RIP Roo. Another legend passes.

It is with heavy heart that I pass on to you that Roo, my faithful friend and companion, best dog in the world, the sister of Bumpus, has passed.

Some of you may recall that over two years ago Bumpus passed at age 14
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=203814
Leaving her baby sister Roo behind with me.

We were all quite amazed at how Roo coped with this loss, but none of us ever expected her to make it to just three months shy of 17 years old!

In that same few months that she lost her sister, Roo and I underwent another colossal change, moving from the apartment she had grown up in, to our new home.

Just recently I started a new job, (Bumpus andRoo were both lucky in that I always managed to have work to which they could come every day)

My new role as Technical Director and Professor of Technical theatre and the University of RI fortunately was no exception.
In fact, we were returning "home" in a sense as Roo was just six weeks old when I first brought her with her sister to work @ U.R.I., where at the time I was the Assistant Tech Director in 1992. Roo and Bumpus thus were brought up in the Scene Shop @ U.R.I. and learned all their "stage discipline" in that fine institutions Theatre Dept.

In her last few weeks, Roo was able to return and it was great fun to watch the impact she had on the students that come and go in the scene shop. Daily visits from many, as well as her own forays to the carpeted lobby and stage managers office for attention. She was quickly adopted by many who would come to me while I was busy with a project to let me they had taken her out, etc..

So her last days though sore, tired and a little painful, were pleasurable to her. She was surrounded by people that cared fro her.

Late this week, Roo had a very bad spell, (her hips have been in very bad shape)
Late one night while trying to take her out for relief, she made it very clear to me that she was "done"

At this stage in the game Roo's final gift to me was to take away that shadow of a doubt as to "when" , and relieve me of the possible guilt of being too early or in fact, too late. Her communication of her giving up was as clear to me as a signed affidavit.

The following afternoon the family gathered with me at the Vet, and she was set free of the pain she has now liver with for some years.

She is with her sister, being cared for again like the baby she is, yet having grown in these last two years without Bumpus to a maturity that her caring big sister would never have believed while she was with her.

The following day when I returned to work, the word had gotten around to my class and all the theatre majors. As we built the scenery for the upcoming production of "Oklahoma" the Scene shop was a constant procession of students and faculty coming in to express their feelings to me.

thanks so much to all for your care.

Bye Roo,. we all loved you.