On January 19, 2004 Anime crossed the rainbow bridge. 

We discovered that Anime had a congenital kidney problem--hence, she never grew beyond 20 lbs. We loved her desperately--but didn't want her to suffer.  At almost six months of age, she was in complete renal failure.

We love you, Anime.  We will never forget you.

Here's her story...

Within five minutes I will have you wrapped around my little paw.

Okay, here's the truth about me.  Jared is not only my dad, but he's my granddad--yep, my family tree doesn't exactly fork.  My human mom and dad are a little ticked at Jared for outsmarting them.  I won't get into details...but it ain't pretty.  Dad mumbles something about living within a few miles of West Virginia.  I wonder what he means.  

I was born in Japan in a dog training school facility. I had 6 littermates.  One day someone put me in a crate and flew me a long, long way to a place called Virginia, U.S.  There, I met my dad and my human mom and dad.  I naturally inherited my dad's good manners and looks (of course).  Since then, I've had an exciting life living with my dad, Jared, and big brother and sister, Wyatt and Halle.  Oh yea, then there is Candy, the grumpy old sheltie.

Wyatt

You survived the distemper and although you were blind, we hoped we would have a long life with you. But this was not the case.

After a year and half, we saw that you were becoming more fearful of the world. you slowly withdrew from playing with your toys, your sister and other doggie friends. You withdrew from humans and stopped eating. Rich is broken hearted. He thought you could help others handicapped like yourself as a therapy dog.

It is our wish and hope that you are now with Anime and Rocky. A young lovely dog with full eyesight. Waiting someday to be reunited with your beloved master, Rich. 

Click here to learn more about Wyatt's bout with vaccine induced distemper.

Okay, as you can see by this picture, I am not always an angel.  My dad, Jared, is on the right side, giving me the evil eye for standing on the dishwasher door.  Sigh.  There are so many good smells inside that big box!  

We had so many dreams for Rocky. He, like Wyatt, got distemper from the vaccine produced by Biocore. Rocky, like Wyatt, did not show any initial symptoms of distemper, which, according to several experts, is typical of dogs who get distemper from the shot rather than from natural causes.

The distemper ruined Rocky's bite and many teeth. Some of this canines were malformed and many teeth were missing spots of enamal. What we didn't realize is that he might have also had some brain trama as well.  We didn't realize this until June, 2004.

After we had Rocky put to sleep, we had a necropsy performed and found that he had earlier had brain hemoriding which could explain some behaviors he exhibited in the later part of his life.

Candy was our most dignified sheltie. She was a rare bi-black and was active right up to the day before she crossed the rainbow bridge in her sleep.

She lived a good, full life and had one champion daughter, Tina. Candy did try to rule the roost and often tried to boss the Belgians around. They were good natured about it, but who was kidding who? She was a 24 pound dog and they were, well, big. They all got along and Candy would occasionally try to flirt with Jared.

I miss Candy and her gentle prodding to get muzzle stroked. She truly represented a true Banchory look in a dog and was beautiful well into her old age.