A month ago, Lightning had a flareup of pancreatitis, and since then he has been rapidly fading. Two days Jack and I agreed that we could no longer guarantee his quality of life, and he made his last trip to the vet this afternoon. He was such a sweet dog.
Still snowing, and I am guessing that we already have about a foot or more along with some significant drifts. This is the dogs’ potty yard, and the depth of the drifts posed a significant challenge to small dogs before I did some trail breaking and snow shoveling. I fed the horses and they seem to be coping just fine. We are fortunate that we rarely get more than two substantial drifts between the house and the barn: one of them is just outside the house and the other is midway between the barn and the house. I usually just try to power through rather than dig a path.
Local schools are on two hour delay.
According to the records we received when we adopted him on December 19th, 2008, Rion was born on October 20, 2008. He is now seven years old. Here is my first photo of the grubby scrap of black fluff and attitude that we brought home from the shelter. (He didn’t get his first bath until about a week later, because I was so worried about dropping him.)
Rion from this morning:
These flowers were spaced at even intervals on the cinder hills of Craters of the Moon. I managed to get this close-up without leaving the path. It irritates me immensely when I see people leave the path at National Parks, frequently right next to a sign telling them to stay on the trail.
Craters of the Moon is a National Park in southwest Idaho. It is a very striking place, and we were lucky that we were there on a relatively cool day in August, since the temperatures can get very high in the summer.
