Meet Winston

10 weeks old. We picked him up last night.

Sadly, we lost our senior German Shepherd three weeks ago. I came home from the barn and my husband met me at the door to tell me that Boris had lost the use of his rear legs. X-rays didn't reveal an apparent cause. He was nine years old, the age we seem to lose most of our dogs. We could have opted to have a surgeon look at him the following morning but recovery would have taken months and since we have a two-level home, he would have been forced to live in the basement where we're pretty sure he would have been miserable since we spend the majority of our time upstairs.

Bart did not handle being an only dog well. He's been off his feed and started peeing in the basement (which is now closed off to him) He and Winston have already played together a lot and it looks like they will be good buddies. We just have to make sure Bart doesn't get overly boisterous and hurt the little guy.

Things have started to click for me with my riding. When I showed up at the barn on Monday another woman was riding "my" mare. I hoped I'd get to ride her afterwards, but no, I was assigned the gelding who had his way with me the last time I rode him. Well, three or four months later I am a different passenger and was able to show him that I was the boss. I also had a different instructor for this lesson. My instructor threatened to turn me over to her sister permanently when she saw how well the gelding and I were doing, as in, "Why can't you ride that well for me?" I dunno, it just came together this time.

Winston is asleep with his rear legs stretched out behind him. Wish the camera was within reach as I'm sure he'll reposition himself if I move. Oh well, I'll get a photo of that pose another time.