That one’s a pip, said Jan, the breeder, “last out, always fighting to get to the front of the line.”
I looked at the little Black Lab puppy that had crawled over the top of the pup I was looking at and virtually jumped into my hand.
This little pup was lively. She kept jumping up almost saying, “Hey, look at me!”
That was almost fourteen years ago. We named her Pip because she really was one. She was always into everything and very strong willed.
Pip was energetic, did “zoomies” with little provocation. She never had a problem with house breaking; she got that right away. She was hard to train, though. She did not like to be told what to do. “Leash? No way. Sit? – forget it. Come – I don’t think so!” I travelled in her puppy days, and Billie used to tell me on the phone, “Today I just sat on the back stoop and cried. This dog will never listen.”
This trait never left her. At 13, diabetic, blind, a barely moving arthritic dog, Pip would balk when you’d try to steer her away from walking into a wall or furniture. “Nope, I am going this way.” Bang. “Ouch, OK, you might have had a point.”
Pip passed on this morning, into a quiet sleep being caressed by Billie and me.
We will remember her younger days, running free in the woods after she learned to come back when called, a process that caused some panicked moments. She was always good with my granddaughters, though she once knocked a four-year-old over in a zoomie. “I’m OK,” my granddaughter said as she slid down the wall to the floor and got up smiling.
Pip would leap into anyone’s car in a single bound ̶ except ours. I had to lift her in front paws first then lift her back end. “That’s just the way we do things.”
In many ways, she ran our life. Billie laughed at a tee shirt she saw, but didn’t buy. We would say it out loud when Pip was being stubborn: “You can’t tell me what to do; you’re not my dog.”
We know we will miss Pip. We’ll miss the reason to go for a walk even in the winter dark and cold. We’ll probably find tufts of black fur for months and tear up. I have poopie bags and treats in many pockets. I’m not sure I’ll miss being awakened before five to clean up poop, but I’ll probably wake up anyway.
It’s hard to lose a member of the family. Pip blessed our lives, our children’s and grandchildren’s and all the friends and family that shared a little scratch behind the ears. “Yeah, right there, right there. Oooo, great thanks. Got any treats?”