Skippy La Roux aka Skippy Ki Yay! ~2003 to March 4, 2020

Skippy was on Craigslist. His name was Peanut back then. When I asked the guy why they were getting rid of him, he told me, “He doesn’t bark. He doesn’t play. he’s self centered. And he’s totally worthless.”’ When I met this “worthless” dog, he was terrified, trying to hide under a table. He had been mostly living outdoors in the Las Vegas summer. It was clear his owners didn’t like him. Even their kid just shrugged when I asked how he’d feel about me taking his dog home.
When I brought him home I found he was scared of everything including me. I named him Skippy because he had 2 bad knees and tended to skip.

Skippy the Fierce Dog

3 weeks after I got him, someone tried to break into my home. My Great Dane slept through it. My 65lb hound mix slept through it. My “worthless” 15lb dog who “did not bark”…was FEROCIOUS. He woke me up in time to slam a door shut on the would-be home invader before he came into my home. Skip may have saved my life that night. Over time, he grew to be afraid of absolutely nothing and nobody. He was fierce. He was pure TERRIER….minus the brains. He was like an eagle who somehow found himself in a dog suit and wondered “what are these limbs? Where are my wings? Why can’t I fly??? I’m so confused.” It seemed like he never knew where his feet were.

Skippy the Gross Dog

He was a disgusting dog. Horrible fur. Always smelly and gross except when straight out of the groomer. Dirt loved him. Even my other scruffy dog just is not the dirt magnet Skip was. And he hated being brushed which made it all the worse.

Skippy the Fancy Dog

In my husband’s eyes, Skippy was a fantastical creature full of elegance and grace. He named him Skippy LaRoux. (Though he also named him the janitor for his habit of “cleaning up” the inside of other dog’s mouths, the dog bed, and anything else. But that’s back to Skippy the Gross Dog.) My beloved would narrate Skippy’s life through a lens that was heartwarming and hilarious. “Ah yes, he is taking a stroll across the fields, looking so debonair in his new haircut!”

Skippy the Weird Dog

More than anything, he was so weird in so many ways. He was hard to train (though I wasn’t a dog trainer when I got him…but he still defied most attempts to teach him anything.) He had weird medical issues with weird manifestations causing more vet visits over a period of 8 years than I’ve had with any other dog. Weird seizure like looking stuff that made the vets scratch their head. It turned out to be an odd manifestation of thyroid problems. A weird thing on his nose that looked like peanut butter but wasn’t. It eventually went away. And in his old age, he became weirdly playful and also newly aggressive. He had gone blind due to a weird autoimmune disorder. He also became quite hard of hearing. And I assume that’s why he started to resource guard things that weren’t there. It took a long time to even figure out why he was lunging and starting trouble with the other dogs. He reminded me of a drunken old man walking into a bar and trying to start a fight with the buff 25yo. He’d start fights and my other dogs would take him up on it. Our vet suggested euthanizing him before my other dogs killed him. Instead, every time he tried to attack one of my other dogs, they got a delicious treat! Soon, he’d attack and they’d look at me and wag their tails. We haven’t had any fights for the last 18 months of his life.

My Shattered Heart

He broke my heart a hundred times with his brawling, his medical issues, and my constantly having to evaluate if I was doing him any favors keeping him alive. He also filled my heart twice as deep for every time he broke it. I doubt there’s ever been a dog like him. And I am so blessed to have him by my side for 12ish years. On Tuesday, I took him into the front yard for one last sniffari. He loved to sniff even more than most dogs. On Wednesay, the vet came and we said goodbye. In the end, he was so very tired. You so deserve your rest, Skippy Laroux. I hope you have your eagle wings now.