A sad yesterday

This is Stray. He was a puppy about 10 weeks old that belonged to one of our employees. Stray was abandoned when he was about a week old and was going to be put down because he was so little. Our employee adopted him and fed him around the clock and Stray lived and thrived.

Yesterday we puppy-sat him during the day while his owner was at a funeral and this is one of the many photos we took of him. He was such a lovely puppy, loved playing with our dog Connor and the munchkins. He was sitting and lying down on command and was such a good intelligent little dog.

Last night after he was back with his owner, he was outside to go to the toilet and saw a leaf or something blowing and chased it onto the road and was hit by a car. He died shortly after.

I just feel so sad because he was such a good little dog and had so much potential. I also really feel for his owner, our employee who is a young guy who spent so much of himself looking after this wee dog and training him. Stray had a short life but it was a good one. And yesterday, he had a brilliant day when he was here and played all day long. I feel sad.
And here is a quick update of Tayla's portrait. The hair still needs more work and ignore the funny spot on the left hand side - that was where Lucy scratched it. I tried spraying fixative and working over it but that didn't work, so I painted some Art Spectrum pastel primer over the fixed area and that seems to have worked. I just need to draw over that area to cover it.

I also have 4 paintings in the final stages of completion to be ready for Wednesday when they will be hung in a restaurant in Albany. I plan to finish them all over the next few days and I will post updates when each one is ready. I'm still sick but the kids were a lot better today.