Jackanory Part 20 - Gone but never forgotten

Last month was the 8th anniversary of Badger Boo leaving us to forever reside at the Rainbow Bridge

I really didn't want to ignore the date but posting on the day was too hard, even now it still feels like only yesterday that Badger had to leave us so suddenly and unexpectedly

Badger is still the lock screen and wallpaper on my phone, which probably doesn't help, but I still don't feel ready to change it, not even when I change my phone 

Photo Description - A small Blue Roan Cocker Spaniel standing sideways on, out on a woodland path in bright sunshine. Across the top in white lettering is Badgers show name "Boxwoods Bramble" at the bottom in white lettering it says Badger Boo 17/10/01 - 19/08/15

🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤

When I first started an Instagram account for Boris to follow his journey as my assistance dog, there was some interest in Boris doing some modeling work at the time and I'd signed him up with an agency

As a result we needed some professional photos taken of Boris as my photography skills are somewhat lacking in that department

A photoshoot was booked with a local photographer and I'd also arranged for some photos to be taken of Badger after Boris's photoshoot was over

I was really looking forward to it

Sadly Badger sudden departure for the Rainbow Bridge was a week before the photoshoot was due, I was devastated and I never got that professional photo done of my sweet boy

Some time after we lost Badger the algorithm that is Instagram started showing me posts of paintings and drawings by various artists of peoples pets, I toyed with the idea of getting either a painting or drawing done of Badger and I started looking at several different artists work, but none really took my fancy

I wanted something that would be a little different rather than a direct copy of a photo but not so different it wouldn't be Badger, I didn't know what I wanted to be honest and I saw lots I didn't

It took me a couple of years on and off searching to find somebody I felt could do justice to Badger in art form

Quite by chance one day as I was quickly scrolling through Instagram I saw a watercolor and absolutely loved it in that fleeting second before it scrolled on by

But when I scrolled back, it was gone, had I imagined it, all I could remember was that it was a watercolor, very life-like with lots of spots and totally different from anything I'd ever seen before

I immediately knew that this was the artist I wanted to forever immortalise my sweet Badger Boo, if only I could find them again, so I put out a request on my stories in case anybody knew who this artist was but with no luck 

Then one day there it was in my newsfeed again, the picture I'd seen and fallen in love with so many weeks before

I'd found Dotty Dog Art

I immediately emailed Kathy and we started the process of recreating Badger Boo

I had a request which I wasn't sure would work or even be possible

Badger had been blind for many years due to PRA and as a result he'd gradually stopped opening his eyes, which always made him look as if he had no eyes

I had two very similar photos of Badger taken approx 5-6 years apart, I wanted Badgers greying beauty of old age, but I wanted the bright eyes of his much younger self would it be possible or would it look strange?

Photo Description - A head shot of the elderly Blue Roan Cocker Spaniel Badger who's gone very grey with age and has his eyes constantly closed 

Photo Description - A head shot of the much younger Blue Roan Cocker Spaniel Badger, who hasn't gone grey yet and has his beautiful brown eyes open even though his sight was very reduced when this photo was taken

 

Kathy was incredible and I absolutely loved the early photos I was sent and agreed that it was exactly what I wanted

Then I had to wait, in reality it wasn't that long, approx 2-3 weeks as I recall but at the time it seemed such a long wait

The big day arrived and Badger Boo was finally here, I couldn't wait to unpack him and see the finished result, so I apologise in advance for my poor filming below

Video Description - Myself unpacking the watercolor painting of Badger Bo by the wonderfully talented Kathy of Dotty Dog Art

Badger was absolutely perfect and Kathy really captured his likeness in a mixture of fun and seriousness, every time I look at Badgers painting I see something I've not noticed before

Photo Description - The finished painting of a head shot of Badger Boo the Blue Roan Cocker Spaniel, who originally started this blog. The painting is double mounted on thick white cardstock and finished off in a white frame

Kathy was so kind about doing this amazing painting of Badger and was very sympathetic to the stress I was feeling at his loss, I couldn't have hoped for a better painting of Badger, although it took a long time for me to discover Dotty Dog Art it was most definitely worth the wait

In fact I love Kathy's work so much I commissioned some amazing pencil drawings of both Boris and Eko but I'll share those with you another time

I often get asked how long the Jackanory Story is, the truth is I have no idea, it started originally as a way to fill in the years before social media, then the missing years when we weren't blogging and now as a way to share old posts I'd started but never got around to posting, like this one

So basically the Jackanory Story is anything that doesn't fit into the narrative of the blog time wise 

I'd originally started writing this post in August 2020 then added the post about the painting from Feb 2022, neither of which I'd ever got around to posting, looking at how many draft posts I still have remaining I reckon they'll keep the Jackanory Stories going for a fair while yet

Dawn xxx

If you love online Jigsaw Puzzles check out our latest puzzle(s) here of this weeks photo(s) 

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