Here is another photo of the two dogs, sunning themselves on the porch. They kept watch at whatever was going on in the yard, but usually stayed on the porch, as long as I didn't leave them outside too long.
Both dogs seemed to be extra photogenic when they were enjoying the sunshine on the porch. Above is Lady, looking like royalty.
I just had to post these photos of Solo laying on the porch...she was so beautiful.
Here are Mom and Daughter, looking so pretty together!
When our daughter graduated from high school, we took the dogs with us when she got her senior photographs taken. Here are the two dogs, posing for a professional!
Senior Photos with Solo and Lady, Fall of 1995.
Another photo with Lady playing with a bunny. She was really fascinated with them...
Lady laying on our sheepskin rug, next to the Christmas tree that year. She was such a pretty girl...
Lady traveled with us on all of our vacation through the years of her life. In this photo, we were having a picnic next to a lake in the Big Horn Mountains on Highway 16, west of Buffalo, Wyoming. That drive is one of my favorites, and we traveled through the Big Horns a couple of times over the years. Lady has just had a bit of her food, and is licking her mouth off...she was not just a pretty dog, but was also very clean.
Here is Lady, sleeping on the carpet in the living room. She spent more and more time sleeping as the years went by...
One of my favorite photos of her - Lady was such a special dog, and we loved her.
Recalling the day we brought her home, I remember that the little pup shivered all the way home as she sat on my lap in the car. Since she had one all-white leg in front and one white front paw, we decided she looked like she was wearing one long, white glove and one partly put-on glove. She looked like a 'lady dressed up for a party, with only one glove completely on.' Since she was a silky, soft and shiny black, we thought she must be 'sophisticated.' So, those two attributes became part of her registered name - Sophisticated Lady Rose (Rose, after her mother, Carlota Rose Mare).
Lady was afraid of thunder, and would pace the floor if there were storms in the area. Or, if it got too loud, she would crawl under our bed, and lay there shivering. Several times, I sat there on the floor by the bed, and held her in my lap to help calm her until the storm was over.
She would often have an upset stomach when we traveled, and I thought it might have been because of that first traumatic ride (of an hour), when we brought her home the first time. All her life, she felt she had to watch out the car window as we drove along. I think she thought she was 'keeping guard.'
Lady liked to go out to the garden in the evenings with David. She especially loved it when he brought a big bowl of peas into the kitchen, and she would chase after any pea that rolled onto the floor, and would gobble it up. She also liked to bite off the tops of the asparagus. This dog liked her vegetables!
One summer evening at about dusk, she was out in the garden near David and had an adventure that she didn't enjoy at all. She came to the front door to be let inside, and as soon as she got in the door, I realized she had been sprayed by a skunk! So, I did what the recommended treatment was at that time, and that was to give her a bath in tomato juice (supposedly, the acid in the tomatoes cut the odor from the skunk's spray). After the tomato juice bath, she got a regular bath with dog shampoo, but even those efforts did not get rid of all of the odor. Even after she got almost dry, she kept running in circles all around the living room. Each time she stopped for a moment, she would smell the skunk smell again, and took off once more. Finally, she got just too tired to care anymore, and went to sleep. I'm pretty sure she was curious about the skunk, just the way she was curious about the bunnies, and got too close to it. She never did that again!
But, age began to take its toll on her. She became quite deaf eventually, although sometimes I think she learned to use that as an advantage, and simply would not look at you if she thought you would motion for her to come inside when she wasn't quit finished sniffing in the yard.
Lady always liked to stand beside David to be petted and get scratched. She liked to lie under the kitchen table, near his chair, so she could watch for crumbs and chopped vegetable pieces that might fall from the chopping board. Both dogs knew when I got out the popcorn popper, and would come and stand beside me until the popping stopped and I gave each of them a handful of the popped corn in their dog dishes.
On July 3rd, 2004, Lady seemed very tired, and just was not 'herself.' She slept on the lambskin rug that evening until David got up to go to bed. She did pause by my chair to be petted and have her neck scratched. Little did I know that would be my 'good-bye' to her. After a few minutes, David called me from the bedroom. Lady was having convulsions. I got down beside her and talked quietly to her, and tried to calm her while David called the vet. We were able to contact one of our vets, and he told us to bring her to his office, but she was dying. She stopped breathing one time on the drive to his office in Belmond, but began again. But, by the time we got to the office, she was too far gone to bring her back. I told him to give her a shot to put her to sleep, and after that sad time, we drove back home, with David holding her wrapped in her towel. We were both bawling, so it was a good thing there was not much traffic that night. The next day, July 4, 2004, we buried her next to Solo's grave near the garden. David put a rose in full bloom into the grave with her. Later I made mosaic plaques for each dog, and we put them on the graves. When we moved from the farm in 2014, we brought the plaques with us, and they will lay in our flower beds in memory of our two beautiful dogs.
Loving an animal is a double-edged blade ~ It brings you so much joy, but is so awfully painful when they die. Still...life would be dull if we avoided all sorrow by never giving our love.
"My little old dog: A heart-beat at my feet." ~ Edith Wharton
"The dog is a saint. He is straightforward and honest by nature. He knows by instinct when he is not wanted; lies quite still for hours when his king is hard at work. But when his king is sad and worried he creeps up and lays his head on his lap. 'Don't worry. Never mind if they all abandon you. Let us go for a walk and forget all about it!" ~ Axel Munthe
"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion." ~ Anonymous
"The gift which I am sending you is called a dog, and is in fact, the most precious and valuable possession of mankind." ~ Theodorus Gaza
"No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversations as a dog does." ~ Christopher Morley
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