Sky Pilot

Brian was going through boxes in his office over the weekend and came across this photo of H and our dog Sky Pilot. Don't worry -- if you don't think he's the most attractive creature, you are not alone. But Brian and I adored this dog. He was our first child, and perfect for our city life at the time. Contrary to what people may believe, greyhounds are very lazy and don't require much exercise, really. The biggest obstacle we had was teaching this long-legged beast to walk up and down stairs when we first brought him home. He was 4, and lived in a kennel on a race track in Florida. Stairs just were not part of his life. Brian and I may have even shed a few tears the first time he walked them on his own -- after weeks of us moving his feet up and down the four flights to our loft. By the time this photo was taken, Sky was 10 years old, gray, missing part of his tail (he would swing it in a circle and bang it on everything -- blood flying everywhere -- so we had to get part of it removed), and missing most of his teeth. I guess you could say he was slightly high-maintenance. Most importantly though, when this photo was taken, we had known for two months already that Sky had bone cancer and that his time with us was numbered. It's such a horrible feeling. We made sure to take him to the Regap picnic that year to hang out with his other greyhound friends (Regap is the organization we adopted him through), where they took this photo for us. H was about 1.5 years old here. I had completely forgotten about this picture -- but was glad to have found it.