Rosco It was the summer of 2001 when Rosco first came in to our lives, Julie found him on the internet and fell in love with him, so when the day came for her to ask me if we could adopt him she approached me with tears in her eyes, so I was defenseless and had no option but to comply. Rosco was a special needs dog that suffered from seizures. To be honest when I first saw his picture I was not too excited about adopting him, and knowing of his history didnt exactly excite me either. However the first day that we visited him at the rescue agency he melted my heart with his little sad puppy dog look. From that point on I knew he was my buddy. That evening we signed the necessary papers declaring us the new parents of a chubby little Jack Russell Terrier. Due to Rosco's condition and our housing situation at the time we were unable to take him home for about 6 weeks, which actually worked out well because he needed to get accustomed to us. For those few weeks we would come and get him to take him on walks, and to spend time with his new family. It was always difficult to take him back to his foster home because he was always so sad to leave us, he became attached to us rather quickly and instead of being stressed to be left with us, it quickly turned to being a stress for him to be away from us. About two weeks before we moved into our new home we took Rosco permanently. We spoiled him at every opportunity. Since we have no human children he became our only child. For about a year Rosco was the only baby in the house, but we felt as though he needed a little friend so we began looking for a female JRT to keep him company. After a few months of searching for the right dog we finally came upon Daphne, a highly energetic fun loving dog. It took the two of them a few months to figure out who was boss (Daphne has always had a bit of a bitch complex) but they finally worked out their differences and became brother and sister. About 6 months ago Rosco inexplicably began gaining weight, and had become very stumbly and lethargic. What we came to find out was that the poor guy was suffering from what was basically an allergic reaction to his food. So to go along with his seizure he now had a new ailment that would cause him to have to take even more medication. As you can see this dog has had a very hard life. We have tried very hard to make Rosco as happy as the situation would allow. When we first took Rosco he was rather playful in comparison to how he became later down the road. The combination of illness and medication kind of zapped the JRT out of the little guy, but that never kept him from being lovable. Though he acted like he didnt want it, you could always tell that Rosco loved to be cuddled and treated like a baby, and in his own way he gave just as much love as he was given. Now for the hard part, about a week ago Rosco somehow contracted a blood infection that caused his poor little body to become septic, his temperature rose above 105, which caused us to have to take Rosco in to the vet for an overnight stay. The vet was able to get his temperature back to normal, and all seemed well except for when we got home he did not want to eat his food b/c his tummy was upset from the antibiotic. Other than that he was his old self. Later that evening he began having seizures that were brought on by all the stress that he had been through the previous day. The next morning when we woke up Rosco was still not eating his food and was becoming even more lethargic and we noticed a yellow tinge to his body. So off we took him to the vet again to run more tests to determine what the problem was. We later found out that the yellow tinge was indeed due to liver damage, (his liver has always been a concern. Partly due to genetic defects and because of the large amount of medications that he has to take to counteract the seizures.) While Rosco was being observed the vet began to think that his apparent weakness may not have been weakness after all, in fact he believed it to be due to neuralgic damage that we think was caused when Rosco had his series of seizures when we got him back from the vet. Which brings us to tonight. It is now about 1 AM, May 13th 2004. In about 6 hours I am going to be calling the vets office to speak to the doctor about putting rosco down. As hard as this decision is, and as much as it kills me to have to make this it, I just cannot in good conscience allow my friend to suffer through anymore. It has become apparent that he is not going to get any better, in fact he is actually getting worse. This evening he was to the point that he was not even able to walk, it breaks my heart to see him this way, and I know it is doing Julie no good either. So it is with a heavy heat that I must say goodbye to my friend Rosco. I have never loved an animal as much as I have loved this little guy. Though he has been a very expensive pet to keep around, and he has pushed us to our limits both financially and emotionally. I would not trade the time I have spent with him for anything in the world. It always made me happy when he would jump up at me as I walked in the door, I will miss him begging to be fed by crawling up and acting all lovey dovey (about the only time he ever did this.) I will miss his strange little sounds he would make in an attempt to whine, or the funny little guttural bark he emitted to ward off burglars and mailmen. Rosco brought so much joy to my life, and now such an empty void will take his place. Nothing will ever replace what I am about to lose. I love you rosco, you have been a great friend and a good dog. I hope to someday see you again god willing.