As mentioned on Wednesday, the family said goodbye to Piper on Tuesday evening.
Piper adopted us during the summer of 2002. I was 21 years old, had just finished my B.A. at Syracuse University and returned to Dallas for the summer to work and save money before embarking on graduate school in the fall.
I also met and started dating Trevor that same summer. On our first "official" date, Trevor took me after dinner to meet his brother "Walter" and his brand new pug puppy named "Spencer". Or so I thought. As it turned out, his brother's name is "Spencer" and the dog was "Walter". I had everything backwards, and it took several more dates before I could say with certainty which human was which was canine.
I actually didn't get to meet Trevor’s brother that evening, but I did get to meet the pug along with Trevor's mother. Trevor's mom wasn't expecting us and was wearing a bath robe. It was all very strange and awkward. I still rib Trevor about how he took me to meet his mother on our first date.
(Secretly, I hope he did it because he knew I was a keeper.)
It was also the fabulous summer where Kelly spent almost as much time at my mother’s house as I did. And there were days when all we did was swim in the pool, layout in the sun, watch movies and eat left over Mattitos. I had turned my mother’s dining table into my own personal scrapbooking room, as I attempted to preserve the past as I simultaneously relished in the last few weeks of my carefree youth. It was a glorious time.
Walter and Alley circa 2006(ish).
As the summer wore on, Trevor would bring Walter over to visit, and everyone would just ooh and ahh over that tiny little, funny looking puppy. Walter, at the time, was working on the whole housebreaking thing, and Trevor and I would take the little guy outside often to use the potty. On one such occasion, we were in the front yard when this large, yellow lab came bounding across the neighbor’s lawn toward us. She had no collar on (although you could see where one used to sit on her neck), but was friendly. Thinking she must have gotten out of someone’s backyard, we took her inside with us for safe keeping.
At first, we thought the dog was 3-5 years old, because she was overweight and not in very good shape. However, after a quick trip to the vet to scan for a chip, it was determined that the lab was only about a year to a year and a half in age. No chip was found, though, so we returned home and proceeded to call around to the local shelters to see if anyone had reported a missing Labrador retriever.
No one had.
We also called the local animal control in the area. They offered to come and pick her up, but told us that they could only keep a dog for three days before having to euthanize. Thinking it might take a while to locate the owners, we made the decision to keep the dog in the interim so she wouldn’t be at risk of being put down before her owners could be located.
A week went by. Then two. No one came forward to claim the dog, responded to any of the flyers in the neighborhood or called from one of the shelters. And, after awhile, the big, yellow dog just became ours.
My mom named her “Piper”. And the rest, as they say, is history.
It is just so strange to look back on the last nine years of Piper’s life with our family. I can still see her bounding up to us in the front yard that evening. I remember the day she figured out swimming was fun, and the first time she took a leap of faith and jumped into my mother’s pool to retrieve a ball. She was always such a great “people” dog. So friendly, and never met a human she didn’t like (especially if she could convince them to throw the ball for her).
A The first picture taken of Trevor and I back in 2002 2003.
Why we chose a house being torn down as the background, I will never know.
Why we chose a house being torn down as the background, I will never know.
I never really thought about it before, but in many ways that silly, big dog represented the beginning of Trevor and me. Not that we ever were her official owners or anything. Piper was always my mother’s dog. But Trevor and I were two of the ones that found her. We had just started dating and had no idea that our relationship that summer would last. If you had told me then that nine years later we would be married and living in Dallas, I would have said you were crazy. And, yet, here we are.
I guess our pets will always symbolize a certain time or period in our life, and having them around is almost like a tangible connection to that past. They represent a particular time, and when they leave us it is impossible not to recall all those situations and events in which they were present.
For me, Piper stands for the summer of 2002. When I think of her I am reminded of a simpler time full of flip flops, cheese dip, bathing suites, playing catch, swimming pools, new love and great friends. This seems fitting since Piper’s favorite season was always the time of the year when everyone was outside and she could go swimming and play fetch all day and late into the evening.
If I had a do-over, though, I’d love to go back to Memorial Day Monday and throw that silly ball into the pool just one last time.
I hope there are a lot of tennis balls in heaven.
Indestructible squeaky toys, too.
We will miss you, Pipey Wipey!
