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I've been away from this for quite a while, ok almost a year. I am maybe not the imaginative creative soul that I like to think I am. However, a week or so ago I came up with a plan to resurrect the blog. I was all set to do so starting tonight, but something changed.

That change was that today I lost a friend. I say I but it's not I, it's we, and that we is the wonderful community of Boxer lovers I belong to known as the Boxer Mailing List. Nearly 13 years ago, back when the first Brindle was a wee girl, I discovered this community through an internet search. I was welcomed with open arms by a man named Dale Ulmer, little knowing that he and his wife Diane would one day become friends and that I would visit them in their home.

Dale was, in the words of his co-adminstrator, the voice of the BML. He shared his ideas, especially about home-cooking for Boxers, offered his wisdom and was respected and even loved by so many of us. He deserves much of the credit for molding our community into something more like a huge extended family with members all over the world.

Today our friend moved on, not leaving us behind but going to be greeted by those who loved him, human and canine, who had gone before. In the words of one of our members "I hope in dog heaven where Dale is going, there is a gigantic cooktop with tons of ingredients and huge pressure cookers where the ol' man can whip up his mac n mac."

I'd like to also share the prose that Dale's good friend and wife used to let us know of his passing.

Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side, spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength.  I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight.  That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

 And that is dying.

~Henry Van Dyke
 American poet

Farewell and Godspeed my friend, and could you pass little scritch on to Kate and Spencer for me? You'll remember the tiny Brindle girl who will probably have a tennis ball with her and the white guy with one blue eye who will be pushing to the front because he always wanted to be the first to greet anyone new coming in.

Dale Ulmer

Dec. 12, 1938 - Jan. 5, 2012