Dog with Ghost 2000

Barney was my sister's first dog as an adult.  "Definitely our fist child" she told me in an email recently when I asked her to tell me about him.  Mostly yellow lab, from the Tacoma Animal Humane Society, chosen in 1989 from all the dogs that were available that particular day.  He died at 12 from a mysterious illness that took away his appetite, and at the end of his life he had a feeding tube that went into his stomach into which Melisa, and her husband Mike, put a soupy slurry of  food.  "To the very end though he happily went on walks with us around the block and wagged his tail whenever we came near".  

 I did this painting before he died, but not much before.  The photo was from before he got sick, when he still had an appetite because it shows Barney politely waiting to be fed.  I made the painting with an awareness of his illness, knowing he would soon  be "crossing over the rainbow bridge(as the vet who put our old dog down recently told me)".  It's with a kind of horror that I remember that I sold this painting to my sister.  I'm  hoping I gave her a good discount.