Since I am coming back to this after a few years, I probably should explain the blog title and the header image.
Yuki and Pecos were the original Two Dogs. After I lost my long time companion Archie (a black Lab-Rottie Mix) I wanted to immortalize Yuki and Pecos on the Internet in preparation for the bad days in the future when they would exit our lives.
The picture in the header image was taken by me in Chincoteague, VA one morning and I thought later that, knowing those two pups like we did, there is sooo much more meaning in that photo than just a couple of dogs.
In the photo, Yuki gazes out at the morning sun, looking forward to the future. Yuki never had a hard day in his life. He was pampered as a puppy by his original owner and mega-pampered by us. He never saw the inside of a shelter, or spent time roaming the streets trying to find food. Yuki, however, had many physical problems, his hips being the worst. Hip pain, chronic ear infections, dietary allergies made up his life, but as far as he knew, that was just life. He was happy, playful and affectionate his entire life. Always looking forward to the next fun thing.
Also in the photo, Pecos, however, looks backward. Back towards the west and the eventual arrival of night in all its cold, lonely darkness. He looks back to his past. A past that only he knows for sure, and the rest of us spent his lifetime trying to guess. He exhibited textbook temperament of a dog that was removed from his puppy pack way too early and never learned things like when other dogs don’t want to play anymore, or regarded his play as too rough. The legend is that he was found roaming the countryside on the Blue Ridge Parkway, at least that’s what the people who dropped him at the local shelter testified. Suspicions are they were actually his “owners.”
He was taken from the shelter by a very trustworthy shepherd rescue which should have been fine, but the foster he was left with, had him for about 24 hours before sending him to some type of boarding location and not telling the rescue organization. Pecos reportedly spent a MONTH locked up there before the rescue management found out what had happened and immediately ran to get him.
So, Pecos looks back, knowing that things can get worse at any moment, with history as proof, and Yuki looks forward, knowing that each day is more fun than the last and only love and companionship await.
Even though they are both gone now, and we have three dogs now, the site name and that picture will remain as an ode to the original “Two Dogs.”