A Narrative Portrait of Alice...

This is the long overdue Narrative Portrait that I'm working on of my dog, Alice....

The image below was my initial sketch. There are so many silly things about her, it was hard to narrow it down, but I think these translate well:

So Lucky...

I vowed not to design any pet sympathy cards until Izzy left me...4 months after her death I started sketching designs, it was a heavy hearted exercise. I had to put them away for awhile but last week, one of my clients  sadly and very unexpectedly, lost their dog so I decided I should finish one...this is it. My grief does not arise without an equal amount of gratitude for having had her in my life.

Happy Tail Syndrome...

A very belated update on Gracie...made even later by a freak and unfortunate step on Friday which resulted in a sprained ankle for me! More about that in the next post. So back to Gracie girl...we took her to our vet for the first time so he could take out her stitches (from spaying) and give her a good check up. What he found was the end of her tail in very bad shape (it was hidden by her very dark fur) basically raw to the bone. "Happy Tail Syndrome" is a somewhat common occurrence for shelter dogs - every time someone comes into the kennel area they get so excited that they wag their tales so hard that they break on the back walls of the kennels which are usually cement. I know, ouch. Almost impossible to heal in a shelter environment and even challenging in a regular home, as we can attest to!
Dr. Rovner bandaged and wrapped up the tail (like a flower complete with pink end and green stem) and suited her up with a cone collar to keep her from going after it. This means she no longer fits comfortably in our kennel so I took her to the studio that afternoon where she proved herself a natural snoozing away in the front window among the adoring public. While fun for her, this scenario proved to be very unproductive for me so Plan B ensued: sequestering her to the bathroom when we couldn't be home with her.Did I mention she had the bandage off within the first 12 hours?! (we wanted to give her a break from the cone). Over the next several days Rich played doggie MD and re-wrapped it with a pipe insulator to soften the blows. It was not a pretty sight and soon she found a way to get to it even with the cone on!

So I rigged it up with duct tape to add some inches around the perimeter, she looked so silly - but it held up until we got her back to the vet for 30" cone and a new bandage - this one reminiscent of a sock monkey!
 At this point we have made it through 2 of the 3 weeks they predicted for recovery. It's been a little exhausting to say the least and training is going very slow but she and Alice are warming up to each other. I do have to add that she is one of the most affectionate, snugly dogs that I have met, even while sporting the plastic satellite dish couture!

Two tails in the house, again...

We headed down to Chicago Animal Care & Control on Saturday, this is the city shelter, basically ground zero for pets in Chicago, they are open every day for adoption (see their site for hours). No animal is turned away from this facility, which means when the other wonderful rescue groups can't take any more, the only way these pets find homes is for you and me to go down and adopt them. This would not be possible without the incredible volunteers who are responsible for taking the dogs outside, playing with and socializing them, as well as showing them to potential adopters - such important advocates, as they get to know the dogs and can offer feedback to potential owners. Sadly the city, does not provide enough resources, the volunteers are critical. It's so tough seeing all these sweet, innocent dogs, waiting alone in their kennels just wanting a little love and a home.Several caught our eyes and hearts but the one that pulled the
strongest, for both Rich and I, was 11 month old pit mix, Poppy. She had been
there since early July, very sweet and quiet, yet quite lively when we
got her outside. We decided to go home and get Alice. The meet and greet went
well...not instant best friends but definitely comfortable around one
another and tails wagging. So we proceeded with the adoption, which only costs $65, and that includes the dog license and spay/neuter.  We had our
adoption interview with Charles Craft, an amazing advocate for
these dogs and the head of the adoption program for the city and
Fostering Program through Friends of Animal Care and Control. We had corresponded in the past when I did art work for CACC, so it was an honor to finally meet him. (You can see other adoptable pets on PetFinder.com).On the drive home Poppy (who they told us was originally Pippi, and we just named Gracie!) draped herself over me and melted into my
lap with a sigh.It took a bath Saturday with a follow up shower on Sunday to fully remove the Eau De CACC perfume she was wearing.I'm sure she was relieved on Monday to find that bathing was not going to become a daily ritual in her new home!She is a very skinny little girl with a very LONG neck...so long that she can counter surf, this is new behavior to us. Izzy had a few episodes early on...but this girl, you have to keep an eye on! Did I mention we think she might have some Great Dane in her?We have some work to do with Gracie, she and Alice will need some time to bond, but soon, I'm sure she will fit in. This has all been a little bittersweet. It's the sad realization that we are really moving on, left with only our memories of Izzy...as we open our broken hearts back up and make new ones with Gracie.

Wells Street Wrap Up Part II

If you've ever chatted with me at a show, chances are I told you all about my dogs and their influence on my art. So I was a little nervous about retaining my composure, since this was myfirst art fair since losing Izzy, and I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. As luck would have it, the Greyhounds Only rescue group were set up across from my booth at the Wells Street Show. They created a beautiful diversion, and also inspired me all weekend long. I did several drawings of them and in the midst of sharing with people about Izzy, did my first 'patron saint of' / post-pumpkin sketches. 

Saying goodbye to my sweet muse...

After almost 15 years with us, on Monday, we said goodbye to Izzy. It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make, but in the end it was a more peaceful parting than I could have imagined. Things have been going downhill very gradually over the last 2 years, Rich and I did as much as we could to keep Izzy comfortable. Early on we tried acupuncture and chiropractic kinesiology to help with her arthritis. We gave her 9 pills a day, 7 dispensed with peanut butter in a special method perfected by Rich. He cooked weekly in the crock pot for the girls over the last year, and we started using sign language with her as she lost her hearing. We often carried her down and sometimes up the stairs, took very slow labored walks which she still loved, especially to smell the earth and nature (Rich wrote a song about her years ago called "The Sniffer"). There was endless discussion between us about the consistency of her #2...which on a good day was something we termed 'turdular' and if she ate or what she ate. Through it all she taught us patience and compassion and made us better human beings. Since the day we adopted her in November of 1995 (from a vet office on North Avenue where she had been abandoned) she has brought more love to our lives and inspiration to my art work than I could have ever dreamed of.

I'm so grateful to Rich for helping to take such great care of her and to Alice for always being our comic relief. And other folks helped us through these senior years: Ben King from Urban Tailz, who took such gentle care of Izzy and Alice whenever we had to go out of town, Kelly Krueger of Articulate Animals...who was able to communicate Izzy's needs to me from pain med adjustments to letting me know that she was ready to leave her tired old body behind, our vet Dr. Gaspar who respected our wishes to just keep Izzy comfortable and worked with us on pain control, and in the end Dr. Amir Shanan, a hospice vet, who came to our home at 10 in the evening on Memorial Day and so compassionately helped us say goodbye. I was going to close with 'Rest in peace, Pumpkin...' but prefer to imagine her sailing through the air to catch frisbees in that big dog park in the sky...

Poem I wrote in 1999 written around the painting above:

"My Dog's name is Izzy and she's really neat, she chases frisbee and walks on four feet.
She chases squirrels, she chases cats, she even lives with two, how about that?
She loves me no matter what my mood, but she loves me most when I have food. "
She is the color of cinnamon and pumpkin pie...
I'm happy she's my dog and those are the reasons why! I love her so..."

A...my name is Alice and I like snow...

Alice enjoying our winter wonderland...it's hard to believe that our yard looked like this just a few days ago:
That's her new friend L.B. "Little Boy" a stray taken in by my friends Mark & Johanna. His name is still to be determined but I kind of like L.B. or Elbee!

...with wings

As I drove to clay class Monday night I decided this dog was asking for wings but being the neurotic artist, I worried it would hasten the departure of sixteen year old Izzy...then thought even if it does, maybe this means I'll be giving her permission to go, in case she's just been sticking around for me. (I know...welcome to the emotional crazy world of my mind and heart!)Then Wednesday my Mom sent me an email regarding the previous post commenting that the dog looked like Snicker...her beloved big yellow lab that passed away over the summer...and I realized right away it was Snicker and not Izzy and how appropriate those wings were...and that's the reason everyone who saw the sculpture called it a 'he' including me. So this is Snick. My Christmas gift to her and Bill is a portrait of him that I have yet to create but I gave them some drawings as a preview of my ideas: Snick was not the only family dog to go last year, Willie my brother's dog (who I'm also working on a portrait of) and 2 dogs that belong to my Mom's stepchildren's families Pretty Boy and Nimush the 3 legged dog. That's a lot of new doggie angels frolicking in heaven...and many broken hearts they left behind. Mom, a hospice social worker, has been on me for awhile to design pet loss sympathy cards, and/or a book. Perhaps we will pen one together, but not while my Izzerloo is still wagging her tail on this earth...and I'm happy to say she has been doing pretty darn well these past few months and doesn't look to be taking on wings any time soon.

My wonderful Mom with Snicker, the 'Patron Saint of Stick Chewing' last spring.