Tigger

March 1997 - June 2009

Our special boy Tigger - who was of course the very best dog in the WORLD.  Its been four years since we lost him but we never stop missing him.

Tigger came to us from a breeder.  I had my faithful little terrier mix 'Vicky' who detested every other dog, and the new bloke on the scene (who I married some time ago, LOL) was a Labrador man, and wanted his own black Labrador, there was a 12 month old advertised in the local paper, so I arranged to go 'have a look'.  On our arrival we were told there was no blacks, just this 'yellow' boy, his name was 'Dog', they were all called 'Dog' (how sad is that?).  This skinny little terrified specimen was brought out to us, sliding on his belly in fear... well... what could we do? he just 'had' to come home!

I 'foolishly' thought at 12 months old the dog would be past chewing and be a nice 'calm' Labrador, as he entered the house, boinging on his back legs we named him 'Tigger'.  He was not house trained, he was terrified of most things, and he ate my house.  By the middle of the week I told the OH he got a crate asap or the dog went!  We got a crate, poor Tigger hated it, he was in the crate for a week, we forgot to leave him in it one day and he was as good as gold.  The crate went away, never needed again.

We built this dog up from a quivering jelly to a confident, faithful, adorable boy - who thought his job on this planet was to love and care for us, and the rest of the dogs who came to live with us, and the foster dogs who came to stay.

He could be a bit amerous to other dogs, but if they told him off he stayed away.  He was quite timid of dogs when out, unless he thought it was his job to protect me... and he would stand between me and another dog with his eyes shut.  After fostering some Greyhounds and Lurchers, and having taken on two Greyhounds of our own, we thought it time Tigger had his own Labrador, so we adopted Tess (see other page) for him, was love at first sight and they were pretty inseperable for the rest of Tigger's days.

Poor Tigger had a very delicate tummy, took us years to find something he could comfortably eat - so he spent an awful lot of time at the vets with upset tums, and dehydrated very fast, so a lot of time on drips too.  So, in June 2009 we were not over alarmed when it happened again, although his legs were not so good by this time, he was on an awful lot of meds for his arthritis.  This time, he was not coming home though, our boy had Cancer.  

Our Tigger left the biggest gap ever when he left us.  On the day he left we had to walk the others, on the walk was a bright pink frisbee, just like Tigger's fave toy.  I was of course distraught, I switched on the radio and said "please Tigger, send me a song" he did, the song on the radio was "Dont worry be Happy" that is now our boy's song.

Miss you always Tigger, thank you for sending Alfie to us - we are sure you are plotting together now, so why on earth you sent me Custer I will never know, think it was funny did you?