Simply put. Beyonce adores Jabba-bear. Animals have amazing intuition. Over the past few weeks, Beyonce has grown closer and closer to Jabba-bear (both physically and emotionally). Several times we have seen her affectionately licking the incision site from his lobectomy. In our opinion, this action could serve one of two functions: (1) she is trying to heal Jabba-bear, using her sweet saliva (which we half believe contains “magical” regenerative compounds, since, despite being one of the clumsiest dogs in the world, Beyonce never gets hurt…EVER), or (2) she is attempting to remove Jabba’s cancer with her own bare teeth!
The following photographs illustrate Beyonce’s eternal affection for Jabba-bear (her hero):
Beyonce resting comfortably on Jabba-bear (he looks like a pillow). Beyonce couldn’t be more at peace!Beyonce curling up with Jabba-bear on the way to Horizon’s Dog Park (Saturday, March 30, 2013)After several hours of exercise, both Beyonce and Jabba were exhausted…but happy!As soon as the car started moving, Beyonce resumed her “normal” position of cuddling Jabba-bear.
When we began Jabba-bear’s battle with osteosarcoma, his primary doctor, Oldtown Veterinary Hospital (http://www.oldtownvet.com/), gave him a very special gift: a guardian angel charm for his collar. He loved this charm so much! One day the charm broke off his collar, but we have kept it on a shelf next to his bed. Every day we look at it, and we are reminded of how lucky we are to have Jabba-bear in our lives. He has made it this far largely because of the outstanding care that he has received from the doctors and staff at Oldtown Veterinary Hospital. We are incredibly grateful to them for all that they have done, especially over the past 2 years. Jabba-bear’s osteosarcoma has been an unusual and difficult case to treat. Nevertheless, Jabba-bear continues to persevere…throughout it all, his goofy smile continues to warm the hearts of everyone he meets.
Guardian angel charm for dog collar. Protect this dog (back).
This is an example of a personalized appointment reminder that Oldtown courteously sends out. We thought this was such a beautiful card that we’ve saved it on the “Jabba-bear” side of the refrigerator (above his food bowl).
A reminder that Jabba-bear had a heart worm antigen detection test scheduled for January 2012.
For Jabba-bear’s 1 year Ampuversary, Oldtown sent us a celebratory card! It was very kind of them, especially considering that Jabba-bear had spent most of that year seeing doctors at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine (as part of the OSA clinical trial).
The card that Oldtown sent Jabba-bear to celebrate his 1 year Ampuversary!
Before we discuss the events of the past two weeks, we think it is appropriate to mention a few important highlights of 2012.
In January 2012, Jabba-bear’s mom adopted a greyhound named Beyonce Knowles. She raced on the Celebrity Track in Florida (hence her name), but she wasn’t very fast. This lead to her having a relatively short racing career. Beyonce was described by the kennel as a “DIVA”. She was a little wild, jumpy, and playful. The owner of the kennel called her Bouncy Beyonce. Basically, she was different from the rest of the greyhounds and a lot to handle. We (Jabba’s pawrents) thought it would be good for him to have a playmate, so the fact that Miss Beyonce Knowles was energetic was actually a major attraction for us. Before finalizing the adoption, we took Jabba to meet Beyonce. Jabba-bear was the first non-greyhound that Beyonce had ever seen. To prepare for the meeting, and since we didn’t know how she would react to Jabba, Beyonce wore a muzzle. When she saw him, her pupils dilated and she had a whole body reaction. She lunged at Jabba-bear (as if she wanted to attack him). Jabba calmly approached Beyonce, looked her in the eyes, put his face next to her muzzle, and let out a deep, authoritative growl to let her know that he was the alpha dog. After that was established, they played together for nearly an hour. Two months later, Beyonce came to live with Jabba-bear. The delay was due to the fact that she tested positive for heartworm and needed to be treated (and kept quiet) for a couple of months before she could resume normal activity.
Jabba and Beyonce’s first walk together in Winston-Salem, NC.
Beyonce quickly made herself comfortable in Jabba’s house. As soon as she moved in, her wild side dissipated, and she became quite calm. Perhaps Jabba-bear set the tone for the house. In any case, Beyonce turned out to to be just as lazy as Jabba-bear.
Queen Beyonce asleep in her new home
Beyonce adores Jabba-bear (although we still are not quite sure how he feels about her).
Shortly after she moved in, Beyonce started curling up with Jabba-bear, wrapping herself around his body, nuzzling the site of his amputation. It was almost as if she knew that something was missing.
Beyonce loves her tripawd brotherBeyonce holding onto Jabba’s “stump”
If she had it her way, she would do everything with him.
Two peas in a pod (looking out the window)
Beyonce does demand a lot of attention (she really is a DIVA), but she is a sweet, loving dog. And she certainly is cute!
Overall, the last two years of Jabba’s life have been wonderful. He had many great days and his smile touched the hearts of everyone he met (people and pups alike).
These are some photo’s from the dog party Jabba had to honor his 3rd year:
All of Jabba’s best friends were able to attend his birthday party.
Other dogs using Jabba’s ramp! They loved itJabba and YeshuaPuppy Jabba and Yeshua (3 years ago)Jabba-bear and his friend Bear about to make a wish and enjoy some cake!
The following photos illustrate some of the other good times that we had:
Jabba-bear attended a CureSearch walk in the Spring. He made a lot of children happy that day.
Jabba after the CureSearch walk for children’s cancer
Jabba-bear went as Yoda for Halloween!
Yoda-bear
A father’s love for his dog:
What sweet boys!
Beyonce can never resist a good group hug!
Some of Jabba’s great poses on his couch(es):
What a sophisticated pup!Upside down Jabba!Who could say “no” to that face?
No new pictures, but just as an update Jabba is doing quite well and has now passed his 8 month ampuversary with no sign of metastasis in his lungs! Go Jabba! Also that bald spot on his butt has finally filled back in, hopefully we will post pictures of this soon.
Sorry for the delay in these updates, all of these pics are from shorty after the amputation. Jabba has a nice big back yard but to get to it he needs to go down a few steps. He was fine going down even the day after the amputation, and made it back up once or twice, but also fell and opened his wound a little so we decided to build him a ramp, mostly done by skilled laborer grandpa. When the beautiful ramp was finished, Jabba took one look then ran as fast as he could back inside. He would not go near it! Luckily we were able to train him, using firm parenting and brute force (picking him up and putting him on the ramp over and over and over again). Now days, 2 months later Jabba handles stairs with ease but still likes to use the ramp.
One of Jabba's grandparents, Richard Taylor of Chapel Hill North Carolina, helps build him ramp to help with the stairs on the back porch.Jabba goes down his new ramp. How posh!
