Our Story

Our story, It all started the summer of 2008, I was 12 years old at the time. I had wanted a dog for years, and after always being denied a dog, I decided to start walking dogs in my neighbourhood for free. I would do anything to be around them! I had a few dogs that I would walk regularly, but there was one that stood out to me. She was a little havanese named Lucy! She lived just a street away, and everyday after school I would go and take her for a walk. She was the sweetest little girl. Eventually, after a few months of this, their owner agreed to have me babysit them (2 little havanese, Lucy and Flower and their brother Gus the boxer) when they went away, and paid me for it! That summer I walked them and a few other dogs, and started dog sitting a bit for other people; it was a good summer!


By the summer of 2009 my parents had agreed that I had proved how responsible I was, and let me get my very own dog! Lucy’s owner mentioned how sometimes their breeder had adult dogs to give away, and contacted her for me. A few weeks later I went to pick up Tippy! I named her Tippy because she had a tendency to tip her head when you spoke to her, as if she was trying to understand what you were saying. Tippy was a beautiful black and white 7 month old havanese. I was told they were planning to breed her but she tipped her head to much to be shown, we soon realized that wasn’t the only issue.


Tippy was the happiest dog in the world, she was happy to help with barn chores, ran off leash at the beach, learned too many tricks to count, came to every sleepover and outing with us. We had an amazing 3 1/2 years together!


Tippy sadly had a hidden health issue that we were unaware of. When Tippy was 4 years old she suddenly turned up very ill, very quickly. My once happy, playful dog became very lethargic, and lazy within a couple days. We took her to the vet and they couldn’t find anything wrong. The next day she was worse, so we took her in again. She got blood work, x-rays, ultrasounds, she wasn’t getting any better and we weren’t getting any answers. I was doing my grade 12 coop placement at the Riverview Animal Hospital at this point and spent most of my time there with her. I went in on my days off, weekends, evenings, every waking moment I wasn’t in school I was with her. At this point they thought it may be meningitis, they put her on meds, IV, oxygen and kept her overnight. After a couple weeks in and out of the vet we saw some improvement. She eventually got a little better, we thought the meds were working. Tippy came home with us, she had lost weight when sick, so my normally thin dog was starting to look emaciated. We worked hard on getting her to gain weight, and she did a little, she even was able to make it around the block after not being able to stand. I was just happy to get my girl back. Then she got worse, quickly, too quickly. We did more tests, her blood work was getting worse, we were running out of time. The vets then thought maybe Lepto, so we tested for that, came back negative.


We are about a month into her obvious illness. We then rush her to UPEI to try and get some answers. She stayed there for a couple days, but was unfortunately too unstable to do anymore tests. November 11th 2013 around 3pm, my whole world was shattered, Tippy had passed away at the young age of 4. The vets suspect that she had a liver shunt and were surprised that she had lived as long as she did without many symptoms.


In the bitterly short amount of time I had with Tippy, she impacted my life immensely. Throughout Tippy’s life our dog sitting grew, Hannah and I were getting more and more clients, and Tippy loved hanging out with all of our furry clients, she was a social butterfly! After Tippy was already gone, Hannah and I decided to make a Facebook page and grow our business, the name had already been floating around my head for a while, Hannah agreed and Tippy Tails Pet Care was born!


After Tippy was gone, it wasn’t long before I opened my heart up to another Havanese. Panda joined our family at 9 weeks old, and now I have a happy 8 year old havanese, he is like Tippy in a lot of ways, but so different, he was exactly what I needed to help me grieve.


8 years ago Tippy passed away, but her memory lives on everyday in our business, and I wouldn’t want it any other way! ❤️

-Michaela