Sailor Stories

Sailor

2009-04-13T23:26:00.001-07:00

The Garden

2009-04-13T23:14:00.001-07:00

Sailor loved tomatoes... he was famous for it. But he also loved a bevy of other vegetables. My parents' ginormous garden allowed for some green peppers and tomatoes to be picked outside of the chicken wire fence (created to keep out the bunnies that Sailor was so indifferent to). Sailor took full advantage of these garden fruits and would often just pluck a pepper or tomato and enjoy its goodness as he basked in the Wisconsin sun.

Bunnies... the other non-meat

2009-04-13T23:05:00.001-07:00

My family's backyard was filled with bunnies. When Sailor was very, very young he killed a bunny. He was scolded, and we explained that killing the rabbits and their offspring that lived in our yard was wrong. To the best of my knowledge, he never did it again... (Though, apparently, he was okay with outdoor mice.)

In fact, Sailor was such a non-threat to the local rabbit community, they would hop within a foot of him and he'd casually move his head to face the opposite direction as if he were terribly interested in anything but the animal nearby.

2009-04-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

Sailor was a great hunter and food was his motivation.

While we were watching a Packer game, he was sitting in front of the family room window staring into the house. 10 minutes later he was still sitting there. As I looked closer, I realized he had a mouse in his mouth. Somewhere in the great prairies of Wisconsin, he found a live mouse. As I ran outside to stop him from eating this furry little creature from God, he saw me coming. As I got closer, he lifted his head to the sun and the furry little creature slid down his throat without a word. Sailor smiled and went to look for more. This was fun. I went back into the house and finished watching the game. Life went on without interuption for this wonderful furry beast. A great hunter indeed.

Pets for Puppies

2009-04-12T19:03:00.001-07:00

Sailor would rub his nose on your hand when he wanted pets. If you didn't pick up on this subtle hint, he would force his nose under your elbow and slide his head down your arm until, mysteriously, you were scratching behind his ears. If your hand stopped moving, he would walk forward, letting your hand fall down his back, and then start all over again... and again... and again... That made me laugh every time.

poops

2009-04-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

Sailor always made a terribly embarassed look whenever he pooped. Also, when he was finished with his business, he'd run to the other part of my parents' lawn and walk back, casually, from there.

Fur and Feathers

2009-04-09T06:13:00.000-07:00

When Sailor was just a few months old, we often left him in the screened-in back porch when we all left the house. Less chance of damage that way, or so we thought!

The porch was an enclosed section of the outside of our house, so the walls were made of the same vertical cedar board and batten boards as the exterior of our home. There was also an ugly green artificial grass carpet covering the cement floor, the perfect spot for a young rambunctious puppy to frolic.

Sailor didn't seem to like the artificial grass on that porch. Each time we came back from work or running errands, we'd find that he had removed just a bit more of the carpeting, tugging from a corner until he eventually had over half the carpeting pulled up. We finally got rid of the carpet and installed ceramic tile.

He was quite the home remodeler. Maybe he thought we should change the wooden battens on the siding too, because he chewed through plenty of them during his hours on the porch. (And they still bear the scars of his puppy teeth today.)

But my favorite porch story is the day of the Fur and Feathers. After we put a tile floor on he porch, I put an old couch and some pillows out there. One of the pillows was a small feather pillow. Well, Sailor had his way with that pillow one day. We came back from work and found a perfectly distributed 1 inch of feathers covering the entire porch floor, and one embarrassed little puppy! The empty pillow sack lie flaccid and limp like a dead rabbit carcass on a snowy field. Sailor knew he did something wrong and gave us the "I'm so sorry-but I just couldn't help myself!" dance. We laughed until we cried, and for the rest of the night we imagined the fun he must have had while he shook that pillow until it was dead! To this day I'll never figure out how he got the feathers SO evenly distributed around that floor. It was perfect! And so was Sailor.

Sailor

2009-04-08T14:32:00.000-07:00

flowers

2009-04-08T14:31:00.001-07:00

Sailor used to sniff the flowers in my parents' backyard. He'd go from flower to flower, just smelling them.

butterflies

2009-04-07T23:54:00.000-07:00

We adopted Sailor around the end of August. When he was a tiny puppy, he'd chase butterflies.

angel food cake

2009-04-07T20:07:00.001-07:00

Sailor loved angel food cake. He used to watch it bake in the oven. He would literally sit in front of the oven and watch the cake rise. My dad probably fed him a third of what he cooked.

Sailor Stories

2009-04-07T00:06:00.001-07:00

7 years ago today, the world lost a very special guy. I'm creating this blog so that I can remember all the amazing things he did. Also, if you knew him, you are more than welcome to post... I'll figure out a way to add others.