I was on my way to the shopping centre. I needed to buy some new pencils. A neighbour had asked me to do a sketch of her dog. I’d done a few sketches of animals in the past but they weren’t my preferred subject matter. Even so, I was keen to do this for my neighbour, who would helped me out with a few things in the past. Her dog was called Charlie, although actually, she’d gone on to say, that’s short for Charlemagne.

As I walked towards the entrance of the shopping centre, there was a couple ahead of me. A man and a woman. As they approached the sliding doors they suddenly stopped. A dog had been tied up at the entrance and it was standing there and whining loudly. Its owner must have been somewhere inside in one of the shops. The couple stood looking at the dog. The sliding doors had opened and I could hear that the whimpering noises the dog  was making were now beginning to echo through the building. The man spoke to the woman, he sounded indignant. That’s not right he said, that’s just not right. The woman shook her head as she looked down at the dog. As I approached the couple, they started walking again and went into the shopping centre. Once inside, I passed by them, and as I did so, I looked back over my shoulder. They were turning to enter one of the shops and I could see that the man had cradled tightly to his chest a tiny dog of his own.

When I gave the finished sketch to my neighbour. She looked at it with an expression of complete delight. Well, she said, will you look at that! Thank you so much, she looked at me and smiled broadly. I can’t wait to show this to Charlie she said, I am in no doubt that he’s going to be over the moon when he sees it.