Pip.

It was a rough start to the new year because we had to put Pip (Bob and Katherine’s dog) down at about 9 am on New Year’s Day. Pip had been staying with us through the holiday as B & K were traveling to Sweden to see Ben et al and we knew he had some health issues at the beginning of the visit. He was having some diarrhea and a cough which was due to his long standing heart issues. But despite these issues, Pip seemed very peppy. Eager to eat, excited to play “the game” (where we hide a piece of meat (usually from our dinner) somewhere in the house and put the doggies in a sit-stay and then we release them and they nose around until they find their treasure), happy to go on walks and sleeping comfortably. We got the diarrhea cleared up with some Flagyl, but the coughing got steadily worse waking us all up in the middle of the night, but he’d go back to sleep curled up at our feet and so would we. But it got concerning enough to take him to the local vet for a chest x-ray (clear) and another course of antibiotics. But as the days passed, we could hear Pip’s breathing become more labored and the cough getting worse and sometimes he wouldn’t eat, but then other times he’d eat happily and seemed perky and agile and so we shrugged and played the game and went on walks. Until New Years day at about 8 am when Pip, unsurprisingly, did not want to eat his breakfast and then went Jeremy went to him (while he was calmly sleeping on a dining room chair) to nudge him awake to try to eat again, Pip could not get up and was unsteady seemed about to fall off the chair and then we brought him to the living room where it was clear he was in acute distress. Jeremy took him to the emergency vet where they saw fluid all around his heart and thought it might be a tear in his heart. B and K were phoned in Europe and a sad consensus reached. Jeremy was home by 10:30 and cried and cried. Our dogs, our pets, we love so much and are so sad when they are gone.

My fondest memories of Pip are of Pip and Elka when Elka was still a puppy and wanted to play all the time and Pip was game. I’d never seen Pip play before and he was already a tiny, old man with a weak heart, but he played and played with Elka – our ferocious half pit bull puppy – flipping his body and baring his teeth and standing his ground. I am alpha to you! Grrrrrrr!!!!