Cocker Spaniels all……………

My first , when I was a little girl , was Diane’s Mr. Tip ,  AKC registered and called Tippy.  I still have the official registration from the 1940s.  Black with a white chest and white tips on each paw, he was  every little girl’s dream, for sure.

I’ll tell the Tippy story again, the one about his being stolen, and my daddy calling Franklin County Sheriff Tom Watson Andrews , telling him that Diane’s much-loved dog had been stolen and to please be on the look-out.

A month later Tom Watson drove in our driveway with Tippy , found tied behind a barn in Hart County.

Public servant that he was and concerned enough about a child’s pet to continue searching, it is interesting to note that Franklin County’s current sheriff, Scott Andrews , is his grandson , and the mayor of Carnesville is Missy Andrews Holbrook , his granddaughter……………………

The second Cocker was Fitzgerald ( so named for President Kennedy )  , who was the first of many right after Byron and I married.  We lived in an upstairs apartment in Atlanta and how we managed a dog then and there is more than I can even remember. Byron was a student at Georgia Tech  ( and had a job ) and I worked full-time.  So, Fitzgerald was at home in a 3-room apartment by himself for 9 or 10 hours a day .  Only the very young and naive……..

When we moved to Winder, we lived over the ambulances at the funeral home, and Fitzgerald remained  upstairs alone while Byron attended UGA and I taught English at Winder-Barrow High School.

We bought our first  home in Winder, and when Chuck was born, Fitzgerald immediately began having  ”  running fits ” and seizures.  He never was the same and was killed in front of our house by an automobile.

For several years after Muff was born, the children selected their own dogs and we had a Dachshund named Gus and a Weimaraner named Velvet  and many mutts.  But as time went by, we were back to Cockers when Byron and the children gave me a puppy for Christmas .  I named him Seab ( a family name ) , but he, too , was stolen before we really got to know him.

Opie was a puppy first but lived many years as a fat and sassy family member.  He was with us on Vickery but moved to Roberts Woods in 1999.  He had congestive heart failure and on a warm spring day simply could no longer breathe.  Jason ( Dr. Macomson ) came to the house and gently helped Opie cross the Rainbow Bridge as we sat around him  ,  on the living room floor , crying.

Zack and George and Barney followed and each was loved and appreciated in his own way.  George had seizures  and Barney was killed by an automobile after straying from the yard.  Barney always had a ball in his mouth so when he was cremated, we had his favorite ball cremated with him.

We have a pet cemetery in the woods, and the last few have their own grave stones and are protected by St. Francis , inherited from the Haley House.

And , then ,  there was Gracie , indisputably the most loved of all.  Rescued about 10 years ago , she brought us love and peace in every possible way.  My blog, GRACIE, was her eulogy, but no words could express the void she has left…….and no tears can wash away the heart-ache.

JUST DOGS   ???????       NO ,  JUST BLESSINGS   !!!!!!!

 

 

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