Our Beloved Little P

CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF ROSCOE

April 1, 2003   –   March 20, 2013

On Wednesday, the 20^th of March, we lost our beloved Roscoe, a.k.a., “Peeser”, “Little P”, “Roscoe P. Coltrane”, “Sco P”, “Pickle”, “Pickle Juice” and “P Trane”(just to name a few of his nicknames) to Lymphoma.

Ross and his “Sister Sha” (Misha)

Ross was our little boy and the life of the party no matter if we were home or anywhere else.  He loved life and everyone around him couldn’t help but love life, too.  His zeal for life and his energy was just contagious!

He was a Jack Russell/Blue Heeler and unique in every way.  We would often get comments such as, “Why in the world would someone breed a Jack Russell with a Heeler?!”  We would just laugh at the time and answer, “We have no idea!”  Whatever the case, we were just always thankful for our little boy.

From the moment we rescued him back in of April of 2004 at 12 months old, he became an apple of our family’s eye.

Every moment in Ross’s life, he celebrated the joy of being loved and adored by his family and dog friends (he had many as he was one of Jessie’s right hands in working this business–with Lanai being the other and his team mate).  He was known to so many pups as “Uncle P” and he loved his role and who he was to them.  The pups were called his “babies” so when a new “baby” would come into the pack for daycare or boarding, Ross was the supreme greeter and herder telling the pups where NOT to go, as well as, translated the commands I was given the pack in general (translating for those pups who didn’t quite know the commands yet).

Everyone who personally knew Ross, knew of his “bone dance”.  It was his “dance of love” if you will when someone he loved walked through the door.  His bone dance would consist of finding the nearest bone or toy, pick it up and hold it in his mouth as he danced his way to and in front of the person he was excited to see.  It was something we never tired of seeing even though it was accompanied by the shrillest whine or bark that carried on with it 😉  Oh!  How we miss the things that could drive us nuts back then such as the barking for instance yet, we would give anything to see and hear him again!

Ross was diagnosed at the end of February with Stage 4 Lymphoma and within two weeks of being on prednisone therapy, his tumors had decreased by half in one week.  We were ecstatic!  The prednisone, however, was taking a toll on him with some not-so-fun side effects that we think were worse on him than the cancer itself.   Within a few days of dropping his prednisone dosage down by half, the tumors grew larger than ever (it is felt that Ross had the b-cell lymphoma).  A total of five days after we dropped the dosage by half, we had to make the call to put him to sleep.  Though it was a difficult decision for us to make (Ross never fully lost his appetite or stopped accepting water), we knew the right thing to do by Ross was to mercifully put him to sleep.  We didn’t want him to suffer, which he would have done since his cancer just within the five days had begun to spread across his trachea.

In and through everything, our prayers were being answered and rapidly…
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• We had wanted Dr. Franz to put him to sleep and she did.  We knew that we wouldn’t have enough time, when the time came, to drive him up to Truckee to see his Dr. B, our friend and veterinarian.  We all had developed quite a beautiful bond with Dr. Franz, and we’re so thankful for her!  Ross really took to her <3
• Dr. Franz is only on Wednesdays and between 6 a.m. – 11 a.m., Ross’s tumors were growing right in front of our eyes.  This was a sign that putting him to sleep was the right call because I had been praying that I didn’t put him to sleep prematurely and that I didn’t wait to long either causing him to suffer (a common fear I understand in situations such as this).

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We had been praying for a miracle that The Lord would heal Roscoe, and in the end, He did—the ultimate, best healing.  He is in no pain, is cancer-free, is reunited with his brothers who passed on before him, and most importantly, is up in Heaven with Jesus waiting for us to join him 🙂  It was not the healing of course that we were praying for (the healing we wish for is for the person to be here on earth with us) but it was no less the best healing that could’ve come for Ross because he would be able to run with his brothers in Heaven and receive the ultimate love by Jesus Himself.   We believe we’ll see him when our time on earth is over.

There are a thousand things, personality traits, and characteristics that made up Ross.  There are so many memories and so many things about Roscoe that it would fill novels.  For this life we lived with him and all of these memories we cherish in our hearts, we are forever grateful to The Lord above!  We are reminded that no one knows what the future holds.  We only have the moment we’re in to love with all of our hearts; love like there’s no tomorrow; love as Jesus would love; love our loved ones so much that they know beyond on a shadow of a doubt that their souls will forever be linked in love with ours.

For those of you who were part of Ross’s life, thank you for allowing us to share him and his contagious love of life with you <3  We hope and pray that he made your day just as special when you saw him, as he made ours every day he was with us.

Though winter has settled in our hearts and the cold, icy clutch of grief has gripped our souls, we truly appreciate the warmth, care and support from all of our friends and family–truly!

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To Our Little “Boy P”,

You are missed and loved every millisecond of every day!   We cannot begin to know how to get used to life without you but are thankful that The Lord knows what we need and how to direct us out of realm of grief and despair.

You were the best little boy, and we thank you for all you did to help us (Mommy, Daddy, Rog, Jordie and Sister) teach and train the dogs that came into our care.  You were the English translator, your cat brothers’ (and now cat sister’s) protector, my Beta who verbally scolded a pup when they didn’t do what I told them to; the excited traveler who always loved to go; the affirmation from The Lord that unconditional love is what it’s all about; our greeter (and often alarm system when a stranger came knocking); the chipmunk (“chippy”) finder; the digger always in search of underground treasure; my shadow and nursemaid when one of us was sick; my blanket holder by sleeping with me on the blanket so that it didn’t fall off;  and the list goes on, my darling little boy.

We’re so thankful that The Lord allowed you to be with us for so long and even enjoy our first family vacation away from home last August (our first in 22 years).  You were the comedian during the trip and provided us with a ton of laughs!  You were so good and didn’t even bark; we were so proud of you then and we’re proud of you now and forever.

You will forever be in our hearts, and we look to the day when The Lord calls us home and we can be greeted by you, pick you up and kiss you once again.

Until we see you again, Littlest.

With all the love in our hearts,

Mommy, Daddy, Rog, Jordie, Sister, Grandma, Grandpa, Molly Brown, Boe-Mew, Sable-Sue, Rhett Butler and even Pecos Bill