In Memorium: Pippa Jane Cockrell, June 6, 2001 — April 6, 2018
Pippa quickly became on important part of our lives. My parents had pets when I was a child, several cats and a few dogs, but I never formed an emotional attachment to any animal in my youth. When our daughter Sarah was 17, she saw this cute puppy in the mall pet store. My wife said “She’s so cute!” I said “Do whatever you want, just leave me out of it.” So we bought a dog, or that’s how I thought of it at the time. What we really did was to adopt a family member. Not a new concept, as Sarah was also adopted.
Sarah named the new puppy “Pippa” after a character in a Disney movie.
Pippa quickly became an integral part of the family. Over time, Sarah’s interests changed. Boys, friends and other interests of a teenage girl. So Dad became the primary care taker of the family pet. Perhaps because of my sensitivity to the feelings and emotions of others, which is a key part of my success as a coach, I began to communicate with Pippa.
Dogs are pack animals; they assume a position in the hierarchy of the pack and that “membership” is key to their existence. Pippa was an AKC-registered Maltese. This breed is naturally lap dogs; they enjoy human companionship. Dogs are very empathetic and they do understand human words. They can associate nouns with objects, and action verbs as commands to act. But they are more attuned to body language. Early on, Beverly and Sarah and I took Pippa to dog obedience classes. These are actually dog owner training classes. The class is successful when the owner learns about the dog, because the dog will naturally respond to the proper treatment. Dogs can easily be taught to respond with specific actions to consistent commends. This works better however if the primary form of communication is hand signals or other body language, supplemented by words, rather than solely spoken words. Tone and volume can help. Most important however is consistency.
In any event, Pippa and I learned how to communicate with each other, and I became the leader of her pack. Beverly never has accepted me as leader, preferring to think of herself as the leader of our pack. Whatever. Pippa would spend time with Beverly, but generally seemed to come to me first. If I laid down on the coach for a nap, Pippa would join me within a minute.
Pippa passed away two months before her seventeenth birthday. We still miss her but we will always have the memories of a companion whose unconditional love taught us all a little about life.