This is a Mother's Day gift for my mom done by my illustrator,  FortunataFox. It's of the three doodles we've owned as a family, Baci (left labradoodle), Polo (center goldendoodle), and Marco (right labradoodle). Polo and Marco are no longer with us, sadly, but we cherish them greatly and remember them each day.

Polo found his forever home when he was just a little, fuzzy, almost black puppy. He, myself, and my brothers all grew up together in a rural neighborhood with plenty of space. Polo wasn’t thrilled with water unlike his brother, Marco who liked to go swimming in the pool. Polo loved his walks but ESPECIALLY liked to sit near the vent right in front of the window next to the front door where he could see out to the street. The vent made it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Polo loved his family and frequently sat leaning up against them. Polo was a very sweet dog with never becoming aggressive with the other dogs. He did chew up a few things as a puppy but became a very well behaved canine. Polo was the first family dog and held a special place in our hearts, he slowly turned mostly silver but his happy friendly spirit never dimmed.

Marco was Polo's half-brother and was a lot wilder than Polo was. He had a curved tail that constantly bobbed up and down when he trotted around; and we made the comparison of it being like a feather in a cap. He loved to take a lap around the swimming pool on hot summer days, and he also loved to jump up to try and get the apples in the apple tree for a snack when nobody was looking. He was also usually the instigator when he and Polo made escape attempts from our house to go on adventures in the neighborhood. He'd be the first to go under the fence and then jump around crazily cheering on his older brother to hurry up and join him.

Baci (as of this posting) is still alive, and is about ten years old now. He's unrelated to Marco and Polo, and he didn't always get along with Marco very well. But he loved being gentle with Polo, and understood that he was an elderly dog in contrast to his young age and would play very gently with him. Sometimes he'd lick at his ears to show his affection to him. He was also a therapy dog for a short while, but with his anxiety problems he was never very good at it, so he stopped doing this. We call him our "therapy dog dropout" and now we're his "therapy humans" because of his quirky nervousness. But he is super sweet, and loves to show off his toy collection whenever somebody comes to the door of the house. He also loves pushing up his face against your lap as a way to show his affection towards humans, almost like a cat would.

We love you, puppers <3