All Things Towal

After the great job Nancy did with Zach, I decided to have Mr. Turner done for John’s birthday.   This one was a bit harder to choose the photo for since we have had Turner since he was a puppy, but I had 2 pictures in mind that were favorites of both mine and John’s.  Nancy was helpful in picking which she thought would look better for the painting and also which would work best hanging next to the painting of Zach.

My idea was to hang the paintings next to each other down the hallway, but once we got them we have ended up hanging them in the office where we spend the most time so we can look at them all the time.   We are going to end up having to move some other stuff we have hanging on the walls in here to make room for paintings because I have plans to continue to get paintings for John until I run out of pets!    They are such a great way to commemorate our guys and it’s so much better than another t-shirt!!!!!

Here is the fabulous Mr. Turner and once again the painting is so much better in person.

I am pretty far behind on blogging.  I am still not sure this is really my cup of tea, but I keep periodically giving it a whirl   Anyway, John is hard to buy presents for, in my opinion.  I think he disagrees, but he’s not the one trying to buy himself presents    Anyway, one person only needs so many t-shirts/clothes.

In fact, a few weeks ago he pulled out a sweatshirt that I am sure I was absolutely THRILLED to find because it had Taz on it and was Steelers as well!   However, it had been so long since he’d worn it (because he has about 10 billion sweatshirts) that we had both forgotten that he even had it.   Now it’s back in the “rotation” of sweatshirts, but who knows what others clothing treasures he has buried in there waiting to be found!

So I was casting about one day trying to figure out something else to get him and landed at Nancy Pinke’s site.   I decided to contact her about having a painting done of Zach-a-roo and after some discussion with her, I did end up having one done for our anniversary.

She did a BEAUTIFUL job and was so great to work with.  Zach  was not a healthy guy during his last few years and was on a variety of meds that made him very bloated, but some of my better pictures of him were during this later “bloated tick” years.   Nancy was able to use some of the pictures from when he was younger as well as the pictures of him later on and came up with such a wonderful representation of Zach that when I first opened the email with the rough draft in it, that I literally burst into tears.

Here is the final version and this picture is not really doing the painting justice.  It’s really much better in person.

I’m still playing around with Photobucket.  It’s been a few slow “news” days here so I thought I would post this slideshow of The Bun growing up.   These pictures are from when he is 3 months to 9 months old.

We have dubbed our spare room, which is mostly used for storage, as the “cat room.”   We have a baby gate blocking the door so the cats can come and go, but the dogs can’t get in.   This gives the cats a safe haven from the dogs if they don’t want to be bothered and we can free fed them and not worry about the dogs getting in the litter pan.

The cats were long adult by the time we blocked the room off for them, so the room being kind of haphazardly arranged wasn’t an issue.   It is not kitten safe though, so this weekend was the kitten-proofing of the “cat room” project.

Bun, does not like change…at all.  Thus, kitten-proofing the “cat room”  translates to a time of great worry in Paxtonland.  Paxton’s ears are a really good barometer of his mood.   Up ears is a happy Bun.  Floppy ears is a stressed out Bun.

Here is Paxton, relating to his dad that he’s had ENOUGH of this change crap and would like things to go back to normal.

Here he is looking at the kittens playing, but as you can see his ears show he’s not very pleased about the whole day’s events

Here are a couple close ups I got when he was watching Parker play with the camera strap.

We finally were able to pick up Zach’s ashes from the vet hospital.   I was surprised to find out that they used a different service for cremation than our regular vet.   They use the same schedule, so I just assumed we would end up with matching urns.

I’m not really sure a box is called an urn, as an aside.  To me an urn is more like a jar or vase…anyway, I digress.

The service the vet hospital was equally compassionate and also sent a lovely certificate certifying that the ashes we got back were, in fact Zach.  The urn is also very nice and has a plaque that has his name and birth/death dates.

John got a good picture of She Who is EVUL so I thought I would share it.

We have not received Zach’s ashes back yet, but the memorial stone I ordered did arrive yesterday.   I ordered his stone (and one for Otter) from the same place I got Ruthie’s stone 2 years ago.

They do really nice work and are very quick.  The stones look very nice and they are a lovely reminder of those we have lost when we are out in the yard.

It is with deep sadness that we had to let Zach go to the Rainbow Bridge today.  Zach has been suffering a lot of heath issues recently.  Today we had a CT scan done on his neck as he came up lame in his right front a few days ago.

He had 4 slipped disks in his neck and the vet felt that at this point his quality of life was pretty poor.  Given all his other current health issues, we made the decision that every pet owner dreads.

Zach came to us as an unadoptable rescue 6 years ago and turned into a lively and friendly family pet.  He still had his issues, but he got along quite well here.

He will be deeply missed.

While looking at pictures of a friend’s Papillons today, I was once again reminded that one of the reasons I love the breed is the variety of markings they have.  That in turn, reminded me of one of my favorite “features” of The Bun.

I am often on the phone with Anna when she whelps a litter of puppies and usually function as the Official Record Keeper during the births, writing down times, weights, markings etc. so it’s done in real time and Anna can worry about the bitch and puppies.

In The Bun’s litter, there were 2 puppies which looked nearly identical and we were trying to find ways to tell them apart when they were newly born, as they were both boys.   When looking at the newborn pictures we noticed that one had an all white side.  This is not all that unusual in Papillons, of course.   Many Papillons have all white bodies.

Normally, even the dogs with largely white bodies have one big spot of color on one side or the other or a spot in the middle of the back that drops over onto either side like a saddle.

The Bun, however, has one all white side and one side that has 3 spots of color.  I had never personally seen this particular marking in a Papillon (not that it doesn’t exist…just not in my experience).

I said that we should paint a nice butterfly on his all white side.  John thinks we should offer that side up for advertisements when he take him out to different venues

Paxton (aka: The Bun) joined us a few months ago. He came to us from my friend Anna of Asia Papillons. Paxton has been a marvelous addition to our family and we could not have asked for a better puppy. Since our other dogs are mainly rescues, not all of them are as thrilled with Pax as we are

When we first got him, his favorite place to hang out was on my desk, as you can see from these first 2 pictures. He has outgrown my desk now, but still loves the tiny green bed that sat on my desk for him.

At some point, I started calling Paxton various forms of bunny names, including Bunicula, The Bun and Bun Bun. I’m not even sure how it started anymore, but now most often he’s referred to as Bun or The Bun.

These are just a few photos that show him growing up a bit since I haven’t written about him in the past. I hope to have more regular updates now that I got started. We are in the midst of training him various and sundry things and I hope to get a video of him doing his tricks up soon.