I got a call from the in-laws about 10pm tonight. Our dog Jo-Jo, who was like a child to us, got killed sometime this evening between 7 and 9:30 pm. He is another victim of the traffic on US Hwy 43. Beth is at work, so I haven't called her to tell her the bad news. I will wait until she comes home in the morning to tell her.
After I sat in my recliner holding pictures of him watching video I shot of him when we were home the end of November and cried for about an hour, I called my mother-in-law back to ask that he be buried under the oak trees between our house and theirs. Jo-Jo would often lay in the yard between the two houses to watch for us to come home. I asked her to get the comforter off our bed in the little house and wrap him in it when they buried him. Jo-jo would sometimes sleep in the house with us at night, or come in early in the mornings and get up in the bed with us. He loved to roll and play in that comforter. Beth would get on to him sometimes because he would be playfully biting us through the comforter, or start playfully chewing at it.
I'm sure Mrs. Glass will miss him, too. Jo-Jo would always go across the road around 9pm and make rounds around Mrs. Glass' house. She told us often it made her feel safe at night to know he was over there checking things out. She fed him sometimes, too.
I had a feeling this was coming. I had noticed Jo-Jo was straying away from home quite a bit lately. I alos noticed he was not being as careful as he once was when crossing the highway. He used to be really careful when crossing the road. He would stop and look both ways to make sure a car or truck wasn't coming before he would cross the road. Last month, he almost got hit right in front of our house with me standing on the front porch screaming at him to get out of the road! We had discussed getting one of those underground fences with the electric collar and installing it to keep him out of the road just in the last few weeks.
I had built a web page for him when I got our webpage started back in January. It tells the story of how we came across him and how he came to live with us. Here's the link:
http://sj1964.home.comcast.net/JoJo.html
I have missed our child since we moved here. The house we're leasing had a no pets clause. The back yard is fenced in, but is very small. I had looked for almost two weeks before Beth came back from her travel assignment in California to try to find a house where we could bring him with us, but to no avail. Beth didn't believe me, so she came with me on the second house hunting trip. She found out what I had already told her... I can't find a house where we can bring Jo-Jo with us. We decided he wouldn't be happy having to live in a fenced in yard, especially one as small as ours (even if we could have convinced the owner to let us bring him). He was used to roaming free in our neighborhood. We had to settle for coming home every other weekend to see him. We would have been coming home next weekend to visit with him again. Now he's gone. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. I guess I should be thankful God shared him with us for the time we did have him.
Goodbye Jo-Jo. We will all miss you. May God keep and protect you.