le chien

We lost our dog, Kipper, this weekend. He was 15 and had a good life.I'm afraid, with his passing, that it's all I can write about today. He sat by me for fifteen years and honestly, was an inspiration for my detective's dog, Miles Davis. They were related. My dog Kipper, was a coton de tulear and Miles Davis a bichon frise, so they're like cousins. More to the point my dog should be included as a co-writer. He'd often paw at the printed out pages of a draft and yes, re-reading them I'd see a definite place to rewrite. He also was a furball whose ears perked up the exclamations I'd make while writing, at the mention of a 'walk' which was of his biggest joys. At Christmas the family gave him LED lights for his collar and we'd make quite a splash with his blinking bobs among other dogs out with their walkers. Not a month ago, when Kipper could walk, he darted out the front door and a neighbor jumped in surprise and said 'hey, that puppy's full of life.' He was pretty much almost to the end. Years ago, when my son won his wish to get a dog - after years of negotiation, we realized my son was dog allergic and found several non-allergenic breeds. Big wonderful soft coated wheatons, cockadoodles and yet these big guys wouldn't fit our doggie door to the yard. I scoffed at the frou-frou dogs that I'd see in Paris, the white fluff balls in women's Dior bags, and yet, they were hypo-allergenic and we ended up with a frou frou type who was all macho. Monsieur Macho, a Coton de Tulear, of French court origin who comes from Madagascar. Go figure. I've never understood but gather these Cotons you see in old paintings of the court got transplanted to Africa. Or maybe it was vice-versa. In February for the fete de rois, where those wonderful galletes contain a ceramic token/prize, and the winner gets the crown we made him an honorary king. But he was always the king in my heart, my son's and my husband. Cara - Tuesday