Well Hello Again

Thomas (Drying out after I had given him a bath.)

Well Hello again.

This blog has been dormant for about 2 years. That's when I took over as editor for my hometown newspaper.

The main reason for the dormancy is obvious. With so much writing to do for the paper and the attached magazines, plus not to mention the job of making the paper my own, who had time to write blog posts?

But I’m tentatively reentering the blogging waters. With work, I am tied to a particular style of writing and, of course, the commercial requirements. Lately, those requirements have begun to chafe on me, so I thought I would stretch my writing muscles and bring this blog up to date. The main thing that has occurred in the past two years is that my wife and I have said goodbye to yet another faithful canine companion, Thomas an elderly yellow Lab. We rescued Thomas from the pound shortly after we had lost our chocolate Lab, the last of our original three Labs (We had three in the house at one time- a chocolate, a black, and yellow). I named him Thomas after Thomas Aquinas, because I met him on that saint day, and he was the smartest dog in the dog pound when I tested him.

Thomas stayed with us for five years, before finally leaving us in December of 2017. He was a very good dog. Housebroken from the start, smart, mellow, he made an excellent companion—whether it be watching a movie in the living room, or going for a walk—Thomas was always amiable and easy going, never a problem.

He also liked car rides in our old Volvo station wagon. He loved to stick his head out and feel the wind.

 

Because adventure is out there!

His one quirk was that he didn’t know how to swim. Like most Labs he would rush into the water, marvel in play at the splashing water, but that’s where the similarity with other Labs would stop. Thomas would not be aware that he was sinking like the Titanic. The reason for this was that he would doggie-paddle like crazy with his front paws, and forget to paddle at all with his hind legs. (Hence the Titanic analogy, butt sinking, but the head is up.) I had to get into the water and remind him to paddle with his hind legs with a series of swim lessons.

 

Teaching Thomas to swim.

When his health started to fade, I had hoped he would make it to Christmas Day 2017, but alas, that was not to be.  He left us just before.

After seven months without a dog, we adopted our newest family member Teddy, a Black Lab, in August (he was born in June).

Teddy is easily the most rambunctious Lab we’ve had. We picked him because the dam was a small Lab, and we thought a “pocket-Lab” would be a good idea. However I didn’t check into his father’s pedigree fully, and it turns out dad was from hunting stock—hence the high energy and super hind leg muscles. When he jumps, he has hang-time just like Michael Jordan.

Despite these characteristics, he has successfully completed basic training, and we’re starting him on field training and retrieving. Typical of Labs, he’s smart (sometimes too smart) and is eager to please. 

In January, we finally put back out all the breakables and rugs we had stored away when he first joined our household, and he now has run of the house (mostly).  I think its fair to say we have a favorable Teddy forecast for the next 15 years.

Teddy on his car ride home in August.