One of my favorite qualities in Trip is that while he loves to be near me, he doesn’t have to be on me. All of my lovely daughters would like to be on me – all the time. By the time the three of them are in bed having Trip come and flop down near me is fantastic.  We keep each other company.  I talk at him, he doesn’t talk back. I keep full mobility of all my limbs, he gets to stretch out and stay cool. I love my dog.

Tonight while waiting for my poor, sad, computer to catch it’s breath after I asked it to do too many things at once, I reached down to pet Trip. As soon as I touched the hair on his back Trip just about jumped out of his skin. Truly, I think he almost lost his hide when he went from sleeping sprawled out on his side to upright and facing the opposite direction in one giant leap.   Since I wasn’t expecting such a dramatic response my response to his response was a bit, ahhh, shall we say, extreme as well. As soon as we peeled ourselves off the ceilings and refit our skin Trip gave me his best offended dog look, stalked over to the opposite side of the room and flopped down on the dog bed with a big huff.

Not only did I miss out on my nightly dog bonding time but the cat came to sit on me instead.

Must make a note: Let sleeping dogs lie!

This is Storm,

…she likes sticks.

This is Storm,

…she loves sticks.

This is Storm,

she has a stick obsession.

Obsessed as in John and I never touch sticks. Touching a stick is like sending Storm a telegraph indicating that you’d love to play fetch with her for the next three days.  Since that is never the case we don’t touch sticks. Ever.  Even when Storm drops a stick on your lap, you can’t touch it or – THREE DAYS OF FETCH!

Obsessed as in she’s got shiny white teeth from frantically chewing sticks into wood chips on peoples feet in some misguided hope that that will increase the chances of someone playing with her. Brush off those wood chips at your peril, they are actually tiny sticks and – THREE DAYS OF FETCH!

Obsessed as in even Ivy and Clara know that you can’t play with sticks when Storm is outside. Try to use a stick as a fairy wand and -THREE DAYS OF FETCH!

Obsessed as in any unsuspecting visitor to our house is greeted with the words, “Don’t touch the stick.” Sadly for most people they don’t believe John and I and before you know it there goes that Storm telegraph -THREE DAYS OF FETCH!

Like in any true obsession Storm has a huge amount focus and patience when it comes to sticks.  In Storms case this manifests itself in bug eyed, panting, staring, focus and the patience to outlast any unsuspecting victim who might be near a stick and eventually forget that Storm is there and touch it – THREE DAYS OF FETCH!

Storm, no doubt dismayed by her family’s general stick aversion, must remember that the last baby grew up into a girl who will occasionally throw a stick for her. So she is patently waiting for her next playmate to grow up.

Just to make sure she doesn’t miss the moment when Jane is ready to play every time Jane is on the ground Storm brings her a stick. It’s only a matter of time before all that stick dropping persistence pays off and Jane learns her first lesson about – THREE DAYS OF FETCH!

When Jane was born Tyler took Trip to stay with him until we had a handle on life with three kids.

So while John and I missed sleep, changed diapers and broke up fights we didn’t also have to clean up dog barf, walk dogs and attempt to teach Trip manners. The theory was that Trip would stay with Tyler and get to do lots of hunting until John and I figured out how to survive life with three girls. I’m not sure we’ve got the three kid thing down yet but I missed my puppy enough that I convinced John we’d be fine if he came back home. After almost two months of living with this as our only dog…

…I was really excited to see Tyler pull in the driveway over the weekend!

By the time Tyler was ready to go home we had noticed that Trip was a bit more mellow,  happily sleeping under the desk while he was in the house and it looked like things would be just fine.

Which was good because I had zero intention of letting Tyler take him back home again.

So, Tyler said goodbye to Trip (and us), and things went great, for about 4 hours.

Then Trip got stuck under the brooder house and John had to use a car jack to lift the house and get him out.

Good thing it’s a four hour drive to Tyler’s or John may have taken him back that night!

In the weeks since we’ve lost Piper, Ivy and I have shared Piper stories every time she comes to me teary eyed saying she misses Piper. When it’s Ivy’s turn to share a story, she tells about when she snuck up on an unsuspecting Piper in the kitchen. Ivy then crawled up on a chair and climbed onto Pipers back while Piper stood and looked at me cooking dinner with eyes that said, “Seriously?”. I told Piper to sit, which she did. Piper’s problem was solved, and Ivy thought the slide down Pipers back was hilarious. One of my recent favorite stories of the late, great Piper is one that I always meant to share and never had a chance to. So in honor of Piper, who would actually hate the fact that I’m laughing at her, here is what was possibly one of Piper’s most embarrassing moments:

First off you should know that while Piper loved the water she never liked to swim. In fact, for all the time she spent on and around water I only remember her swimming four times. Once was when she dumped us out of a canoe, another was when she slid off the end of a dock, once when she accidentally ran out too deep in the water and one time when she was chasing a pheasant over a water filled ditch (I’m guessing she didn’t know how deep it was). Swimming was not a voluntary activity for Piper. What she did love was running and splashing in the shallow water.  Piper would do one of two things. Either run gigantic crazy circles that were half on land half in water or she would wait just out far enough that she could stand but the other dogs couldn’t and then jump on them when they came by. I loved my dog, I miss my dog, but my dog was undeniably a butt-head at times.

Piper waiting to jump on Storm at the Shack

On to my story –  this fall I was walking with my friend Jessie and all five of our dogs on some public hunting ground that Bad Fish Creek runs through. Bad Fish Creek at that place and time was no more than 15 feet or so of running water with an equal sized area of very shallow slow moving water on our side of the creek. The problem was that the shallow water seemed to be about 5 inches of water on top of 10 inches of thick black mud. We justified getting the dogs messy by walking them back through the fields where they’d be mostly dried off and mud free by the time we packed them all in the vehicle. (Have you ever seen a Great Dane a large Lab mix, a Wimeranier, a Pudlepointer and a Britney puppy all in the back of a station wagon? It was like a clown car for dogs!) On this particular day Piper was feeling especially good, we had recently got her arthritis under control and boy was she excited to see the water! So excited she started doing her gigantic crazy circles. The circles were a little more impressive than normals since the bank on the side of the creek was quite steep and covered with long grass. She’d run down jump into the water and then have to actually  jump back up on the bank to do it again. I was watching her enjoy herself when on her way into the water both front legs got caught up in the long grass. With the amount of momentum that she already had going Piper continued to fly toward the water… nose first.  Unable to recover her footing whatsoever she splashed into the water nose first and slid on her chest a foot or two before she was able to get her legs back under her and stand up. By this time, sensitive dog owner that I am, I was already laughing, but when she stood up and looked at me I completely lost it. Piper had sunk into the mud up over her eyes to the tops of her ears. When she stood up she was completely black from the top of her head down to her feet.  Her white eyes were startling as she looked out of her black face, and while I think I could fairly accurately translate the look that she gave Jessie and I, this is a family blog and it wouldn’t be appropriate.  When she was done giving us a her death glare and we had regained control of the laughter and dried our tears. Piper made up for the embarrassment by jumping on a few of the other dogs. Which, while unfortunate for those squashed under her, it did help get some of the mud off. Only some of it though, there was enough left that she required a bath when we got home (except that she only took showers, but that’s a different story) and we got another disgusted look from her as we laughed all over again telling John about it.

I can still picture it, and no doubt if Piper were still here today she’d see me laughing at her, crawl up on her couch, heave a big sigh, and then attempt to ignore me. Yup, I do miss that dog!