Are there dogs in Heaven?  I can only imagine.

We always had farm animals; cats we never fed, or they wouldn’t catch mice and working dogs to tend the livestock and even a pet pig.  However, I had never had a pet dog, one whose only job was to eat, sleep and be my friend.  Then one day a neighbor’s dog had just had a litter and he needed to get rid of the puppies.  He asked me if I needed a dog, otherwise he would just have to put all of the pups in the litter to sleep.  I had watched my father do that when one of our working dogs had pups.  Cruel, yes, however, they can’t be tending a litter when they should be herding livestock.  After getting an OK from my parents, the pick of the Heinz 57 litter was mine.  My choice – the runt of the litter- would probably not have been the first choice of anyone else.  With his little head tilted sideways and his big black eyes looking up at me, were almost saying, “Please choose me”.

When I brought him home I was asked, “How much did that mutt cost?”  My answer was, “Nothing,” and the reply was, “You sure got jipped.”  So, what did I call my new little friend? – JIP.  And what a jip he was.  Besides destroying shoes, socks, caps and anything else he could get his needle sharp teeth into, he was always sniffing and nipping at the heels of our working dogs and distracting them so they couldn’t do their job properly. Nuzzling his way in between the hungry pigs lined up at their trough, he would join them in eating whatever they had been fed; he ate dead birds and drug half eaten rabbits home. He was definitely a compulsive eater with bad taste and a much worse breath.  But when he curled up in my lap and licked my cheek, I still loved him.  Soon he was nipping at my heels, following me wherever I would go, and doing the job he was supposed to do (and did best!) – being my friend.

One Sunday evening as my eldest sister and her boy friend were driving out of our yard, Jip was chasing one of our working dogs, and they crossed in front of the Model A Ford.  More intent on catching the dog in front of him, Jip didn’t see the on-coming front wheel of the car.  From just a few feet away, horrified, hearing the crunching of bones and a mournful yelp, I witnessed the life being crushed out of my little friend.  My heart was broken, and with the help of my youngest sister we placed Jip in a cardboard box that served as a make-shift coffin.   With a shovel in one hand and the coffin in the other, we made our journey to his final resting place.

Cattle and horses nearby, stopped their grazing for grass and watched curiously, almost like mourners sharing our grief.  We dug deep into the soft silt of a depression in our pasture.  We said our goodbyes with sadness and lowered the cardboard coffin into the hole. The small wooden marker, nailed to a sharp pointed stake that we had hurriedly fashioned, was pounded into the ground at the head of the grave.  On our knees, we leaned back from the small mound of dirt that was shaped like a tiny grave, and admired the epitaph that we had written on the marker.  That epitaph, scribed in black crayon wouldn’t remain legible very long, but forever would be etched in our minds.  JIP –  “All good doggies go to Heaven”.