All Dogs Go To Heaven

Today Kipper joined our Taffy in dog heaven. Ironically he had the same cancer Taffy had and followed her just three months after she went. We will miss you Kipper so much.

Almost 10 years ago, Drew and I were ready for a pet dog so we headed down to the City Shelter. I wanted a female dog and was looking at this Shepard mix when Drew said to me "mommy, I like this one" I turned around and saw that he was male and I said "I wanted a girl dog, look at this one." So Drew turned around to look at the dog I was looking at and the male dog started barking and whining to get our attention. I thought he is a cute little dog, so we asked the attendant about him. She put him on a leash and we went outside and she told us this is a good dog, he is leash trained and house broken. We decided to get him but there was a 5 day hold on him because the dog catcher found him and they had to wait to see if he was claimed by a family. They told us that he was trapped in an abandoned building where the stairs had collapsed behind him. The dog catcher thought he was so sweet that he rode up front in the truck cab with him instead of in the back with the other dogs! We waited and hoped that "our" dog would come home to us. Just before Halloween 1999 we got the call that no one had claimed him and he was ours! He came home to us the first week of November. Because we got the news on Halloween we thought we would give him a Halloween name. We tried different names but the dog never looked up. Well some of you might remember a television program for kids called "Kipper the dog" and that video tape was sitting on top of our TV, so I said "what about Kipper?" and he lifted his head and wagged his tail! That was his name from then on.

Once not long after we got him we were having White Castles and Kipper stole one right out of Drew's hand! We figured he remembered them from living on the streets! Kipper has been a great dog. Sometimes a little neurotic but he was loyal. He loved us as much as we loved him and our house will never be the same without him in it. We will miss you old man!