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I never mentioned it here, but we had a death in the family about a month ago. Most of you know that we have two dogs in our family, but each dog had only one master that they answered to. I have a yellow lab named Maley, who just turned eleven in June. Her name was derived from the somewhat famous Jones & Maley Special that raced in the Indianapolis 500 in the 1950s, then somehow ended up on display on top of the Safe-T Autoglass Building on the east side of Indianapolis where it was left to decay for six decades. If you want to read more about how Maley got here name and the day she came home, click here.

About a year and a half before we got Maley in August of 2015, we brought Pippa home. Susan had always wanted a Sheltie, so in March of 2014 Pippa came to live with us at the age of six months. Pippa was a pretty dog, but she was definitely Susan’s dog. She would let me pet her and that’s about it. But that was far more than what she let anyone outside of our immediate family do. Pippa was affectionate with Susan, but was fairly standoffish to anyone else.

The day we brought a seven-week old Maley home, was the day that Pippa’s world turned upside-down. For a dog with a reserved personality to have to share a home with a lab puppy, was more than a culture shock – it was an upheaval. But as the little puppy grew into an 85-pound dog, Pippa adjusted to Maley’s rambunctious lifestyle.

As Father Time marched on, he caught up with the oldest dog first. Pippa first started showing signs of age about six months ago, when we noticed her hearing had suddenly disappeared. In March, a limp showed up. It was sporadic at first, and seemed to only show up on colder days. By May, it had become permanent – along with breathing problems that eventually morphed into a constant gurgling sound. When we left for Road America, I wasn’t sure she was going to be there when we got back. She was, and about the same. But about two weeks later, her condition took a nose-dive. Susan finally made the difficult decision to put Pippa down on Wednesday July 8.

I’ve seen Susan go through that before with other dogs through the years. She would be distraught that day, and sad the next – but by 48 hours later, she would be back to normal. This was different. For one thing, Pippa was always by her side when she was going though chemo back in 2020. She could tell Susan was not well, and stayed right next to her to take care of her. There was just a bond between Pippa and Susan that was not quite as strong with her other dogs in the past. Consequently, Pippa’s death hit Susan much harder than her other dogs. She seemed despondent for days.

When we got Maley in 2015, I had made the comment that she was probably our last dog. If both of our dogs lived past 13, that would put us both in our 70s. I figured that would make us too old to be getting brand new pups. After several days of seeing Susan walk around like a zombie, I asked her if she was going to get another dog. She said she didn’t think I would let her. After telling her I never said that plan was carved in stone and that I would never make such a rule, her mood picked up.

She loved the Sheltie breed, and started looking around for another one. We had gotten Pippa from a breeder near Johnson City, TN (close to Bristol). They breed only Shelties and show them all over the country. Susan knew they were cutting back on the breeding, so she assumed they had nothing. Then last week, they posted photos of one dog they were making available.

He was five months old. They had held him back, along with his brother from being placed, so that they could show them. Unfortunately (for the breeder) the prettier dog with the best personality had hit a growth spurt, and no longer fit the breed standard for showing. He was too big, and was made available last week. Susan saw the photo on Facebook and it didn’t take long for them to strike up a deal.

We drove to Johnson City on Tuesday and brought him home late Tuesday night. History repeated itself as we introduced our new dog to Maley…but Maley was much more receptive to the new dog than Pippa was to the new intruder eleven years ago. It was the new dog that was standoffish to Maley – but that changed Wednesday morning. The two dogs get along great, and the new dog has been an absolute joy in the short time he’s been with us. Here was Susan’s first encounter with her new pup.

So does the new dog have a name? Yes, but it was originally meant to be a joke. Once we knew we were getting the pup over the weekend, we started thinking of names. I casually said, “…name him after Parnelli Jones, and we can have Jones & Maley”. Surprisingly, Susan liked it. She has named him Jones and will call him Jonesy. I’m sure it will grow on me, but I’m finding myself having a tough time calling him either, but I think I prefer Jonesy to Jones. I’ve always liked two-syllable names for dogs. But he is not my dog. He’s Susan’s dog, so as long as she likes it – that’s all that really matters.

So, meet the newest member of our family. Everyone, meet Jonesy.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 6, 2026 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.