gone to the dogs

All of our pets have had handmade dishes-so after dear Pete died last year at 15 (he had his own bowl, but it broke when little boy was a toddler who enjoyed picking up and dropping everything)and we had recovered sufficiently to talk about getting another dog, Luther got his own bowl. There was a Luther bowl before there was even a Luther. Our son came to me one day and said, "Mama, we need a new chocolate lab and we need to name him Luther." We have a dear friend named Luther, the only Luther little boy knows, so I said that after we asked permission (which Luther-the-man kindly granted), we could start looking. I was too heartbroken to get another chocolate, but when a wild year-old black lab pup wandered into our lives, he already had a bowl waiting for him. Birdy, our blonde old-lady lab-mix, also has her own bowl, but she prefers to eat out of Luther's. Luther eats out of Birdy's little dog-bone strewn bowl, and his own, if Birdy leaves anything in it.

This coming weekend my son's preschool is having its annual auction- we've put in this, which Gary took in 2000, a ladybug teapot, a "paint-it-yourself" platter that I threw, and a bowl like Luther's, customized with the winner's pet's name (little boy's class put together an adopt-a-dog basket, complete with a dog from the Humane Society). While this preschool is private and church-operated, the school's focus is on preparing their students for the accelerated program at the neighboring public elementary school. All of the money raised at the auction goes to providing scholarships for needy students.