September 27, 2000 Adrian went into labor.  She gave birth to 7 seemingly perfect little puppies.  5 Fawns, 2 Brindled.  I don't remember what number he was in the line up, but I do remember that when he came out, my husband scooped him right up! 

Jr. was the perfect blend.  Adrian's fawn color, and Rocky's white markings.  Brett named him on the spot.  'Jr. Batson' he declared him to be. 

I told him no.  This house was not big enough for 3 boxers.  Absolutely not.  Never going to happen....

Besides, I knew that little one was trouble.  From the moment he was born, his tiny little belly button fell off and began to bleed.  That little puppy bled for what felt like forever.  I stayed up pretty late that night, not only admiring the little family, but watching his button and contemplating calling the vet for the flashy male fawn Brett called Jr.

His belly button finally clotted and stopped bleeding.

A few weeks later, the pups are on cereal, and every time I stand at the kitchen counter to mix their food, one tiny little white faced fawn keeps climbing my leg for food.  He was a large puppy and barreled over his siblings to get his meal before anyone else. 

Jr. was growing fast and was the first one selected when people began coming to pick out their pups.  A very nice woman that had just lost her boxer to renal failure selected him and his brother.  Sticking with our Rocky Theme, she decided to call him Ivan and his brother Apollo. 

Although he was getting big, something started to change with Jr.  We noticed that he was never keeping his food down.  He was getting thinner by the day and had a few scary seizures where he walked all over our house in an unresponsive trance.  This puppy needed help, so we took him to the Oneida Vet Clinic.  They diagnosed him with a common esophagus problem.  Some short time later we brought him back.  That was not that problem... something else was happening to this poor little dog. 

We sent 'Ivan' home with his new family and the Vet's instructions. We told her to bring him back if he didn't improve or got worse in some way.  He returned in only a few days. Jr. was back at the Oneida Vet and finally we were referred to Cornell University.  The Doctor advised me that it was about to get very expensive, but we went anyway.

Jr. had three invasive surgeries at Cornell.  The first was exploratory.  They had to verify that the little guy did in fact have a liver shunt.  The second surgery was to correct the shunt.  They sealed off the artery in that procedure, but in the process, several small capillaries formed still bypassing the liver.  The third and final procedure was to close those tiny capillaries off and hopefully finally begin pushing his blood through his liver.  The case was so rare that the only cost to us on that last visit was his Kennel fees.  Cornell University used it as a rare learning experience and years later would request releases and additional info from us to feature his case in Medical Journals. 

We brought our puppy home in his little t-shirt that covered his sutures.  He would always have a scar from his chest to his hinny.  But that was okay, "chicks dig scars," we told him.  The Dr. called us the day after he came home with more information and said, "it's up to him now.  Could be 8 months, could be 8 years."

We kept our fingers crossed, weaned him off of his meds, and kept him on the Science Diet food.  Eventually he seemed hardy enough, and the trips to Oneida for food were getting tiresome, so we stopped feeding him the special food.  We let him eat his parents over the counter dog food and to our pleasant surprise, he thrived!

Jr. would live a hardy ten years.  His top weight checked in at 88 pounds, surpassing both his parents.  He was once a malnourished little bag of lifeless bones, and grew into a large, beefy dog that towered over his parents.  He was the spitting image of his grand father who reminded me very much of Scooby Doo.

Jr. was more then just a medical miracle though.  He loved his parents very much, and Adrian never stopped being his mom.  She cleaned his ears and kept him in line.  They played fiercely all day long.  They were a family, and they were a pack.  No one ever dared mess with us or come near our house.  They were hunters, clowns, protectors, and best pals.  When Mr. Harrison would mow along our back fence, Adrian would run the fence line barking menacingly, Jr. would stand on alert and Rocky would run between the two of them, keeping Jr. away from the impeding danger the old man posed. 

Jr. was in fact quite a hunter!  Well not really ... Jr. like to play with small defenseless animals.  Over the years he got a rabbit, chipmunks, birds, a baby owl, what I'm sure was a badger (although Brett swears it was not) and our favorite was the Opossum!  He got that one in the winter time, and spent the entire night outside guarding his 'new toy.'  When we found him in the morning and Brett scraped the tiny frozen thing off the deck, a tiny opossum outline remained in the frost.  It was the perfect crime seen!  Poor little opossum.  The tiny owl we tried to save.  I called the game warden, and kept him in a box in the garage.  They were going to pick it up in the morning and nurse it back to health, but it never made it to morning. 

Jr.'s crowning moment as our dog came in June 2007.  When we brought our tiny daughter home and all three dogs were very interested in the little thing that smelled so good and squawked.  I'll never forget that first night.  I laid her down in the basinet in the living room and stretched out on the couch for a few minutes of sleep.  Ellen began crying.  I planned to let her cry just a few moments.  When I opened my eyes, Jr.'s nose was only an inch from mine!  That began the ultimate love affair between a girl and her dog.  Jr. was never far from her side.  He unlike the others would take anything she had to dish out... wether it was wearing her tutus, being ridden like a horse, or just spooning on the couch, Jr. loved Ellie unconditionally.  And Jr. in return was the only living being on the planet that Ellie ever showed any respect for.  They just belonged together.

Such a smart dog and a gentleman.  When you'd go to step over him in the hallway Jr. would not move.  He always lay still so that you didn't trip and fall.  However if I was walking my sleeping daughter down the hall to put her in bed, Jr. would see me coming, and move out of the way like a gentleman...  So much respect. 



The week before Christmas, Jr. began having trouble with his back legs.  The vet felt it was probably arthritis, but he got progressively worse over the next few days.  We feel fairly certain that he suffered a stroke.  By the time we brought him to the vet one last time, it was as if Jr. was no longer behind those dark brown loving eyes. 

Jr. was scared, but brave and we were both with him as he fell to sleep one last time.

Our June Bugs was the ultimate dog.  Upon our first visit to Cornell, we waited for hours upon hours and during one very long wait in the exam room, I looked in his face as he laid lifelessly on the cold, sterile table, and told him, that if we go through all of this, he better be the best dog that ever lived.

        ....  He was.

As a pup, Jr. ate a random drink coaster here and there that I had lifted from the Outback Steak house.  No biggie.  His dad ate 2 couches!  We never once taught him to go out side... he just followed his parents out and did what they did.  When he did pee in our house it was during a seizure and he hated himself for it... you could tell.  He never spent a single day in a crate.  He walked like a gentleman on the leash.  He ate his food in the kitchen, unlike his dad that carried it all over the house.  After his parents passed on, Jr. often went with me to the stable, and spent his time there off the leash.  All I had to do was say his name when I could no longer hear his jingle and he would come back.  

He spent many hours as a tiny little puppy digging holes in our back yard... honestly I thought he was trying to build us a pool in appreciation for saving his life.  I can still see him on his first trip outside with his siblings... he ran across the deck and leaped into the air just like the big dogs did!  He flew off the steps with his ears flapped out like wings ... he held the air for some time... like a cartoon character... then he plummeted straight down to the earth... just like a cartoon character!  Jr. was funny!  He always had a grin on his face.  He also had horrible teeth and I once asked the vet jokingly about braces.  He was just a character and his own wonderful personality. When he was younger Brett and I joked that the was often swearing at us in his mind... a lot! 

Jr. was a however sinker but loved to swim in mom's pool on hot days.  He would walk to the side of the pool by the steps and lift his front left leg so that you could grab him ... all 88 pounds and place him safely in the water... then he would sink... once he was submerged you had to act as his ruder, help him with one lap then guide him to the steps.  What he really loved about pool time was when we splashed and he could chase the water.  The same way he would chase the sprinkler or hose.  No one was ever aloud near his hose water!

He's been gone only 2 weeks, but it seems like a lifetime has passed.  A whirl wind of events has taken place.  We spent the night of his death on line searching feverishly for a puppy.  Christmas was only 2 days away and we wanted...needed a puppy.  We have our Maggie Pants, but we needed a boxer in our home... we needed the comfort from a funny puppy ... we needed to fill the void... we needed to redirect our focus. 

Brett received a Boxer pup for Christmas that is very much like our Bugs.  He's a good pup so far.
 
Puppy, Christmas, New Years, work, horses, school, ballet...  Each day goes by so very fast.  But something is still very missing in our home.

Still, every day when I go to leave on my lunch hour for the barn, I try to sneak out so that he doesn't follow me to the door asking to go with me.  Every evening Brett and I both sit on our end of the couch, leaving Jr's vacant for him.  The first night he was gone, I felt completely alone in this house.  I felt, even in my sleep that something wonderful was missing in our small ranch home.  I continue by force of habit, every night, immediately after dinner to do what ever I can to clear off the stove top and counters so that Jr. wont sit in the kitchen and whine until someone prepares his meal ...

It probably seems to others that we replaced him so quickly.  But you can never replace a love like that.  You can only move on to something new and hopeful.

The afternoon of his death, after a good fetal position cry, I got on line and I googled the Veterinarian that preformed his surgery at Cornell.  She's still practicing there.  I sent her an email telling her about our June Bugs, and in the subject I simply wrote - Thank you for Giving my Dog a Long Happy Life.  To my surprise Dr. Centers responded to me within 10 minutes.  She thanked me for my email, told me that they have preformed over 600 life saving shunt repair surgeries in the past 2 decades.  She told me that my email could not have come at a better time and was wonderful to receive.  Then she asked me for more information about Jr.s life.  His diet, side effects from his shunt surgery, other medical issues he had in life... She was still researching him.  Jr.s little bity liver is still teaching and saving other dogs lives, so I was more then happy to oblige with the information she requested.  Even in death Jr. continues to be a hero.  I must have read her email a thousand times that night.  I just left it up in my screen and read it over and over again.  There was something comforting in there.

He was happy, funny, helpful, a gentleman, had nasty teeth and was covered in lumps, bumps, warts, and other things that pussed... He was gorgeous!  He was our Junior Batson.  Our June Buggers... He was wonderful and we miss him terribly.



Jr. totally held up his end of the bargain.