saint007:
In a book titled "Tears & Laughter - A Couple of Dozen Dog Stories" by late author Gene Hill, he had this, in a story titled "Tippy," to say about his late and much beloved black Labrador:
"Someone said that the only place you can bury a dog is in your heart. That way you can call the dog in for a little chat now and then - teasing it about being a clumsy puppy and looking down at your old hunting boots and remembering who it was that put the teeth marks in them. You can hunt a day or so again, together, when you need a certain kind of memory - another day you like better than the one you're living in now.
"There's a big hole under the swamp maple in the front yard that Tippy dug, to nap away the hot summer afternoons in the coolness of the dirt; and another one under the dogwood that she would fill with leaves that she liked for warmth and when the weather turned around - she'd come into the house smelling like November.
"She was always a lady in the old-fashioned sense; quiet, well-mannered and gentle with an overwhelming fondness for little babies. She was always poking her nose into a crib or a playpen or a stroller, seemingly immune from being poked in the eye or having her ears tugged - maybe because she she slept with my daughter Patty in the days when they were both puppies.
"I might be wrong, but I really don't remember losing a bird that I shot over Tip. She was an exciting dog to watch in a field trial or from a duckblind. She was a marvelous marker on a downed game, rock steady to shot, and when she entered the water you knew she was determined to leap as far as she could - she had style and pride and you could feel it. I'm sure she knew it pleased me to show her off a little in hunting camps.
"And she was just as fine on upland game. I'd say "Tip, why don't you get in and hunt that thicket for me. I'll bet there's a bird in there." In she'd go and I'd always marvel how she marked a pheasant or a woodcock from a spot so dense. You wouldn't think she could see a flying bird, but she'd be right about where it went a lot more than I was.
"It's not really important that Tip was a good dog to hunt over, but it is important to me that she was a good dog to be with. She was my pal. We enjoyed each other. I don't know that you can ask for much more. I just want to tell you a little bit about her because you weren't ever able to meet her and now the time has passed. Most of us have had one dog or so that we'd have liked friends to enjoy - and Tip was mine.
"It always seems wrong to me that a man's life is so out of phase with his dog's. You ought to be able to enjoy your youth together and grow old together. Fourteen years wasn't enough time for me to live with Tip. I wasn't even ready to admit to myself that she was getting on...and then she was gone.
"But somehow you learn to live with these things and discover, happily, that a man's ability to care deeply about dogs is without limit. He has room in his heart for them all. Tippy's daughters and granddaughter sleep by my feet and walk with me and get mad when they can't go out with me - just the way Tippy did. And I strongly suspect that before too long there will be a great granddaughter tumbling around chasing the cat, adding a new set of tooth marks on my hunting boots and getting up on the good furniture - another Tippy, to be sure, knowing that there's always enough love left for one more.
"One day soon, on the swamp maple above the dusting hole, I'm going to put a small brass plate with the word TIPPY on it. And there will be only one of those."
Amen.
