Happy Birthday to R

Believe it or not, our Cracker Dog, R, recently turned 6 years old!

He's now the lead dog, the elder statesdog, and the wise dog! After flourishing under the tutelage of K, he now is teaching Shyla the ways of the world.

But, don't you worry. He still has his goofy side. I tried to take a nice portrait of him during his birthday hike, and this was the look that he gave me! The Runner has trained him well!

When R plays with his little sister, he still gets the craziest looks on his face that almost scare me.

One of the things that R has re-found since Shyla arrived is playing. K was a serious dog who focused on humans, and she didn't play with R very much. In contrast, Shyla adores wrestling and racing with R. Shyla is so fast that she has forced R to raise his game to a whole new level. I think that sticking out his tongue must help R run faster!

R is now our link with the past. He's known two elder generations of our family's Labs in his lifetime. Of course, he knew K. And, some of you may remember our yellow lab, S, who was about 14 years old when R burst onto the scene. For some reason, the links between generations of dogs are very important to us humans. It makes us feel as if our current dogs were partly shaped by our very first dogs.

I've loved every generation of dogs in our family, and I love this one. R might seem like a crazy tough guy but, in fact, he's sensitive and sweet. That's become even more obvious as he's moved into the role of the older brother.

Happy Birthday to R!!!! Here's Shyla singing Happy Birthday to him!

For his birthday, R and Shyla have been sharing a steak that they've eaten a little bit of each night. They'll finish it off tonight! Yum!