This has been a long -- and at times very painful -- week. On Thursday, Sundance's dad, Sonny (Ch Ivoss Touch The Sun) was euthanized due to osteocarcoma of the spinal column.

Sonny, who was 4 years old, had been showing in Best Of Breed competition this year when he started developing some nagging injuries to his foot, leg and shoulder in June. At the time he came out of the ring, he was ranked #3 in the country. About a month ago, Sonny started having some weakness and pain in his back. Two weeks ago, his owner, Diane Voss, found him in excruciating pain unable to move. She is a veterinarian and she immediately took him in for MRI. After 2 operations, which left him paralyzed from the shoulders back, the diagnosis was an aggressive form of cancer and the prognosis was fast deterioration and a lot of pain. So, on Thursday, Diane did the humane thing and said goodbye to her dearest boy.

Here's an ad we did for Sonny with a headshot taken here in the studio about a year ago.



Interestingly, Sonny is still ranked #8 in All Breed points Nationally which gives you an idea of how much winning he did between January and June.

After Diane put Sonny down, she was very depressed so we convinced her to drive up from West Palm Beach to our home in Orlando to attend the Orlando dog shows just to get her mind off of the events of the past few weeks. After dinner last night, we all sat outside and watched the full moon and after a few minutes, Sundance went over to Diane and put his paws on her shoulders, his head on her cheek and simply held her. He stayed with her like that for almost 2 hours while Diane hugged him, kissed him and cried a bit. Sundance looks a lot like his daddy. How he knew what Diane needed is completely beyond my comprehension, but he did.

On that note, I want to share a few other of our Sundance images from the 2009 calendar. A celebration of life rather than a memorial to a death.

Here's February.



March.



And April.



Enjoy.

Jim