After years of "Happiness", we lost your lil' buddy JR Sunday, December 12th, 2004. Because we had come by him as a stray we had thought he was some what over 14 years old when he passed. Though it was a very traumatic experience, the unenviable was expected. JR had been showing his age with among other problems he had Hip Dysphasia, partial Blindness and Alzheimer before his passing.

We first came upon JR when my father went to work one morning and met the little guy at the office door. My dad, a extreme dog lover, pat the pup then went in to get some ham he had in the frig. He went back out and started to hand the ham when the hungry JR took hold of more hand instead of the ham. In this process,  JR bit dad and he started to bleed pretty badly. My father always being the first one to work, went in to lock up and go see the doctor. He also decided to take the hungry pup home first in case he had rabies. Little did dad know, while locking down the office, he bled all over the floor. When the other workers showed up, didn't find dad there and to make things scarier, there was a bunch of blood on the floor. You can only imagine what they were thinking. They called the house and mom explained everything. Dad later showed up to work with couple stitches and a neat story.  JR that day found a home and a family forever.

As a young pup, JR was a rambunctious little fellow. He, as most Border Collies, had an abundant amount of energy. And like the breed, he was extremely smart with a charming personality of his own. He quickly found out how to take advantage of the growing love we had for him. He would run circles around any of us but would never run away and always kept one of us in his sights. I guess his undying love for us was as strong as ours for him.

He seemed to get smarter and smarter everyday. Like his breed, JR liked to work. One of his jobs, beside being a dog and loving us, was to get the newspaper every evening for his daddy. We even started making a game of it by hiding the paper. No matter where we hid the paper, he would find it. Seriously!!! He even started to meet the paper boy at the end of the driveway and get it from him. He was so focused on the paper, he didn't even know there was a boy there. We worried that he might hurt the boy by jumping on his bike. That's why we had stopped him from getting the paper from the boy anymore. A few days later, a lady showed up at the door and asked us if we would allow JR to resume his paper retrieval from the boy because her son was so broken hearted. Still couldn't take the chance. Oh well.

One problem he had earlier in life was periodically mild to severe seizures. We eventually found out it was Epilepsy. The vet gave him some medicine to help the seizures and it did, but it also seemed to change his life a little by making him less active but still very lovable. Though his last years gradually slowed down, he kept doing his job by making life a little more tolerable.

His last year was so sad to see a once very active dog struggling to walk and soon think. He still ate well and did his duties. Some would say that we should of put him down earlier, but that's "easier said then done" when love is in charge. The day we took him to the vet, he supposedly had a stroke. This was one of the hardest days other then the deaths of our other two dogs, "Stinky" and "Fuji". Being this day was two Sunday's before Christmas, little to say, Christmas was looking bleak. We didn't even have a tree up. But luckily, there was a friend of ours of the last three to four months came and visited Christmas Eve and Christmas thus making this sad event without JR so much brighter. His name was Alex. He was a neighbor's ten month old Dachshund & Chihuahua. That's a whole other story I'll tell later.

Thanks to Alex and the ever so fond loving memories of JR, Christmas turned out pretty good. I have often wondered why dogs didn't as long as people. Thinking about it, I felt that maybe it is so we can have different dogs during our life time and that's a good thing. Thanks for the memories JR. I will love you forever and never forget you.

NOTE: More Info Will Be Added Later As UpDates.

 

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