Farewell Bertie, shoppers' favourite (From Worcester News)

Farewell Bertie, shoppers' favourite

1:30pm Saturday 27th October 2012 in News By Tarik Al Rasheed

A LITTLE dog with a big character who was something of a local celebrity in Great Malvern has died.

Jack Russell Bertie had become a familiar face in the Priory Steps shopping area and the adjacent churchyard over the last three-and-a-half years, after being adopted from a canine rescue centre by his owner Liz Burton.

Miss Burton works in Lyttelton House Gallery and Bertie would routinely accompany her to work and pop out to do his own thing.

He became a particularly poignant sight in recent months when at the grand old age of 17 he started to develop arthritis and became accustomed to being carted around in his own special ‘doggy buggy’.

Andrew Morgan, owner of the gallery, said: “Bertie would either sit happily in his buggy or mooch around the Priory Steps, where tourists and locals would stop and pet him, talk to him and even take pictures of him.

“Many would initially be concerned that he was a stray and perhaps injured, and would pop into the gallery to ask if they knew ‘anything about the little dog that’s wandering about’."