Rainbow Bridge

RIP Fez. Hard to put into words…Just shy of 18 years old you gave it your all. Fez came into our lives right after my grandma passed away. You helped my dad in ways that no one else could. Fez was the protector of family from the start. He excelled in flyball, rally, obedience and agility. He always enjoyed it and gave it his best every time in or outside the show ring. Fez loved being silly and had best timing for making people laugh. You can now run free and enjoy playing with your tennis ball and water games. I love you sooo much and will hold on to all the great memories we made. You were the best dog ever. Until we meet again...

Jim

I want to thank you for 14 amazing years with Pippi (originally called "Mitzie") whom I adopted from Mo Kan BC Rescue in August 2005 from a foster home near Kansas City. Pippi came into my life at about 1.5 years old when I was a graduate student in St. Louis. Like her namesake Pippi Longstocking, she had a friendly and adventurous spirit her entire life, quickly befriending anyone she encountered. When I adopted her, she was still so agile that she could jump my 6-foot privacy fence to socialize with the neighbor dog that lived behind us.

A few years later, she moved with me across the country to Baltimore, Maryland where she became a neighborhood fixture. Although some politicians may think of West Baltimore as a "disgusting, rat-infested" place "no human being would want to live," Pippi reveled in the positive attention she received from neighborhood kids and adults alike. She made the 'hood her home.

I'm so grateful to have had her in my life and want to thank all the volunteers and staff at Mo Kan BC Rescue for their work on behalf of dogs like Pippi. She was a scrawny,shy girl with patchy fur when I met her but she blossomed into the most incredible and loyal companion.

Thank you!

Bethany

I remember when we first met at your foster home, you were confined to a kennel recovering from heart worms. (You were called Gael back then.) What a beautiful dog you were and when your foster mom let you out of the kennel, you went tearing around the house trying to expend all of that pent-up energy. I knew immediately you were the dog for me and we took you home shortly after we first met.

We quickly found out that you were super food-motivated, which was possibly an artifact of your having been a hungry stray with puppies. The first clue was when you climbed a bookcase to get at a bar of lye soap which was on the top shelf (which you fortunately decided wasn’t actually edible). There was also the time you ate a whole batch of chocolate scones with raisins and had to have your stomach pumped and, also, the macadamia nut incident which temporarily caused your back legs to not work properly. Scarier was the time you ate a whole bottle of Deramaxx and had to spend two weeks at the Blue Pearl vet. You were definitely prone to misadventures but that never diminished the love I felt for you.

I still have my fond memories of you basking in the sun on the Indiana farm and going mushroom hunting with the boys. You pranced your way into my wife’s heart and became her protector. Now you’re gone, lost to old age, and we’re heartbroken. I truly hope you loved your time with us as we loved our all too short time with you.

Goodbye sweet, sweet girl. If there is a God, we will meet again.

Jeff & Karen Johnson

We believe Gunther was about 5 years old when we found him at Wayside Waifs, a shelter in Kansas City.  When he first walked in the room to meet us he spotted me (sitting on the floor), ran to me, slid into my lap on his back with his paws in the air and his tongue hanging out and if to say “Here I am; I’m your guy!”  We had no idea how right that was.

The folks there told us he had been “on the street” and they had no real details about him or his past.  Little did we know how hugely he would fill our lives for the next 6 years.

Knowing that border collies need a “job” to do we arranged for him to go to doggie daycare while we were at work.  Gunther quickly found his calling: keeping all the other dogs in line at daycare.  He would “correct” dogs that got too pushy or antsy, and quickly earned the nickname “The Sheriff” at daycare.  New employees, as part of their training, would be told “Watch Gunther; you see what he does?  That’s what you should do.”  Many times the daycare told us that they should be paying him instead of us paying them!  And Gunther loved his job.  Every morning he’d be out running around the car, waiting to jump in, barking, as if saying “Come on, come on, I’ve got work to do!”

Unfortunately Gunther’s body dealt him a lousy hand.  He had an autoimmune condition that resulted in his body destroying his own platelets.  To correct this, he had to be on prednisone and the immunosuppression ultimately led to septic shock and kidney failure.  He went quickly.  Only two days before his kidneys failed he was walking around the neighborhood, playing tug-of-war with his stuffed toys, and enjoying his life’s passion: work.  He went quickly, but he went way too soon.

We miss him so much.  He was filled with so much life and so much love.  There really are no words to say.  If all dogs give unconditional love, border collies are the champions of it.  And Gunther was a champion of champions.

We love you, G-man.