Back on track, at last

Wow. Sorry I've been so absent from the blog lately. School has finished, but then there were the holidays (which I have pictures from, I just need to download them), and my former dog, Jarod, being diagnosed with lung cancer and my having to rush back to my hometown to visit him one last time, and, now, after several weeks of traveling on my weekends, I finally feel like I'm getting back to my normal life. I also haven't had a lot of time to take pictures of Darwin during the scant daylight in the evenings, so I'm working on that now as well. He is nearing one year old, only 20 days to go!

As for Jarod, I will be putting up a special blog post tomorrow, as he was such an important dog in my life. He taught me a lot about the canine mind, how to teach it, and the true meaning of the canine-human partnership. He got me interested in agility and, while we never competed, helped me learn how to train in that (at least preliminarily) as well. He was my first rescue dog, and came a long way in the five years since we rescued him from the shelter. He was good to Darwin, and though he had to go live with my parents because he couldn't mentally deal with the stress of apartment life and enjoyed the solitude of their house instead, was never far from my mind. And he gave so much to my parents, particularly my mom, that it was really the best move I could have made, even though I missed him.

But I will talk about him in greater detail tomorrow. He passed on last night after only a week-long struggle with the worst of the cancer (i.e. he was symptomatic), and my parents tell me that he was dignified at the end. Truly a gentleman to the last. But, thankfully, we all had the chance to spoil him and enjoy all his favorite things with him for a final amazing week.

Here is a photo of him from this summer:



Thank you, Jarod. You definitely left some big paw prints to fill.

-Mel, Corgi-keeper