In February 2006 we were fostering a dog named Duncan that was not getting along well with our dogs.  Eunice suggested swapping Duncan for a dog she had named Boscoe who has a more pleasant, yet still free-spirited, disposition.  We agreed and made the hand-off at a Pet Adoption Day.  From the moment I saw Boscoe and he saw me we bonded.  He so reminded me of my wonderful Dillinger that I had lost to cancer two years before.  While technically a tri-color, his coat was predominantly black with a polka-dotted belly and he glistened in the sun.  He piled into my lap and in his mind declared me to be his boy.  Out of respect, I agreed and immediately thought he would become a foster failure.  Leanne was less quick to agree but as he bounced around our dog room and began inspecting Dillinger's old toys, removing them one by one from the play basket and taking them outside to playing with them she too realized he was for us.

Boscoe came to our home at a very busy time as we were preparing to move.  To facilitate that move we would first have to live at our lake house for a month and then move again.  He took it all in stride, mastered each step of the process and did so with glee, a lust for life and a spring in his step.  He loved living at the lake and barking at "the quacky things" (as he called them).

We moved again in May into a house on 5 wooded acres that we bought as much for the dogs as we did for ourselves.  The only thing Boscoe did not like about the house was its location.  Sitting atop a hill he absolutely refused to walk up the driveway.  In fact, as we soon learned, he refused to walk up any kind of incline whatsoever.  No less than half a dozen times he would find himself being leashed to a tree at the bottom of the driveway or to the front door of a neighbor's house as we would run up the driveway to fetch him a ride.  As soon as his transportation arrived Boscoe would arise from his "flat basset" lock-down position to complete his outing.
 

Each day he spent with us he grew and turned from an on-the-road living free spirit to a dog that loved his comforts and his people.  As we began to fill out our new house we also realized that Boscoe had a very accurate internal clock for every night, without fail, at 9:00 p.m. he would saunter to the end of HIS couch, climb up and tuck himself in for the night.  His day was done and he had to prepare for the next.  With a diet of healthy food his coat began to glisten not only after a bath but for days after.  He would sit in his new back yard and enjoy the day, play with no less than 10 squeaky toys per day (often shredding them in the process) romp in the woods and then retire to his couch to be with his people.

Every night and every morning his became unglued as meals approached.  As we would walk into the room with the bowls we would often count his leaps, yelps and 360 degree "spin moves" before he would race head long into HIS crate with such gusto awaiting his meal.  He always took his time and savored the magical concoction we had hunted and gathered for him, always seeming amazed at what accomplished hunters we must have been.  We thought he was young due to his energetic nature but none of the other dogs wanted to play his reindeer games.  He mourned so when we lost Barney in the summer and we decided, for the first time, to get our Boscoe a puppy.  We got him a Golden Retriever named Bristol who he raised as much as we did.  They played and frolicked together all winter, with him standing up and protecting his little sister from strange or unknown dogs.  He loved her so very much.  She mourns for him now and searches for her playmate. Boscoe has trained her to be the laziest Retriever we have ever seen.  She saunters after tennis balls rather than running and lives for belly rubs.  She hears his words even now, "Life is a journey, not a race.  Slow down and enjoy every day."

 

When Boscoe came to rescue he had a mass removed from his chest wall that was benign.  A few weeks ago we noticed a small knot on his abdomen and had it removed.  Pathology confirmed it was a confined mass cell tumor but that the margins were not clean so we would have to subject him to another procedure to clean the margins.  We got the good news from the surgeon that they had, in fact, found clean margins and we should have no more problem with that little tumor.  What no one knew and what Boscoe could not tell us, was that for six months other metastatic tumors were growing on his organs.  On Monday we noticed that his abdomen seemed swollen and by Tuesday night it had gotten worse.  On Wednesday he went to the vet who tapped his abdomen and found things he didn't want to find.  We returned to the surgeon and Leanne and I told him how much we loved him before they put him under.  Fifteen minutes into the surgery Dr. Ballagas came out to tell me we had a problem.  Completely unrelated to the mass cell tumor, some type of cancer had been ravaging Boscoe's internal organs for months.  I could not believe it and went with him into the surgical suite.  Boscoe swelling had been from a ruptured tumor and the cancer had invaded his liver and other major organs.  He never gave us any sign until the last two days that he was anything other than "Happy Bosram Bizwang" as we had nick-named him.  The doctor was shocked that he had walked into the facility by himself.  My choice was to have a spleenectomy and hope for a few weeks of painful existence waiting for other tumors to rupture or let my friend go to the Bridge where he could run, and be free, spending time with Fred, Dillinger, Fredd, Buddy, Buford and Barney.  There he waits for me for I will always be his boy and he my friend.  He was with me less than a year but in that year we bonded and, for a while at least, he filled the void in my loss of Dillinger two years ago.  We grieve his loss but know it was the only decision to make.  We thank all of you who kept us and Boscoe in your prayers.  It was those prayers that I felt and that kept me strong enough to go into the operating room and make that horrible decision.  

 

Once again, I am left with the words of Irving Townsend who penned, 

"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached.  Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality never fully understanding the necessary plan. " 

--The Once Again Prince