JERICHO’S STORY
By The Fowler/Bergjord Family
(Who also adopted Skylar)
We adopted the sweetest dog in the whole world in January 2010. We live in Minneapolis and come down to the lakes in the summer almost every weekend. On one particular weekend last summer my mom and I were going to various garage sales and it just happened that the animal shelter had a sale this day. We didn’t find anything at the sale but decided to take a tour while we were there. Most of the dogs were outside and all excited about getting the extra attention. We came to one kennel with a Husky in it. I already have two dogs but fell in love with Jericho, the other dog, instantly. The only problem was that we thought three dogs would be too much. Jericho was a senior dog with some health issues, one being that he was deaf. This however did not deter my feelings for this dog. My mom and I left and I just kept thinking that someone will come in and give this dog a home and went on with things the way they were.
Fast forward to Christmas last year, I was home for Christmas and in Wal-Mart shopping for something to do and seen the poster for the shelter with various pictures of animals available for adoption. My heart sunk as I seen the picture of Jericho , the dog that my mom and I had seen that summer. I knew at that moment that Jericho was going to come back home with us. There was one little glitch though, the shelter was closed for maintenance.
We waited and made another trip down to see Jericho once the shelter was open again. Both my son and boyfriend were not so sure about adopting a deaf dog. They just could not imagine living and interacting with a dog that could not hear their calls. Once we all met Jericho it was unanimous that we were going to adopt Jericho . He was just so sweet and came to all of us even though he was a little nervous about it.
As it turns out it was an adjustment the first couple of weeks teaching ourselves that you can not call for Jericho to get his attention that you have to get up and go to him. The staff at the shelter are remarkable and had taught Jericho a few signs using hot dogs. We attempted to teach him some more signs but with two other dogs it was impossible, poor Jericho would never get his hot dogs.
Jericho was a quick learner and learned to follow the other two dogs’ actions and soon he was just another normal dog to us. We did end up teaching all three dogs some signals that we more or less made up ourselves. We would always talk out what we wanted the symbol to mean. The hearing dogs knew what to do with the words and Jericho would follow their actions and soon would act on his own with the symbols.
Jericho was a pure joy to have around. We waiting about a month before taking him into our vet we wanted him to feel comfortable with us before we tried the move. We found out that he was a few years older than what was estimated and that some of his health issues were due to his age and would only worsen. This of course just made us love him even more knowing that he would not be with us as long as we thought.
We started giving Jericho some supplements to help with the stiffness in his hips and back legs. When we first got him home he did not take the stairs very well at all, we had to practically carry him up and down the stairs. We kept working with him though taking him on daily walks around the neighborhood which he just LOVED especially right after a big snow storm! Soon Jericho was hopping up the stairs all on his own. There are 13 stairs to go down to get to our front door and we found Jericho several times down at the front door waiting to go for a walk. We were so proud of him and he seemed so happy that he could do it all on his own. Jericho even seemed to be more playful than ever. He would get down in the “stalking” stance and when you come up to him he would take off running, well more like hopping through the house. In fact one day Jericho “hopped” back and forth through the house for a good fifteen minutes before just collapsing from exhaustion. It was hilarious to watch and he was grinning the whole time. We caught the video on one of the cell phones but unfortunately lost the file somehow.
Jericho had a little mischievous side to him as well. The first time that I came back from the grocery store was our first experience with this side. I had carried up a load of groceries and went back down to get another. I walked into the kitchen just in time to catch Jericho pulling out a package of chicken out of the bag. He just looked up at me with this big grin like he was asking permission to rip that package open. We found that we could not leave any type of bread on the counter. Jericho was just tall enough to grab the bag and share the feast with the other two dogs. He was definitely very happy to be in a pack even if he was not pack leader. That would be our other Husky, Angel. She made it perfectly clear from the start that she was leader and not to overstep her at all. Jericho did not mind though, he was very calm and easygoing much like our Cocker Spaniel, Ryder.
Sadly, we had to put Jericho down just 3 months after we had adopted him. He had started one day having multiple severe seizures. We rushed him to our vet who tried the entire day to stop the seizures with injections and an IV to replenish fluids that he was losing. Unfortunately they were unable to stop the seizures. We had blood work done and that all came back normal. The vet said that the prognosis was not good even if we sent him to the animal hospital. She was pretty confident that the seizures were being caused by a tumor and the only way to stop them would be surgery which at his age 12-14 years, the vet did not think he would come out.
I have to say that day was the hardest day any of us have had to go through. Even though we only had Jericho for three short months we loved him as if we had had him since he was a puppy. As creepy as it may sound to some people who do not understand the love you can have for your pet, we will have Jericho with us forever. We have a beautiful wooded urn with his name to remember him by.
There is not a day that goes by that we do not think of Jericho and miss him dearly. Even our other two dogs miss him. Angel, our other Husky, missed him the most. She would just lie around on Jericho ’s blankets depressed all day. We are all doing much better now though.
I guess if anyone were to ask any one us if they should adopt an older dog or a deaf dog or both we would have to say absolutely no question about it. If we had the opportunity to do it all over again, we would in a heartbeat!
Those “special” dogs will give you more than you can ever imagine. All that they will ask for in return is for you to love them.
We would like to give a special “Thank You” to all of the staff at the Humane Society and the staff at East Valley Animal Clinic. Everyone was so kind and understanding and gave all of their love to Jericho as well. We will never forget and always appreciate their kindness.