Anchor -- The Last Word

  
You know, one of the goals of this blog, besides giving my opinions on art and my craft, is to give you a peek into the world of  cowboys and let you see why I'm so drawn to their culture.
     After posting “Anchor”, the fateful story of a special dog, I received the following email from Stephen Fuchs, who works on the Wildlife Management crew at a prominent ranch in South Texas.  You will see why these men are a special breed:

    Tate Bannowsky is a good friend of mine, and sent me to your blog the other day….  It was a good one about his dog, ol' Jack.  You know he tried to give him to me when he was pretty young.  He was ugly and awkward and at the time the low man on the totem pole of four dogs.  I couldn't get past the cover to what might lay in the book. I had too many dogs at the time to drag something like him back to the house.  I should have known that something was terribly out of whack at the Bannowsky house when the top of the hierarchy was Barney the wiener dog.  The “Dog Whisperer” could have had some real fun with that pack! 
      I've always been a dumbass, I should have bought into Tate's line of Bullshit about how he thought he would really turn out to be something special if I took him to the South Texas brush.  But, on that day I had my bullshit sniffer on high alert and didn't do it.  I never regretted it a single day, because I know that at the time I wouldn't have allowed him to develop into what he did.  If he would have survived the trip south, he would have probably been gobbled up by a hog or something of the sort.  
     It was a damn sad day when Tate called me, I kept hoping and praying that he would come back around just like he always did.  I offered all the words of encouragement that I could come up with…. But we both knew that if he found him it wasn't going to be good.

     Thought you would like this shot of ol' Jack about to set the anchor!!!


It's obvious that Jack made an impression on all who were lucky enough to have him in their lives.  We all miss him!

I'll be off tomorrow, and will resume my painting demo on Monday.  See you then!

Photo of Jack trailing by Stephen Fuchs.