Many questions have been asked about her name: Is it short for Gypsy? Is it spelled "Jip"? and so forth. If you are familiar with the familiar meaning of "Jip" (yes, as to jip someone), you have hit the nail on the head. In January of 2010 I heard a marketplace report via radio. A 10-week-old stock dog mix was mentioned: my son Forest needed an additional dog, so I called, leaving his contact information. When I contacted Forest, I could visualize his eyebrows raising across the miles. "You did what?" (Forest always wanted to choose any animals he was going to associate his good name with). He did finally agree to call the people and get the low-down for himself (allowing him an opportunity to politely state his "not-no-but-hell-no). So that was the end of that. Or not. I worked out of Rosebud at the time. One Friday afternoon I was called by the school clerk and told there was a package at the desk for me. I finished up what I was doing and walked down--to see a dog crate by the office and a whining sound emitting from it. It was that 10-week-old MacNab-red heeler from the marketplace advertisement--with a note telling me where to send the check. Never did figure out if this was Forest's payback or the neighbors'-back-home way of downloading the last of the litter. Forest named her, but I was owner by default. What followed was fifteen years of companionship and work partnership. Forest, by the way, paid the price by never being able to get her to work for him: he said many times that she was no good for anything. I think both of us knew different. The day I got her to load nine recalcitrant ewes into a stock trailer by herself still stands as my gold standard. Even as she aged, she was always there, waiting for a walk. She had a special nip-the-wrist and spin she would use at the beginning of each time, even when she had aged out to the point where coming back was a rest-and-wait. Her last long walk was up to the head of the creek that flows through our place, up to the stone cairn that carries Forest's ashes.