Jesse was born Oct. 23, 2001 somewhere in Alabama. He died peacefully at about 12:40 p.m. Friday, April 7, with Justinian at his side.
His name given by his breeder was Bama’s Rocky Mountain Snowflake (We think that was the beginning of his mental instability). Around the time he was 8 weeks old he was flown from Alabama to Colorado to live with Christina’s mother, Linda.
Linda named him Jesse because he looked like he was wearing a mask like outlaw Jesse James would have worn.
Jesse lived with Linda until September of 2002, when Christina and Justinian adopted him. His first night with us was an adventure, as he thought cats should be eaten. It was clear that it was going to take quite a while for him to accept the cats, and vice versa.
For the first few months with us, Jesse spent most of the day and night in his crate. It wasn’t until a few months later that we actually saw Jesse sleep.
It was clear from the beginning that Jesse was going to need a lot of training to be able to function. Our first attempt was to train him ourselves. While he learned to sit, stay, shake, rollover, high-five, jump through hoops and lay down, he still had some major aggression problems. We hired a personal trainer who used rather odd combination of yelling “Baahh� and throwing metal link chains. That didn’t work so well, so we hired a dog behavioralist to help us out. At that point we discovered that Jesse had a skin allergy and needed Prozac. That began the daily regiment of Benadryl and Prozac served in Hot Dogs. Jesse eventually learned to catch the hot dogs when thrown to him.
Jesse was affectionately known as muzzle-dog, since whenever people were around he needed to wear his muzzle. He also liked to chew on muzzles and destroy them whenever he had the chance. He was the inspiration for Muzzle Dog’s Bush Bash, a MoveOn.org event.
He enjoyed going on walks just like other dogs, and like some dogs he enjoyed chasing cars, people, birds, bicyclists, squirrels and anything else that moved. Most of his walks took place after nightfall when we had the whole park to ourselves.
He eventually learned to tolerate the cats. In fact, his attraction for our black cat Obie was a bit perverse. Fortunately, Obie enjoyed it just as much.
He enjoyed eating ice cubes, strawberries and pop corn, and drinking out of the bird bath. One of his favorite things to munch on was dirty tissues (he’d fight all day for a tissue he snatched) and he’d do just about anything for a French Fry.
For entertainment, a plastic bottle filled with dog food couldn’t be beat. He learned how to get the tops off in a matter of minutes. He had a preference for pink and blue tennis balls over the standard yellow and had an uncanny ability to play soccer.
His last week was full of long walks, playing with toys and eating hot dogs.
We’ll never forget his strong personality, intelligence and ability to make us laugh, but his time had come.
We miss him greatly, but know that he is happy now. Who knows what he’ll come back as? We’re sure it will be something special.