dog) and Tilly like to "ruff"house together. Tilly loved meeting all the new people and "fur"iends.

She was also introduced to long car rides as we made our way from western Montana to eastern Washington. Becky and I had a good idea and decided Tilly should sit by herself in the backseat. I think Tilly was fine in the backseat until she woke up from her nap. Have you ever experienced the sensation where you hear such constant loud noise that your eardrums register the noise as pain instead of sound? That was the sound coming from our backseat for a good fifteen minutes before we broke down and let Tilly ride on Becky's lap again. The scoreboard reads "Paw"rents: 0 and Tilly: 1.

It took Tilly a couple of months to be left in her kennel without hearing a fuss from her. It took a couple of nights of Becky and I sharing floor duties before she felt comfortable with our sleeping arrangement. Both of us would be gone at work during the day. Becky was able to come home during her lunch break to let Tilly out and feed her. Tilly had a couple of accidents in her kennel, but not very often. I thought that was really good for how young she was. I think the maximum amount of time she would be in her kennel was maybe four hours. I am thankful the kennel training was so easy with Tilly.

Nowadays, she usually spends her time napping in her kennel (door open) during the day and at night she is on one of our laps or begging to be invited onto one of our laps. When we go to bed Tilly still sleeps in her kennel (door closed) mostly due to our bed being too small for all of us. The most active time for Tilly is when her and I go on our morning walks. 

With all the snow we have been getting lately the morning walks have been converted to me shoveling snow and Tilly running amok through the snow piles. When I am done shoveling and we are going inside she usually has a muzzle full of clumped up snow stuck in her fur. She looks like she has a snow goatee on her upper and lower lip. I carefully pick out her "snowtee" before we go inside the house. The morning exercise gets us warmed up and ready to go for the day.

The snow clumps in her muzzle remind me of a story when we took Tilly camping last summer. Becky, Tilly and I had gone fishing at one of the rivers around here. Tilly was having a blast running through all the tall grass and smelling all the new scents along the river. While I was walking around I had to remove a couple of cockleburs from my socks. If you do not know what a cocklebur is they are a type of plant that disperse their seeds with help from animals. The seeds are usually brown and about the size of a walnut with stiff hooked spines. I have dealt with cockleburs before and did not think much about the couple of cockleburs I picked out of my socks. 

When we were done fishing for the day we wanted to give Tilly a drink of water before we headed back to our campsite. We gave her some water and noticed a couple of brown bumps in her fur. I had remembered my cockleburs from earlier and I immediately knew my mistake. Tilly had picked up a bunch of cockleburs in her fur when she was playing in the grass. It took Becky and I forever to pick them all out. Luckily, Tilly was happy as a clam with all of the extra attention and most of the cocklebur areas were easily removed.

Becky and I have taught Tilly a couple of tricks that we practice with her. We call the activity "Tricks for Treats" where Tilly does the trick then we give her a treat. We have taught her to rollover, come, sit, lay down, shake, high five, slow- heel or slow down while we are walking, up- stand up on her hind legs, spin- rotate 360 degrees, and bang- we make a hand pistol and yell, "Bang!", she is supposed to lay down on her side and play dead. The newest trick we are trying to teach her is pout- lay down and bow her head. Tilly has not picked up on pout yet, but Becky keeps on working with her on it. Becky usually teaches Tilly the tricks then I reinforce the trick by giving Tilly treats.

Becky and I have started a "pup"arazzi account for Tilly on Instagram. We try to post a picture of Tilly at least one time per week on Sunday with some sort of positive comment or message. We call it Sunday Tilly ponderings which is one of our hashtags we use to post with. Tilly's Instagram account is Tilly McGillivray @tillytwotreats and Becky's Instagram account is Becky McGillivray (Riordan) @rebeckymary if you want to follow our family shenanigans. I do not have an Instagram account so I treat Tilly's account like my personal account.

Tilly's Instagram posts are supposed to be from her point of view. It is hard to personify an animal. When we make her posts we have to think like we imagine Tilly thinks. I imagine Tilly thinks a lot about food, water, exercise, naps, and poddy breaks. I also think she thinks about why she is not allowed on our laps 24/7/365, why anyone would walk on our deck without her permission, why she is not getting more attention, and when will she be getting her next treat. I hope our Instagram posts are summing up Tilly's personality and getting her "paws"itive vibes out there for people to enjoy. 

My wife and I enjoy having Tilly around. She was breed to be a companion dog and has not been anything less than that for us. She is great to have by our side on a walk or shoveling snow in the morning. She warns us when people are close, but listens to us when we give her commands. I cannot wait to introduce Tilly to our first child and give our child a watchful protector and partner in crime. I am looking forward to completing more posts about Tilly and teaching her some more tricks. I have included some pictures below.

Do you have a cool story about your pet? Does your pet have any cool tricks you want share? Do you have a pet Instagram account? I would be interested in hearing about your story and/or collaborating on Instagram with you. I would also be interested in hearing what your approach is when you are posting to your pet's account and what inspired you to start your pet account. Please feel free to share in the comments or contact me directly.