Sad and glad dog stories

30 giugno
Ciao, it is a good news bad news type of day. 1st the bad news and a happy story. A few months before my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, he decided to buy an english setter which my mother said would result in a divorce. It didn't and just 9 months later my dad died and my mom became sole caretaker of muffin, the best possible companion for my mom, a dog who probably added a good 10 years to my mom's life. It was wonderful to watch the 2 of them together. As friends of my mother and I can attest, if you wanted to go somewhere in my mom's car, you road in the back while muffin took shotgun as her hair was too difficult to clean up prior. My mom was known throughout estes park as the owner of muffin, a really sweet, loving , small english setter. Anyway, the sad part is muffin has reached the end of her quality life and thanks a million to my brother and sister-in-law who cared for her after mom died.. Tomorrow she will be in doggie heaven, having spent 15 years adding to our lives here on earth.
The good news is the young pup Bacco who is 2.5 weeks shy of his 1st birthday went swimming on his own today. I was incazzato with the pool construcion guy who is 10 weeks behind schedule, and decided to take Bacco to the sea for a bit of exercise. He excelled at mountain climbing Sunday, so it was time for another type of lesson. I took him once into deep water to become habituated and we then took a 2 km walk. On the return trip, he jumped in the sea to retrieve a big piece of wood (he had 3 to choose from) and swam around a bit before having grand success capturing the big stick. Papa was very proud! I am including some fotos of our climb on Mt Vettore yesterday and the lentils, poppies and wild flowers all in bloom on the plateau of Castelluccio.
Enjoy and I hope you have good memories of all the best dogs in your life as i do of Muffin, Saxon I and II and now Bacco
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