These are photos of Skippy. It’s been a week and a half since he died. Still hard for me. He was with me nearly every day for 11 years and was such a vibrant, active, protective, and smart dog. Good bye Skip, my friend. I miss you.

Skippy was a Portuguese water dog. He was bred by C-Lion PWDs in Bedford MA. His mom was Clio and his dad, Brisco. He was born the day before Easter in 2005. Skippy was my companion. He was an unruly pup and because of this we did a lot of training with him. Maybe his unruliness was because we were novices and he was our first dog, maybe it was his vibrant nature, or maybe he wanted to learn how to communicate with us. Maybe it was all of this. Whatever, we figured it out together. Skippy did over 50 hours as an excellent therapy dog with Caring Canines. He was an accomplished gardening dog with 11 years of experience (wink). He did a bit of agility work, loved swimming and boating, and loved his little buddy Suzie, who came to live with us when Skippy was 8. He taught Suzie all sorts of things, most of which were good things. Skippy was a great protector and vigorously protected me and my gardens. He could run like the wind, down sledding hills, across open fields, after Suzie, and down the beach. He was healthy his entire life, never sick a day. On August 26, when he was 11 years old, he died suddenly from a burst spleen tumor, going into cardiac arrest before they could get him into surgery. I think he had a great life, I certainly enjoyed being with him. I will remember him always.

Thanks very much to all who have sent their condolences.