She's One of the Family!

Piper. To my grandma this is a funny and weird name. She thinks it is way too hard to say, especially when it is a dog’s name. She thinks it is difficult to call out the name Piper when yelling for a dog. To me this is the perfect name for my dog. Piper just turned two years old on September 12, 2009. As you can tell from that right there, I love my dog to pieces because I even know her birthday. She is a Yorkshire bischon mix. She is a golden-tan color and is no joke, the cutest thing ever! Obviously I am a little biased considering she is my baby but everyone says how adorable she is. She is considered one of the family and since I am an only child, she is like my sister. Sometimes my mom will say to her, “Go find Sissy” referring to me as her sister. It’s just normal for us to consider her a person. My boyfriend always says she even understands us when we say something to her. I will tell her, “Go find mom” and she will kind of look at me and then dart off and find mom. No joke, I really think this dog understands us when we speak to her. It is crazy! We also enjoy dressing her up in little outfits. Now we do not put her in the stupid, crazy, outrageous outfits but for instance, she gets cold in the winter so she has to wear a sweater. She looks so cute when she is in her sweaters. She has multiple in fact  but this weekend my mom and I were at Marshall’s and we found this little Christmas dress. It is soooo cute! Its red and has a little ruffle at the bottom with a little bell on top. You cannot say it is not adorable. So Christmas morning when we are opening gifts, she will be wearing that dress. We also always give her gifts on Christmas. We’ll wrap treats in wrapping paper and she will paw and lick and bite at it until eventually she will rip it open. Or if she is having an issue with gift opening, we’ll rip it a little and help her out. The only reason we actually ever got Piper was after years and years of me trying to get a dog we finally did. We had a Jack Russel Terrier, Lil. We had her since I was five years old and I always thought she would love to have a ‘little sister’. So we finally got Piper after my dad did thorough searching. The ironic thing is, is my dad is veterinarian and people always ask how many animals you have, thinking we have a lot. Well no, we actually only had one dog up until two years ago. On November 1, 2007 Piper came home! But unfortunately in April of last year Lil died  but having Piper definitely made the loss a lot easier. She helped all of us cope with the loss of our baby, Lil. The sweetest thing about when Lil died is right when she was about to go, Piper seemed to know. She layed her head on top of Lil’s and stayed there until she died. There are not too many things as cute as that. Although that was a sad time we have had our closure with Lil’s death and are now fully enjoying Piper’s personality. This dog has one of the biggest personalities I have ever met. She can express just about every emotion humans can and she also ‘talks’ as we call it. She will let you know exactly what she wants, when she wants it. And you can usually decipher her noises and actions to precisely what she wants. When she wants food or water, she will stare you straight in the eyes, whine, and look at you with this look. When she wants to go outside, she whines even harder and usually does a little dance of sorts. And to try to demonstrate how spoiled my dad has made this dog I will tell you a few things. When she wants to go outside she will always have a specific door she wants to go out of. Either the front or back door. If you go to the wrong one, she will refuse to go out that one and will bark and whine and basically yell at you until you let her out the correct door. Usually I will just grab her and throw her out the door I am at because I do not have the patience for her neediness  Also when she is outside in the backyard and dog is walking in the street, she refuses to run in the yard with the dog. No she has to come to the back door, scratch like crazy, and then dart to the front door and expect you to let her out there. She uses the house as a short cut. It is unbelievable that she does this. That is all my dad’s handy work. He thinks it is funny that she will do all that. I find it highly annoying. O well I still love her to death. My aunt always jokingly says when she dies she wants to come back as one of our dogs because we treat them so well.

Some people will read this and think I am absolutely nuts because I know some people who do not view animals in the same way. Some people think animals are not meant to be that involved in families and I guess maybe I can understand their point of view but I could never imagine my life without dogs and animals. I am so tempted to get a dog and somehow sneak it in my dorm room and it can live with me. It would be amazing if that could actually happen. So to everyone who is reading this, if you have animals, are they as much a part of your family as Piper is in ours and if you don’t have animals, do you wish you did?