R.I.P. 2

So many amazing dogs have passed away recently.

Any viewer of this blog can see the evidence of all the time we've spent with "the Golden Girls", a group of four dogs. Sadly, in the past few weeks they've gone down to 2 dogs. Both Princess and Slim have died after fairly quick declines in their health.

Slim (or Bimmy) (or Bimmy-Slimmy-Slim-Slim) was rescued shortly after I started taking care of the "girls" a few years back- maybe 4 or 5 years ago? The girls and their dad found her tied to a tree at Bartram's Garden, emaciated and scared. Watching her progress over the next few months was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. At first she didn't understand what people were for, besides feeding, and of course she could never eat as much as she wanted, since her system was not used to food. Seeing her figure out how to be a pet by watching and getting to know the other 3 dogs was inspiring. Within a few weeks she grew to like human affection and learned how to play with the other dogs, and sometimes with toys. Eventually she gained so much weight that her name seemed like a joke, and she had to be put on a diet. This photo is from her more rotund days.Slimmy had one of the funniest barks I've ever heard, too. It's hard to describe the sound, but when she was excited or upset about being left, she'd run in circles with her head up in the air and her giant mouth constantly moving, so she looked like a shark! Thus her sometimes nickname of Shark-dog. I wish I had video of that!
Princess was the oldest of the bunch, around 12 by most estimates. She'd been pretty slow for a while now, but even when her vet said she had the worst case of arthritis they'd ever seen, she still seemed like a happy dog. She would still "run" towards the tennis ball, though she wouldn't be able to catch it. But she seemed to enjoy just going after it. I took her to her aquatic therapy at Whole Animal Gym in South Philly a few times in her last months, which really seemed to help her mobility. Out of respect, I did not take a picture of her "swimming outfit:" an orange life jacket and a diaper with cartoon monkeys on it. But it was really funny.

I'll just post this one picture of her, since I know there are already a ton of her (and Slim) on this blog!

Maggie was a sweet old German Shepherd that I met years ago in Clark Park. My old friend Mingus (my first client!) was quite fond of her. Rumor has it she was the queen of fetch in her youth, but when I knew her well, she was just a sweet, slow, kind dog with impressively large ears! I'm glad a friend hired me to draw her portrait this winter:


Here she is again. I know a lot of people who miss her a lot.

I think that's everyone. So many of my favorite dogs. I'm so so lucky to have known all these brilliant creatures. But my heart hurts right now.

Maggie, Princess, Slim, Bee Bee, and Alice: I love you forever. I meant it every time I said it.