The Law of Panda is that you do not get up from your chair, disrupting her laptime, until she is ready to get up. Only then can you move about the house. Fortunately, she’s a benevolent ruler.

Pippin makes a sour face.

Murphy relaxes, in true dingbat dog fashion.

Panda sleeps the sleep of the just.

Do you have any blackmail pictures of your pets to share?

Panda, a sober, dignified, noble dog, is hard at work protecting us from pygmy marmosets and Comcast repairpersons.

And shedding all over our dark red couch.

Gus spent much of the night under Zach’s chair.

Zoe, the friendly doggie cop, herded us all where she wanted us to go.

Sadie and Murphy are best buddies.

Panda is not very sociable – although she is the alpha dog – and spent most of her night like this.

The dogs did bring their parents. And the parents did get to eat at the tables. We had salmon mousse and crackers, smoked brisket & chicken, enough potato salad to cause a 21st century Irish potato famine, calabacitas (grilled squash, corn, onions & peppers), fresh-picked green salad and cake. Lots of cake. See the next post for more on that!

It’s not so bad turning forty-mumble mumble. We still feel young! Sort of.

The cop’s gotta stop the guy to figure out why he’s driving that way, but where does it go from there? YOU BE THE JUDGE! {cue People’s Court theme}.

We did not let Panda play with Marmalade for too long, Marmalade is not exactly an alpha cat and we didn’t want any damage.

Panda loves perching around our pond, keeping a lookout for tadpoles and fish. (Our goldfish didn’t make it through the winter but she still watches.)

Zach built the pond for us as his 9th grade horticulture class project. He got an A from his teachers and from his extended family.

Also, we have the Murphy Red Astilbe, a hybrid variant of astilbe chinensis and the more common dogweed.

Oops, this temperamental and neurotic hybrid did not excel at obedience training, and must have been out back watering the exotic maples when they were teaching the “stay” command.

I found him:

It took ten minutes and several tries to get a picture without my hand or toes in the shot – he’s that clingy. Silly cat dog.

Happy Friday!

Lyza was a special dog. She was a show champion we adopted when she was 8. Black tibbies are a fairly rare version of the breed, and her former owner, a lovely lady who is a breeder/owner/handler, tried and tried to get pups from her, but it was not to be. When I first met Lyza the breeder was seeing if we’d take another dog from her, but it turned out we didn’t do that. We BEGGED for her to let us have Lyza, though. After a few months more, the owner consented and we picked Lyza up and brought her home, at that time in Alaska.

Lyza certainly had one aspect of the breed down pat – she was quite the escape artist, something tibbies are known for. After we’d had her for a year or two she escaped out of our backyard in Anchorage in the dead of winter. Disappeared. We put up signs, I went to the pound to search (which I just can’t stand to do, I’m way to tender hearted to look at those poor doggie souls in their concrete cells) – nothing. After about 6 weeks it was near Valentine’s Day, and Jeri, knowing I was depressed, went with me to a pet store. The resulting Valentine’s Day present is Panda, who we still have.

A week later we got a call from Lyza’s former owner. Lyza had been found, and she had a microchip that put her on the trail back to us. If you have pet, GET THEM CHIPPED. Someone had found her and kept her, and she’d escaped again from them. We finally picked Lyza up from the nice second family who’d found her unharmed. I can’t recall many times, if any others, when I’ve cried with happiness. When Lyza jumped in my lap when we got her back, I cried.

As she got older, like all of us, Lyza got slower and sleepier. She still had an impish streak, coupled with a regal demeanor; she was definitely a princess. Always first to get a treat, and you’d get a hoarse little old lady dog bark scolding if that didn’t happen when required.

Today’s a tough day that I had felt coming for a couple of weeks – months, really, if I was honest with myself. Jeri knew from the last time we went through this that I don’t handle it well, so she took Lyza in to the vet. There was some hope we could try to medicate the problem but in the end, that wasn’t to be. Lyza went peacefully in my sweet wife’s arms. I can’t tell you the love and gratitude I feel to Jeri for doing that for us.

So if you have a pet, pat them on the head today for me and think a little happy thought about Lyza. We’ll miss her so.