Mummy (Becks) is pointing out a woolly monkey to Fin, who is growing all the time. He is, apparently in his questioning phase – he’s asking questions about everything from ‘how does my leg work?’ to ‘can a spider walk backwards?’ we are told. You just wonder why it’s important to discover these things but nonetheless he wants to know.

We’ve been on a lovely day out to the local Monkey Sanctuary, which was not at all what I’d expected but it was equally good, just different. I think I’d expected lots of specimens of different species, just like a zoo, but in fact there are only two types of monkey there….just lots of them! The sanctuary has taken great pains to get these wonderful creatures plenty of space and plenty of interesting things to do. It’s a really fab educational experience.

On this occasion, the dogs stayed at home, though it’s rare they are here without us and restricted of movement so we don’t feel too badly about their day of being cooped up.

Once, many years ago, I had the great delight to take Toby, my old Collie Cross to the zoo for the day and watching him interact with the animals he encountered was an absolutely fantastic experience for me.

He stood with his paws on the top of the wall that surrounded the meercats and wagged his tail with glee as they stood up on their hindquarters in front of him surveying him with a curious eye. He loved them!

Then we went to look at the big animals, like giraffes and hippos. He wasn’t really interested in them at all but suddenly, he started to quake and tucked himself in next to me. I’d never seen him behave like that before so I was baffled. Then I realised we were approaching the lions and tigers. He was completely petrified, even though he had never encountered them before and can only have known they represented danger by smell/sixth sense.

The final part of the trip around the zoo, was a walled garden, full of marmosets and tamarins. This part of the day was one of my lasting treasures of memory of Tobes. He loved them and they, it seemed, were transfixed by him. He was, as I have said many times before, the most gentle of beasts, with not an ounce of ‘killer instinct’ in him at all. He stood watching the little monkeys while they swung around and interacted, wagging his tail and grinning from ear to ear.

They were fascinated by him. Soon, their curiosity got the better of him and they came down to the front of their enclosure to see him. He smiled and wagged some more. They got braver. One reached through the bars and bomped him on the nose. He smiled and wagged. They ran to the back and had a little chatter about him, then took it in turns to bomp him while he lapped it all up.

By the time this had been going on for fifteen minutes or so, a crowd had gathered. The crowd watched as monkeys and dog interacted for another fifteen minutes or so. If you were at the Cotswold Wildlife Park in the summer of 1986/7/8 (ish) and saw a black and tan collie cross with a skinny young woman, then that was probably us!

This is indeed one of my most cherished memories of my beautiful, gentle companion.

Fin lapped up the monkeys like Toby had lapped them up years earlier although I dare say that Fin’s outlook on them will mature in a way that Toby’s never did. Why do I have a feeling I’m going to get a lecture when DM reads this about monkeys and primates?