Boots was a tiny, powerful, loving, happy pup, a collie-shep mix. She had a special way of scenting the wind, questing, always, to find something new. She grew into a tri-colored, big-brown-eyed beauty, lived for the ball and loved the changes in the seasons. Twelve years of love is a heartbeat, and I have so many memories - the time when Boots and Tara, her GS girlfriend, got tangle up in Boots' leash outside - both sat, chest to chest, quietly, patiently, as if everything were normal, until I came and untangled them. Or the very little puppy with the very BIG appetite for chocolate chip cookies - 3 dozen of them. She knocked them down in less than the two minutes it took for me to check on my twin babies ('I'll just leave here here in the kitchen, she'll be fine...') and get back to the kitchen. The morsels she left me were pathetic... Or the time when her culinary habits resulted in a similar loss, my wife's bagels disappearing on a number of occasions. But she loved to run, and was a picture of long, willowy muscles, broad, surging chest and trailing ears, fierce smile, sensual bark, as she urged me on to throw that beat-up ol' tennis ball one more time... When she could run no longer, she still loved to be out (except in the rain, Miss Dainty Paws...), and carried the coolness of fall and the sometimes frigid feel of winter in her coat long after we would snuggle up to talk inside. Summer she dealt with, and she enjoyed burying her muzzle in the ground, sniffing spring flowers, and giving a deep, very un-ladylike sneeze to clear those nostrils, but the cool weather was her favorite. We'd sit together outside and taste the wind together, walk a while, talk some more, love each other. It has only been a week, and all of these memories feel like yesterday. The hardest part is walking in the door and not having her greet me. She would want me to honor the sights and scents of all seasons. This I will do in her name.