Missing my silent, devoted companion.. Tipsy

Tipsy, my 10 year old german shepherd left us on 3rd April, 2015. I never realized when he became part of my life.   A german shepherd with rare white and black color, was a very handsome and beautiful dog. He was healthy and we raised him on vegetarian diet.  When we brought him to our life, he was of 20 days and was not even able to walk steadily. He used to wobble dabble here and there while he walked like a tipsy. So we named him Tipsy.

He filled a huge gap in my life, of being a companion. I used to take him out for a walk twice a day – morning and evening. He always used to wait for me when I was away and waited for me for dinner till I was back home. 

The nature and persona of Tipsy was such that whoever met him even for a while had instantly became fan of him. There are many family’s who opted for pet after seeing or meeting Tipsy. 

For us he was like another family member. My mother never leashed him. We always kept him free in our house. He always lived with us. The bonding of Tipsy with me was very close. He never left me even for a second when I was home. He slept with me in my room and we were together on weekends and played together. He used to be a happy guy whenever we played together.

He was very intelligent and humble German shepherd.  I remember how he befriend with my wife when I got married. She was very scared of dogs. She came from family who didn’t had any pet ever.  After few days after I got married, my wife was watching TV and was sitting on bed. Tipsy suddenly jumped on bed and sat on lap of hers. This made her shed her fear. Tipsy took initiative to befriend our new family member – my wife.  Years gone by, my family grew, I have two children’s both have grown up with tipsy as part of our family and I didn’t found any issues with having a dog with infants or toddlers. In fact sometimes we noticed that he used to tell us if baby is awake or is crying. Such was his devotion.

German shepherds by nature are easy to train and are one of the top intelligent breeds of the world. So we don’t have to work hard to make him learn few commands. He used to sit when we told him to sit and used to hand shake us with his right hand and on change command used to give his left hand. My mom as head of  our family  was supreme commander for him as well. He used to listen and obey to her. She had experience of handling the dogs and is fond of this animal.

In March 2015, I came back to home from a business trip after three weeks. Everything seemed normal. After two weeks of my coming back, he fell sick. We thought that it was normal. As he used to stop eating for few days  (1 or 2) when ever he felt that his stomach is upset or when season changed. This was the time when summer was setting in from winter. But after 2 days he still didn’t ate and my mom noticed that he is having fever. We called up the vet, who gave some treatment and next day he looked better but ate very less.  We noticed he was not able to walk with conviction as he used to be and his right hind leg was scratching the road and was not able to control his body.

This ringed the alarm bell and we consulted another vet, who advised us to get his blood test. The reports showed very high percentage of urea content in blood due to kidney dysfunction.  

We could not see this coming, we lost the track of his age. He completed 10 years to life with us. After trying everything we could. He left us after two weeks of fight with life.

More over he left us on my birth day to make sure we remember him, whole of my life.  When he was fighting for his life he was still looking at me with same devotion. I felt that he is fighting his death and not willing to give up my companion ship.

After his death, We buried him with his favorite toys.  My children are finding it hard to believe his demise. My daughter who is 3 and half wakes up every morning and asks if Tipsy has come back or not.
When I come back no one comes out of the door to greet me anymore, nor there is one to walk with every morning and evening.

Some way he was binding every family member with himself, which we never realized when he was alive. It’s a huge void in our life which will take time to fill.

I still feel he is with me. I regret I could not saw it coming. But dogs life span is very short.  I want to know about him after life. My son asked me to pray to god to make him man in his new life and give our address so that he can come back to us and live with us.

I pray to god for his soul may rest in peace.