A letter from the editor

Today is the twelve year anniversary of the DD. For the first year I posted every single day and then sensibly dropped down to five after that. I haven’t missed much except for a couple of months off in 2006 when I was sick and a week here and a week there. But it’s getting hard and I’m running out of creative energy. Nope, I’m not going to stop, but starting next week I am going to drop down to three days a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesday I’ll set up an empty post which you can use for any kind of discussion that you’d like. I feel both guilty (20%) and relieved (80%) over this decision, and sure hope that you’ll understand and not go away.

Blast from the past

This is from 2000. Three adorable boys sacked out on the bed. Soon they would all crawl under. I always wondered how they could obtain enough oxygen.

Mr. Man and the Scootie-Patootie

This was taken the same day as the one of Clayton from last Thursday. It was 2000 so Scooter was about two, and Spenser was about five. (Gosh that’s a long time to be putting up photos!)

And speaking of photos, I’d love to see your suggestions for the calendar. Next week I’ll post a signup for special days, and also the payment information.

July 2000

There are a couple dozen photos that I’ve taken over the history of the DD which I consider iconic, and this is one of them. I love it! It so perfectly described the boys’ personalities: Scooter the space cadet, Spenser dreaming of the wild blue yonder, and Clayton going with the flow. What a trio.

Mug shots

I have thousands of photos of the boys, distributed over three computers and two external hard drives. Maybe a dozen or so are what I regard as iconic, and this one of Scooter belongs to that category. These two also go to show that if you take enough pictures of your dogs, they’ll get used to it and cooperate!

Farewell

Martha posted on Friday that Shiloh has passed away. We’re all so sorry, Martha. Most of us know the pain and wish we could each take a little bit of your burden. Although they leave our day-to-day lives, they never leave our hearts. May she rest in peace.

Clayton

Clayton was indeed the master of “the pose,” don’t you think? He’s looking up at the treat cabinet, and every time Stanley does the same thing I think about my little guy.

We lost Clayton a year and five days ago. This picture is from 2000, I think. Oh, how we miss him, but oh, how lucky we were to have him for 14-1/2 years. He’s probably still at the all-you-can-eat buffet in beagle heaven, not having left since he got there.

Channeling Scooter

What the heck is going on here? Phillip has just placed a cinder block in the hole that a certain beagle dug in order to get into the garden. You’re thinking Stanley, am I right?

Wrong! Over the last few days Sherman has turned into a sniffing and digging MACHINE. He’s outside for hours at a time investigating the area around one of the sheds. Phillip thinks there is a bunny in the yard and we can only hope that it decides to leave.