Even ‘good dogs’ die

By Tim Henney
Reader Staff

My son has buried my Best Friend Tippy in the backyard among the raspberry bushes. 

She and I were roughly the same age: in our early ’90s (in Tippy’s case, in dog years — she was 14 to us humans). 

Only fellow dogster pals like Don Douglas, Kathryn Kolberg, Charles Mortensen, Pete and Meg Larramendy, Ed Smith, Aileen and Don McCabe, Angela and Justin Henney, Bonnie Hagen, Dan and Jill Murphy, Lynn Courville, Catherine Ford, Michael Spurgin, Heidi and Peter Gatch, Brenda and Ted Pease, and Stephanie Davis will understand when I say that Tipster and I were inseparable, devoted companions — on car rides to the grocery store, on the Bay Trail and blue gate hikes, sailing a sloop to Buttonhook Bay and road trips to winters where it was warmer, before my 1957 bride and I became old and addled and patio-bound. 

Family evenings were often spent listening to Tippy’s views on politics, overpopulation, climate change, canned dog food, Taylor Swift, etc. Courtesy photo.

Of the dozen or so dear, memorable, much-loved dogs my family and I have owned, Tippy was not only the most entertaining but maybe the dearest. (I am assuming those beloved hounds of ours happily wagging and woofing about in dog heaven — Buckeye, Walter, Jezebelle, B.B., Chester, Madeline, Copper and their peers — are not clairvoyant, and innocently unaware I am writing this.) 

My 1957 bride and I loved Tippy like we love our kids and grandkids. That’s difficult to fathom by those who don’t like dogs. Such folks simply can’t imagine how comforting it was when Tippy would see my bed lamp on early in the morning, leave her cozy leather chair in the den, come wagging in and expertly position herself so I could effortlessly reach down from bed and stroke her head. Or how comic it was when, at breakfast, Tippy would toss her morning bone in the air, let it bounce on the living room carpet, then snatch it, then twirl in circles — first one way, then the other — pausing to stare at us, ears up, aged dog eyes sparkling like a puppy’s to make sure we were watching. 

Then, with a huge smile, she’d do it all again. And again. The quintessential “good dog.” 

Illegally off leash in Lakeview Park, Tippy would suddenly become deaf if she saw kids in the play area where it says “No Dogs.” No matter how alpha I tried to sound, she failed to hear me demanding that she not dash off to join kids atop the slide. She would rush into their midst, tail moving a mile a minute, ears flat back, all smiles. (Yeah, you non dogsters, dogs do smile; more often, it seems, than many people encountered along life’s way). 

Tippy was the antithesis of “meaner than a junk yard dog,” as the Jim Croce pop song goes. I never heard her growl in all of our many years together, except when we had obligatory early morning battles with a cast-off shirt or underwear — and those were growls and grunts of comradely combat. 

But wait, there was an exception! When some hairy young poodle or malamute dude would strut up and sniff without permission, Tippy would swing around snapping and snarling like a werewolf. With kids, cats, family, friends and gentleman poodle sniffers, she brought happiness and affection. 

Jackrabbits in the sagebrush around Moab, Utah, were another story. Speedster that Tippy was, and yapping frantically, she never came close to catching one. 

Tippy led a charmed dog life as a family member; but, what we gave her was a pittance compared to the companionship and joy she brought us from the morning my 1957 bride rescued her — young, pregnant, abandoned and about to attempt a crossing of truck-heavy Highway 95 in Ponderay. (Many thanks for dumping her on the highway, unknown heartless barbarian; people like you belong in prison). 

Giving companionship and joy is what all good dogs do. Then they die.