Tara's Teddy

Meet Teddy:

He's Tara's imaginatively named teddy bear. We bought him for her fifth birthday (because we're those kinds of people who buy their pets birthday presents).

Tara's always loved cuddly toys, ever since we first got her. When she came home with us we brought the necessities from her first owners; food bowl, biscuits, lead, bed, and Bug.

She gradually dissected Bug until I carefully snipped off his remaining legs, wings and antennae, which kept him going for another month or so until she completely disemboweled him. Even after he was well and truly dead, we had to sneak him out and bin him because if she saw us with him, she wanted him.

At Christmas she got Santa who recently became her love of her life again and as she's been a lot better at not pulling his stuffing out we decided to treat her to another cuddly toy. We looked all over Ayr and as soon as we saw Teddy, one of the last of his kind, residing at the very back of Wilko's we knew that he was the one for her.

And we were right! She loves him!

I wish I knew what was going on in her head when she carries him around or snuggles with him. She's got a very particular way of placing him down and then resting her chin on some part of Teddy. Like so:

Chances are, if she's not snuggling him like this, she'll be carrying him around to show to people. In Tara's world you show people things by rubbing it in their faces. Teddy's only been with us a few weeks and he's already pretty smelly and crunchy. It's not pleasant.

But Tara and Teddy are the cutest little double-act. I'm collecting a little host of funny stories about the pair.

Like the other day, when I was having a poor night's sleep because of wisdom tooth pain, Tara came up the bed, deposited Teddy in the crook of my arm for a cuddle, then retreated down the bed to go to sleep alone.

Or last night.

Tara has her own room. It's the small corridor between the living room and our bedroom. We've put a stairgate across so when you close the bedroom door it gives Tara the equivalent of a 'crate' but with a little more room. It's where she goes when we're eating or when she's being a nuisance and she needs a time out.

Last night Teddy must have done something which warranted a time out because Tara paced across the living room, deposited him in the 'bedroom' and left him there when she came back through to the living room. After a few minutes passed, she casually got up and retrieved him, before hopping up onto the sofa to cuddle with Mr Click and Teddy.

I'd love to know what he'd done to annoy her.