I like to rotate out my paintings but usually stick with the dog one. She was the first homeless dog I painted, a beautiful senior black lab/pit mix.
She was the faithful loving companion to a homeless man. She had never known a stable home but knew love and affection. Her warm and sweet disposition made her a favorite among the homeless population. So much so that when her owner became so ill that he had to be hospitalized it was a fellow homeless man who saved up and bailed her out of a high-kill animal shelter to live with him in the meager room that he rented in order to be allowed to adopt her.
Sadly, as is often the case with the transient population, he lost his home and She was again impounded- taken back to the shelter. This shelter has hundreds of dogs and euthanizes after a short time but again her loving gentle spirit earned her the compassion of the staff who, for an unprecedented three months kept her from lethal injection.
When She could no longer elude the fate ahead of her she was mysteriously transferred to another shelter. It was there that I met her, heard her story and painted her. She then beat all the odds for an old dog and was adopted into a loving home. She has inspired me to use over 200 homeless pets as models for most of my domestic animal art.