There is nothing better than the love of an old dog. What a wonderful person you are….
A crowd of well-wishers gathered at Dogtown to see the travelers off. Thomas Foyles, the self-described misfit and Bones’ longtime caregiver, stopped in and spent a long time saying goodbye to Mister Bones. Their parting was very emotional, Sharon said. In fact, she was a little surprised that so many people, men included, suddenly seemed to have developed runny noses and the sniffles. The calmest one in the room, in fact, seemed to be Mister Bones, whose serenity suggested that he knew the outcome of all this would be a happy one. When it came time to climb into the rental car, Bones clambered aboard (with a bit of assistance), seemingly eager and happy for the next adventure of his life.
When Sharon, Martha, and Mister Bones stopped for lunch in Kanab before leaving on their trip, a couple of complete strangers came up to introduce themselves. They’d seen Mister Bones on TV and wanted to meet him in person. They were thrilled to learn he’d been adopted. There was no getting around it: The old boy had become a star.
In 2008 Mister Bones finally found a loving home in suburban Baltimore with Sharon and her husband Larry.
The two women hung signs in the window of the rented SUV that said “Bones On Board,” and they drove straight through, nonstop, to Mr. Bones’ new home outside Baltimore. It took three days, with one woman driving while the other one slept.
Along the long road home, Mister Bones handled the transition beautifully. When he wasn’t sleeping (and snoring—loudly), he spent most of the trip contentedly gazing out the window at the world passing by. Sharon called him “the most wonderful dog in the world.”
Over the preceding months, Sharon and Larry had renovated the upstairs of their house, so that their preexisting menagerie of cats and dogs could stay downstairs. Even though Bones had done well in his behavioral assessment with Rollie, it was still important to minimize the risk of any altercations between Sharon’s other pets and Mister Bones. She and Larry went to great lengths to give Bones his own space, where he could be the lord of the upstairs and have private access to an enclosed outdoor run. There was one exception to the upstairs-downstairs rule: One of Sharon’s cats, a tailless Manx named Mama Kitty, ventured upstairs one day and climbed over the baby gate to strike up a friendship with the geriatric gentleman on the second floor. After that, the two were major pals. Bones loved his new digs and appreciated the wonderful facilities as well as the showers of affection from Sharon, Larry, and Mama Kitty. It was good to be home at last.
All that autumn and winter, as Sharon kept Mister Bones’ fans and followers updated on his progress, people posted messages on the Best Friends website:
It has made my Christmas to hear Mr. Bones has a home. He hit my heartstrings when I saw his story on DogTown. Thank you for opening your home to the adorable ol’ guy….
Happy to see that an old dog can learn new tricks. Mr. Bones deserves all the happiness a dog could have. To know that he is living in a home with family that loves him gives us all hope….
COMING TO AN END
It was a Sunday evening in late February 2009, when Sharon went up to Bonesy’s room and found him curled up in the big orthopedic bed he loved so much. He didn’t seem to want to get up at all. When Sharon finally coaxed him onto his feet, she could see that he was very unsteady. His back legs kept going out on him. She gave him food and tried to get him to take his medicines, but he seemed sleepy and sluggish. He wasn’t getting any better. In fact, by the next morning, he had gotten dramatically worse. Mister Bones could not stand up at all.
Though weak and unable to stand, Mister Bones seemed to be completely aware of what was going on around him. Perhaps, in that strange, knowing way that animals have, he was even aware of what was actually happening.
Mister Bones was dying.
Sharon called Larry, and the two of them decided, with heavy hearts, that the most humane thing to do was to ease Mister Bones’ suffering and let him go. The couple took Bones into the vet’s office, less than a mile from their home, and laid him on a blanket on the couch. Then the vet came in and gave Bones the harmless-looking injection that would hasten him on his way.
Mister Bones passed away quietly on the morning of February 24, 2009. He still seemed to be smiling. “Mr. Bones was aware of his surroundings and went peacefully,” Sharon wrote to all his worldwide fans in a posting on the Best Friends website. “It has been a very sad day and yet one of celebration for the wonderful long life he had.”
Dogtown is broken up into several smaller canine cities. There are 15 Lodges. Each has four runs, housing either singles or doubles. There are also 64 dog runs behind the clinic. And there are 40 runs in the area known as Dogtown Heights.
Born and raised on the streets, rescued and rehabilitated at Dogtown, Mister Bones had at last found his forever home. But as the fates would have it, he got to live there for only a little more than four months.
Did Sharon regret having adopted him, with such a short life to share? “Absolutely not,” she said. “If I had had him only one day, it would have been worth it. He was something special. I loved that stinky old dog.”
Bones’ fans from the website offered their condolences and shared their grief, too:
The cycle of life can tear at your heart. I feel a sense of loss from the passing of Mister Bones. I loved watching his story and his progress while in the loving hands at Best Friends. When I read the story about Mister Bones going home, I wished I had been one of the people lining the street saying farewell and wishing him Godspeed….
Wow, so hard to type with tears streaming down my face. Such a shock! To Mr. Bones’ family, I’m very very sorry to hear of your loss. Thank you for giving him a forever home, if only for a short time. At least he had a family to call his own….
All of Mister Bones’ old friends at Dogtown were greatly saddened by his passing. They were incredibly happy to know that he had found his home and had ended his life surrounded by love and family. They felt blessed that they had been able to be a part of Bones’ life in all those years between his time as a stray and his adoption by Sharon and her family. The Dogtown staff also felt blessed to be a part of Bones’ passing, for his remains were to be buried at Angels Rest.
Mister Bones’ tired old body was cremated, his frail bones returned to dust.
Jersey Girl Joyce posted a note on Mister Bones’ Best Friends Web page to inform his fan club of his passing:
Mr. Bones will be returning with us to Best Friends in April and his ashes will be placed in Angels Rest…. I am so sad but know he was one of the lucky ones. He experienced love from all over the world and will be missed by many, including myself.
The Jersey Girls took Mister Bones’ ashes, in a small box, all the way back out to the Best Friends sanctuary in the spring of 2009. It was a long trip but worth it—in fact, Joyce wrote, she and the other women considered the task an honor. The sanctuary was the place that had given him a home more than a decade earlier, when he was nothing more than a mean, skinny stray. Sharon, Joyce, and the other women felt that Bones belonged in the place where so many people had loved and taken care of him.
On April 27, 2009, Mister Bones’ ashes were interred at Angels Rest cemetery, just up the road from Dogtown. It is a tranquil, meditative place ringed by ancient red-rock canyons. The trees are filled with wind chimes, which, according to the cemetery’s caretaker, never fail to sound when an animal is put to rest. Though the Jersey Girls were there for the “tucking in” ceremony, Sharon decided she could not attend. (“I would be a basket case,” she said.)
Even an animal who’d been born to a king could not have had a more loving, devoted, and sacred funeral service. And even a king’s dog could not have expected care any more extraordinary than the care that was given to Mr. Bones for his long, long life at the Best Friends sanctuary. In fact, Mister Bones’ remarkable story is as much the story of Best Friends, a place where a troubled stray can be taken in, rehabilitated,
loved and cared for, and—at long last—placed in a warm and devoted home where he is appreciated for who he is, if only for a little while.
From the first day, the caregivers at Best Friends did not see a skinny stray, better off dead; they saw one of God’s creatures, worthy of devotion, and they spent well over a decade helping him to become that better dog they saw all along. They never gave up on him. They let him work at his own leisurely pace. And in the end—no matter how briefly—he had ended his days surrounded by people who truly knew him, and truly loved him.
Nobody could ask for more.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to dedicate this book to my old dog Zimbabwe, a long-legged “field Lab” whose grace and nobility touched me to the core, and whose beautiful life and tragic death helped me understand how profoundly human beings can become attached to their companion animals. I’d like to thank all the people at Best Friends Animal Society who shared their time and stories with me, including Elissa Jones, John Garcia, Pat Whitacre, Sherry Woodard, Jeff Popowich, Michelle Besmehn, Ann Allums, Dr. Patti Iampietro, Kristi Littrell, Francis Battista, and Dr. Mike Dix. I’d like to acknowledge, also, the hundreds of thousands of people who are members of Best Friends and who—in one way or another—have assisted in the great goal of creating a world with No More Homeless Pets. And finally I’d like to thank the smart, demanding editorial team at National Geographic, especially the indefatigable Amy Briggs, Judy Klein, and Barbara Brownell-Grogan, who made this book so much better than it was when I first wrote it.
Illustration Credits
Introduction, Gary Kalpakoff, Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS); Chapter 1, Mort Fryman/Photojournalist; Molly Wald, BFAS; Gary Kalpakoff, BFAS; The Kobal Collection; Molly Wald, BFAS; Marissa Knight, BFAS; Chapter 2, Gary Kalpakoff, BFAS; Sarah Ause, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Chapter 3, Molly Wald, BFAS; Pablo Durana; Molly Wald, BFAS; Chapter 4, Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Clay Myers, BFAS; BFAS; Chapter 5, Molly Wald, BFAS; Sarah Ause, BFAS; Gary Kalpakoff, BFAS; Pablo Durana; Molly Wald, BFAS; Chapter 6, Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Jodie Steele, BFAS; Chapter 7, Molly Wald, BFAS; Jeff Popowich, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Troy Snow, BFAS; Troy Snow, BFAS; Chapter 8, Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Troy Snow, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Troy Snow, BFAS; Chapter 9, Troy Snow, BFAS; Troy Snow, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Gary Kalpakoff, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Chapter 10, Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Chapter 11, Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Gary Kalpakoff, BFAS; Clay Myers, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Chapter 12, Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Troy Snow, BFAS; Chapter 13, Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Troy Snow, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Chapter 14, Troy Snow, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Pablo Durana; Molly Wald, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Chapter 15, Jana DePeyer, BFAS; Molly Wald, BFAS; Troy Snow, BFAS; Sarah Ause, BFAS.
Further Resources
MEMBERSHIP & SUPPORT
Best Friends Animal Society Membership
More information on how to join Best Friends and support their work
http://www.bestfriends.org
ADOPTION
Adoptable Animals at Best Friends Animal Society
A searchable database of all the animals at Best Friends in need of a home
http://adoptions.bestfriends.org
No More Homeless Pets Programs and Initiatives
Best Friends’ nationwide movement to bring about a time when homeless, unwanted animals are no longer being killed in shelters and when every pet has companionship and a safe place to call home
http://www.bestfriends.org/nomorehomelesspets
PET CARE
Best Friends Animal Society Pet Care Library
Tips and strategies written by Best Friends’ animal experts for caring for and living with animals
http://www.bestfriends.org/theanimals/petcare
PUPPY MILLS
Puppies Aren’t Products
Best Friends’ campaign to expose the link between puppy mills and pet stores and to encourage adoption
http://www.puppiesarentproducts.com
PIT BULLS AND DOGFIGHTING
Pit Bulls: Saving America’s Dog
Best Friends’ national program to help pit bulls, who are battling everything from a media-driven bad reputation to breed-banning legislation
http://www.savingamericasdog.com
The Vicktory Dogs
Best Friends Web site devoted to covering the progress of the Vicktory Dogs, the 22 pit bulls rescued from Michael Vick’s dogfighting operation
http://www.bestfriends.org/vickdogs
FOR FUN
DogTown: The Game
Inspired by the hit National Geographic Channel show DogTown, the PC game will allow players to rescue, rehabilitate, and reintroduce 10 dogs to loving families. Coming soon!
http://www.games.nationalgeographic.com
DogTown Page 27