For Sher's May Pet Challenge - choose either red or blue for your background and do a memorial page honoring a family pet. I started journaling about my sweet Boomer and basically couldn't stop. Thanks Sher for inspiring me to do this page and journal my heart out about his life with us. I miss my boy so much.

I blended lots of paw prints onto my background paper and faded them in. I also blended out different parts of the background that had dark spots and misting behind all of my journaling so it wouldn't interfere with it.

Here is the journaling if anyone wants to read it, but by all means you don't have to!

Boomie was so small the day we brought him home that I could hold him in one hand. The first time I picked him up to take him outside he let out a little snort. It was the cutest little sound ever and he never outgrew it. He snorted with pleasure when you pet him or when you were about to give him a treat. He snorted like this throughout his whole life. It always made my heart melt when he did that.

He was also a very verbal dog and he came to us with a shriek of a bark which he also never outgrew. We heard that bark whenever he wanted something… to be let inside, to be let outside, when he wanted your attention, and most importantly when he wanted to eat. He had many different barks for different things, and even a big tough boy bark when he would be on alert to animals out in the back woods. The first time we heard it we didn’t know it came from him! It was as if a different dog was barking! But his shriek bark was the one he used the most.

Eating was his favorite thing in life. He started barking for his meal sometimes over an hour before it was time because he just couldn’t wait! He knew when it was treat time in the afternoon, and he would know whenever I was cooking to be on the lookout for anything that may drop on the floor. I always got a kick out of him when I would be putting food into a bowl and I would see him not looking up at me, but staring right down on the floor, just waiting for something to drop. I of course always made sure that something did.

He also knew how to steal food! We always had to keep any bread, rolls, fruits, candy and anything else way back on the counters because he would stand up on his hind legs and go after it. And at over 90 pounds he looked like a big black bear standing up at the counter. Some of the things he stole were complete loaves of bread, a bag of potatoes, a bunch of bananas, and he once knocked over a bowl filled with apples and we came home to a broken bowl and apple cores everywhere. I think most memorable was the time we came home one Thanksgiving and had made a mistake and left an entire bowl of Halloween candy too close to the edge of the counter. We came home to a trail of candy leading into the living room, where he had had a feast. That was one of the few times that he actually threw up, but it didn’t phase him in the least. As much as we tried to teach him not to jump up on the counters it never worked, and when we went out we started putting things on top of the refrigerator. It was the only place they were truly safe.

He was also a very smart boy and understood everything you said to him. You could tell him anything and he would know what you said. He didn’t always do it, but he did understand lol.

It was fun to watch him with the playmates in his life. The first one was Cidie, who he came home to. It was so fun to watch them run and play together, and watching them play tug-of-war with their toys really showed how much power they both had. I loved walking them both together on their leashes and just having the two of them was such a joy. Those were such fun times. But they only had a little less than three years together. After we lost Cidie it would break my heart to see him look for Cidie to follow him whenever we let him outside.

When he was about 8 years old Maddie was born, and when she would come over every day for us to watch her he didn’t know what to make of this little thing that we used to hold. When he found out it would make noise he would bark and bark at it with his shriek bark. One day, many months later, we put it down on the floor with him and it started crawling around. He looked so surprised that he now had to share the floor with it. Then one day it started walking, and sitting on him, and petting him with the bang, bang, band of a little hand. And through it all he was so good! No matter what she did he never barked, growled or even looked at her in a bad way. He would just stay on the floor with her and if he really didn’t like something she was doing he would just get up and walk away and lay down somewhere else. He was just so perfect with her!

When Aiden was born he was so used to Maddie that it didn’t phase him that another little one came into his world. He was just as good with him as he was with Maddie. By then he had arthritis so he didn’t get around as well as he once did. He no longer could go upstairs and slept in the den at night on his bed.

In 2013 he got another playmate… Twinkie. She was such an active little puppy and the first day she came home he barked and barked at her with his shriek bark. But after that first day he stopped barking at her so much and would watch her run around the yard. He couldn’t run anymore but he was always happy watching her run and he would stick his nose in her pool and didn’t mind when he got splashed by her. He would play with her while lying down on his side, pawing at her and barking while she played with him and barked back. It used to become so noisy that if we were watching TV we would have to pause it because we couldn’t hear it! They had so many good times together, even though it was only for a little over a year.

I miss Boomie with all my heart. He was with us for almost 14 years and I feel so lucky that we had him with us for so long and for the fact that he never lost his vision or hearing. Other than his arthritis and severe issues with his back legs the last few months of his life, he did great and was always a happy boy. I wish so much that I could pet him again and tell him what a good boy he was. Even when he was stealing food I just couldn’t stay mad at him. Boomie you have surely left your paw prints all over my heart. They’ll always be right there, next to Cidie’s.

Papers and elements from these kits: Hey Dude (Fayette Designs), Puppy Love Boy (Jen Yurko), and Furbabies Here Doggy Doggy (Designs by Shelle)

Fonts:
Canvas Script Regular - title and subtitle
Christine - journaling
Teton Bold - date and age on frame