“Something Must Be Special About That Dog”

Pepper. Pep-Pep. Peppy. Pepper-Depper. Peps. Peppy-Deppy. Our fluffy, bouncy, happy, licky, loving, teeny girl.

After I shared the news of Pepper’s passing, I received a message from one of you that said, “I remember when you got Pepper, I thought something must be very special about that dog for them to get something so different from a vizsla.” That’s exactly it. She nailed it. Pepper was so, so special. She was the rescue dog that captured my heart from the minute I clicked the link on the rescue website and saw her. I knew she needed a home and I knew it needed to be ours. What I didn’t know is how much we needed her.

I would’ve never said I was a “small dog person.” Never in a million years. But oh my gosh there was something so, so special about this fluff-bucket of affection and love. Pepper was the absolute perfect dog for a family with young kids. For our family. She took to the boys quickly and was a willing participant in all of their imagination games. She let absolutely anyone hold her and would peacefully hang out in the arms of adults and 3-year-olds alike. She found her way into forts and puppet shows. She thought car rides to school drop-offs and pick-ups were better than trips to Disney World. When we’d ask her, “Peppy, you wanna come?” in the morning, it was like her world just exploded in the best way and she’d spin in circles and bunny hop on her back legs until we’d leash her up and she’d find her spot as “Captain Pepper” in the groove of my hip as I’d drive.

Her only enemies in the world were the vacuum and windshield wipers.

She was playful and cuddly and always up for a snuggle session on the couch or a kayak ride in the lake. She was unsure of her new vizsla brother, Comet, when he rocked her world in December but fairly quickly embraced her role as big sister and the “alpha” which cracked us up. In the evening at bedtime, she would coerce Comet into the most hilarious game of “come get me” as she’d dive under the boys’ beds, wait for Comet to wiggle his much-too-large body under the small space and then pop out again, leaving us all cracking up as she did this over and over again. (This was actually one of Rhett’s first thoughts after she died. “Are Comet and Pepper never going to get to play their silly game again?” Ooph.)

She was also my girl and our intense attachment had me laughing and feeling a little Elle Woods-y if I would ever open the front door with this teacup of a dog in my arms because she was so far from the stereotype prissy little princess of a little dog. She loved camping and hiking. Miles of walking. Swimming in the lake and jumping off one of the boys’ kayaks to swim to the other. She was a sucker for peanut butter and jelly sandwich crusts and a fluffy blanket. She loved curling up in the boys’ beanbag chairs and her cat-like perch on the top of the seatback couch cushions where she had the best view of the house and her people. But most of all she was in love with our family. A feeling that was more than reciprocated back to her.

I know from losing a dog before that the sting of adjusting to everyday life without Pepper is most raw and the hardest it will be right now. I know it will lessen with time as we stop reaching for her leash or reflectively bending over when we get home because she’d normally fly over to greet us with her bunny hops and licks the second she heard the garage door open. I know I’ll stop physically feeling my heart hurt and that weighty feeling in my chest at nighttime as I read and long for her body that would normally be curled up into my stomach. I know eventually this will stop consuming all of my thoughts and overtaking my emotions. I know all of this but right now we just have to get through it. That’s part of what sucks. (We’ve even let our big kids say the word “sucks” right now.) And that’s not even scratching the surface of the horrific event that took her from us. That feels like something out of a nightmare and something separate entirely that I am only beginning to process. That’s another layer of absolute misery I would not wish on anyone in the entire world.

Right now I’m stuck where many, many dog lovers everywhere have been after the loss of a beloved dog: I just want my dog back and I miss her so, so much.