Good Dog

This has been a tough year for many. We lost some great people like Bowie, Prince, and Alan Rickman. We've had an ugly and endless presidential campaign. And in my own life, I lost my sweet doggy companion, Penny, on October 7th after 16 years as a well loved family member.

Although I've done a lot of artwork of animals, and other peoples' pets, not to mention a feral cat, I have not really used Penny as a subject matter other than a sketch here and there.

Penny sketches.

However, over the years I have taken hundreds of photos of her, probably more so than my children, once they reached their teens. Penny was present, available, and endlessly photogenic. In the last year of her life she became a Facebook celebrity for managing to never quite be in her bed. Here then are her top five failed attempts:

And here are her first picture, (when she was rescued from the Dallas Animal Shelter and rode back to Lubbock to her new home), and her last, as she lay quietly in her bed. In between was a life well lived, full of walks and snuggles, love and devotion.