December's a time of celebration and a time of remembrance here at SDU. First, it's Nemo's birthday month! Who doesn't like birthdays? This is the little squirt when we brought him home in February of 2006. When we thought he was a Labrador mix.
And this is our big guy now. What a love. Two years ago, we went through some really rough times with Nemo. We didn't think he was going to live. It was hell. He had a usually-fatal fungus called pythiosis. It was a bad few months. He went through the holiday season with several surgeries. Healthy as a horse now, we're thankful to have Nemo with us.
December is also the anniversary of the loss of Lucky, my Australian shepherd. It's been just a year since he died of a heart attack. The dog who taught me so much about dog behavior has been gone a year...it's hard to believe. While his behavior problems were quite plentiful, oh the lessons I learned from him. I'm thankful to have crossed paths with this dog. He's buried at Lake Anna (he's enjoying the Lake in the picture above).
While not good with people, Lucky was a very good leader in his dog-world. We relied on him to raise the service pups we brought in. He'd tolerate but so much of their silliness, then would firmly - but gently - tell them when they'd crossed the line. I never knew how much work he did for us, raising puppies, until he was gone. Talos could use some "Lucky lessons," long about now.
