Skip to main content

RIP Pepper 1994-2009 (approx)


Today we lost our sweet Pepper girl. It is a very sad day.

We adopted her back in 1999- one of two. Pepper was approximately 6 years old and Petey was approximately 3 years old when they found us. We had been talking to a neighbor about adopting a dog and she asked whether we'd take two. We had a half acre and plenty of room, so we went to pick them up. Petey was barking and Pepper was overwhelmed and cowering in amongst all the other dogs. Several hundred dollars later we took them home. Petey promptly cocked his leg on our brand new leather sofa, marking his new home- he was here to stay.

Pepper was always the quiet one, but she was also our guard dog. She loved to watch the passersby from the windows, and bark at them when they dared to come near. She was the dominant one and loved always to be in front when we walked her, and boy did we walk miles together. Every day. Both of them also loved the long hikes we took them on- we walked so far, they slept the whole way home. We lived around a lake in Georgia and there was a 10 acre piece of Greenspace- they loved to run through it and once they got the idea in their head there was no stopping them. Twice they escaped from their back yard- once we found them in the greenspace, once coming back from the lake. Both times they were on their way home when I found them- huge smiles on their faces. We played hours and hours of ball with them, they chased more squirrels than we could count and Pepper even caught one once- and did not know what to do with it when she did!

Petey was a hound-huskey mix and we loved him dearly too. He died of cancer in January 2007, just before we moved to California. I drove Pepper across the states the following month- 2580 miles because I did not want to put her on a plane. The two of them were holy terrors together- but once Pepper was on her own, she enjoyed being the only dog. We spoiled her rotten and joked that our home here in California was her retirement home. She loved the climate here and spent hours in the garden- we had to force her to come in at night. She had slowed down a lot recently, and as an old dog she was going blind, and deaf and had arthritis, but as the vet said 'everyone gets old'. She still plodded on. Today it was just too much.

It's weird how the universe throws these things at us. I only blogged about her on Sunday, as I had just found pictures of when we first adopted her- maybe I was meant to find them then.

We have some great memories of our Pepper girl. But, I am going to miss her so much.

Comments

kate c said…
What a lovely picture of Pepper.
She was tired and she wanted to rest and stay in the garden forever. You have some great memories.

Thinking of you and the empty space she leaves.

Love
Kate
x
Zerlindatar said…
Hello Jackie, just heard about your blog last night at photo club. What a wonderful tribute to Pepper. We love our schnauzer so much and I can't even imagine what we would ever do without her. Even though we are old, she is our first dog and has added so much to our lives.
You have some wonderful photos posted already. Keep up the good work. My blog is purplebicycle.blogspot.com very low tech but I am having fun with it.

Popular posts from this blog

Shrimp Artichoke Pizza With Cilantro Pesto

We are die hard home made pizza fans, and make one once a week- usually Friday or Sunday nights. They normally consist of a pizza base made in the bread machine, with toppings such us onions, peppers, mushrooms, and some kind of sausage with a good layer of fresh mozzarella. For a long time, Dick has tried to convince me that shrimp is good on a pizza, but I just didn't even like the sound of any kind of fish on pizza. If I've ever had shrimp on pizza it was a long time ago and they were small and hard after being baked. Yuk. However, last weekend we both ended up listening to a story on NPR about a winning pizza recipe in New York. It actually sounded good even to me, and tonight we made it, and it was lovely!

CA to MA day 3- Pasdena CA to Needles CA

Today we left Pasadena and joined route 66. We are following a combination of an open street map with a GPX of route 66 on it, a paper map especially for route 66 and a book because there are several iterations of the route, as it changed over time. The drive out of LA from Pasadena towards San Bernardino started off really well, and we already saw lots of iconic signs. However, after two hours of constant traffic lights, we ended up cutting off a short section of that part of route 66 to keep our sanity, and joined I15 for a short distance, unfortunately, we also missed another short section of route 66 which we should have joined. Our first actual stop was in a tiny town called Victorville where we stopped for lunch at an old route 66 diner called Emma Jean's Holland Burger Cafe. We shared a 'Brian Burger' which was recommended in the book we have. It was a great recommendation! It was a really well cooked tasty burger - so glad we shared it as it was enormous! Ther

Travelling to Kauai

So this week, my blog entries will also be a diary of my holiday in Kauai, and a photo or two, although most of the photos will probably be on my Flickr page. We left home yesterday early from San Jose airport, which was not a pleasant experience- one word sums it up- queues! We only just made the plane and arrived at the airport over an hour and a half before the flight. The flight was on Hawaiian Air, and they too, are squeezing every penny they can, from having to pay to check any bags, to renting headsets and movie players on board. The flight was a long one; extra time for strong headwinds meant a 6 hour flight just to Honolulu. We did make the connection in time and the 30 minute flight to Kauai was so short it was laughable. It was also really windy in Kauai but it was warm and slightly humid with partly cloudy skies. Perfect. We arrived at the rental home a few hours before Joel and Stevie and found out very quickly why they love it so much here: and the view from the house was