by Jennie Lloyd | Photos courtesy of Elvis Ripley and Paige Turlington
Elvis Ripley dreams of biscuits. Savory Christmas biscuits. The simple fun of
saying the word “biscuit.” Owning a dog named Biscuit.
Last fall, at about the time when their sweet Cavapoo was born, Elvis said, “I had a dream that I was talking about having a dog named Biscuit.”
Paige Turlington, Elvis’ longtime partner, wanted to make his dream a reality. “What if we got a dog?” she asked him.
“Well, if we can call it Biscuit, then maybe!” he replied. Neither of them had ever had a dog as an adult.
Within a week, Paige connected with a family friend who had a litter of F1b Cavapoos. One newborn puppy was left. Paige called her friend and said, ‘I’m coming to see her!’ ”
She fell in love with the small gray fluffball who would be called Biscuit. As an F1b Cavapoo, Biscuit is hypoallergenic, gentle, and smart. She has soft, wavy gray fur with a white bib and white-tipped fluffy
feet. She has an impressive fountainlike tail of flowing floof. She is now full grown and sprightly, weighing in at 10 pounds.
Christmas Treat
On Christmas Eve last year, the couple brought home their early gift.
Biscuit’s name is a tribute to an ongoing Ripley family joke. Elvis tried for a year to teach his nephew to say “biscuits” as his first word. He also came up with an idea for savory, rosemary-infused Christmas biscuits, which his foodie mom now recreates every holiday season.
“So we had two Christmas biscuits last year, the edible biscuits and this Christmas Biscuit,” Paige said, snuggling Biscuit’s charming face with full-of-wonder eyes.
Elvis is a talented cinematographer who works with the Bob Dylan Center, among many other notable projects. His father is Steve Ripley, the famous musician who coined the term “Red Dirt” music after his early record label of the same name.
Steve was Leon Russell’s longtime engineer. He built guitars and tinkered with sound, putting out hits with his band the Tractors in the 1990s. He also played guitar for Bob Dylan. Steve owned the legendary Church Studio in Tulsa for 19 years.
The Scientist and the Detective
The Ripley family is certainly a talented one, and Elvis picked up many traits from his dad.
“I think they’re both kind of mad scientists, really,” Paige laughed. “The way they tinker with stuff and research things and know the deepest details of everything…. They know their craft so well.”
“I think I get that from my dad, the scientific mind-set,” Elvis said.
“The way they experiment and try things out, learning the fundamentals of everything and using that to be better at everything,” Paige explained. “They’re mad scientists. But not so mad — pretty practical, actually.”
In 2019, Elvis won an Emmy for his directorial work on the PBS documentary “L’Dor V’Dor: Generation to Generation.” The film tells the story of Tulsa’s Jewish community and how their immigration to the state helped Tulsa grow and prosper.
This past year, Elvis completed a project for Spotify which took him around the world, filming in six countries. He also recently returned from Africa, where he filmed a live fund-raiser for Charity: Water.
For her part, Paige loves her job as a diagnostic medical sonographer, or “medical detective.” She loves the scientific, acute side — and the exciting pace — of her critical work in ultrasound technology at a nearby hospital.
While Paige works long hours away from home, Elvis spends most days creating in his home studio. “Unless Elvis has a shoot somewhere,” Paige said, Biscuit is “hanging out, napping under Elvis’ desk while he works, and having outside time and toy breaks.”
At about 4 a.m. each day, Biscuit stands on Elvis’ toes and politely whisper-barks to let him know it’s time to go outside. Outside time, and the zoomies and sniffs that come along with it, is a big part of young Biscuit’s daily life. When she hears or smells something unusual, “She needs to go check it out,” Paige said.
Elvis will bend down and hold out his arm to allow the petite, investigating Biscuit to leap up so the pair can head to the front porch for a good look around.
Talking with the Puppy
Biscuit is as chatty and outgoing as her parents. They have figured out, like the
scientist and detective that they are, how to talk to their puppy.
“She has buttons,” Paige said. Biscuit often uses the “Treat” and “Outside” buttons as well as her bells, installed at two doors. “She’ll ding the bell if she wants your attention, and we’ll say, ‘Use your words!’ And then she’ll tap the buttons.”
Her other modes of communication include “cheese talk,” Paige said. “When you get the cheese out, she starts almost speaking like a human.”
“It’s like whining backwards,” Elvis said. Such is the allure of cheese.
This is Biscuit’s first autumn out of babyhood. She relishes it by chomping on leaves, sniffing around the backyard chiminea, which is slow-burning hickory and piñon wood, and nosing acorns as they drop. Soon she barks again, more high-pitched this time. She wants to go inside, Elvis and Paige decide. So they do. Biscuit presses the button for “Treat,” so they fetch a dog biscuit for her.
She does all of her tricks on command — sit, lie down, high-five — then happily crunches her treat.
All agree, life is just better with a Biscuit.
