This is the story of an amazing dog…
Rusty’s Special Treasure –
a buff American Cocker Spaniel.
Rusty came to us at age 9…from owners who adored him, yet had to give him up because they were getting ready to have child #3…which would make 3 children under age 6. His owners were VERY fussy about where he’d end up. It so happened we used the same vet and a friend of ours saw a flyer at the vet’s office and called us.
On Friday the 13th (as it happened), we took our parti-colored cocker, Princess and went to meet Rusty and his owners. We were impressed with them and they with us. So, he came home to our house to live.
And live he did!
Rusty was obsessed with food! He tried to pull the table cloth off the table at Thanksgiving and more than once, almost got the turkey off the table! He loved my mom’s purse, where gum, mints and tissues
to shred were in abundance.
Being in a college town, many times the Goodyear Blimp would come to pay a visit the week before a nationally televised football game was set to occur. Oftentimes, the blimp would slowly drone over our property, taking tours of the town. Rusty felt as if it was his mission to rid our property of the blimp! He would run barking down the length of our three acres, chasing that evil blimp away.
He always seemed to succeed!
At age 14, we noticed that Rusty wasn’t doing well. It was discovered that he had non-malignant tumors on his spleen; so, even at his advanced age, he had his spleen removed. It took awhile, but he did bounce back. The one side effect was,
he rarely, if ever, barked anymore.
We just had him put to sleep, at age 17.5. This is amazing for a Cocker, and for many dogs in general. He was the epitome
of the Cocker’s temperamental description: merry.
We were blessed to have you
for as long as we did, Puff.
Thank you for loving us!
Always,
| Rusty Belknap |
| Ralph & Sally Belknap |