If you told me that my adventure would begin with a 6+ hr drive each way to meet two dogs and possibly, just possibly adopt them if all went well, I would never have believed you. But that was what we did and that is how Josie came into our lives. It was one of the best days of my life.
Josie fit right into our home, our heart, and our lives. It really could not have gone any better. Her story was almost like a fairy tale. She came from a sad situation and thanks to other kind souls who look out for dogs she made it into our lives. She quickly adapted and fit into our lives.
Josie was a bit shy and nervous when she first came into our lives and seemed to rely heavily on her sister Little Kira for cues as to how this new world she found herself in was supposed to work. If Kira was OK with the situation Josie would be ok with the situation. She generally hung back but would eventually relax and fit in. She wasn’t the kind of dog that would go running up to people to befriend them, but she loved people.
Josie quickly found comfort in our lifestyle that focused on taking our dogs with us as much as we could. She began to adapt and become more outgoing. There were even times she would much to our surprise really become interested in meeting new people and just want to go up to people she had never met and solicit attention from them. This is something that she did not do when she first came into our lives.
It is hard to quantify Josie’s personality. She is almost two different dogs. The one constant is that she is always just kind of living life on her own terms. She is the quintessential dog who lives life in the moment in their own world. She might be completely oblivious a lot of the time but that is part of what made her so lovable. Out in public Josie is shy and reserved, but calm. She never made a noise. I cannot recall a single time Josie barked in public. At home she is much more animated. She used to howl like a beagle. She gets excited by the goings on outside the house and the other dogs inside the house and will bark with excitement. Josie was our early morning rise and shine warning machine. When she first came to us she slept in a crate because if she didn’t she would wake up and literally trample us in our beds as soon as she woke up in the morning. As she calmed down living with us she was able to sleep without being in a kennel but she was still alerted strongly to our alarms and as soon as they went off she started running around and barking ready to go outside and start yet another amazing day of life. If we slept in too long she would wake us up with barking and pacing telling us, today is a beautiful day to live life, get up sleepy heads. It we tried to ignore her she would eventually get up in bed and give us a good full body massage walking on us and rolling herself all over us until we decided it was a good day to get up after all. It is crazy how that thing you wish you had been able to train your dog to stop doing is one of the things you miss the most once it is gone. I would give it all up to have that 80 lb dog jump up in bed and roll around on top of me with the reckless abandon she lived life especially when she was at home with us.
Unfortunately we lost Josie’s sister Kira early and we were very concerned how this would affect Josie being as shy as she was. After an initial adjustment period and lots of loving she became more confident even without her sister as her constant companion. She continued to be our companion on our various trips from small things like walks in the park, to visits to local breweries to see friends, to hiking at state parks. She did it all and was always so well mannered and easy going. Having Josie with us was one of the easiest dog experiences ever. She was almost no work at all to be with. She was not the type of dog that you had to constantly tell to stop it or anything like that. She was just completely chill and relaxed, willing to go along with whatever we had in mind with no complaints.
I will never get over the effect that our Berners have on people and Josie was no exception. Despite her very laid back personality and the fact she never went out of her way to get attention from people, people fell in love with her. She was always very welcoming of attention from others. People would approach and ask if they could pet her and we always said yes, but noted that she might not even pay attention to you. She doesn’t even sniff the hands of strangers when offered. She just stands there and does her thing. Sometimes she just seems oblivious to the world around her. But in a way that is what made her the perfect dog for our lifestyle. We liked to do things with our dogs and basically nothing fazed Josie, she just went about her business. Children loved Josie and that seemed to be even more apparent in recent months when we brought her to as many events as we could where she would just be around people we knew and loved and seeing the children at these events always wanting to say hi to Josie and pet her just makes you so happy to se the effect that she has on children.
We love to camp and have taken several of our dogs on camping trips, but we have never taken any of our Berners camping. This year we wanted to try to take Josie for a short camping trip to see how it would go. Then we got the devastating news that she had a mass growing on her spleen and a mass growing in her mouth. We were beside ourselves. We had no idea how much time we would end up having with her. We feared the worst. One of our amazing friends arranged for us to be able to take Josie on a camping trip some where local so we could make sure we got to have this experience with our dog that we wanted to have.
This last month we had with Josie was made even more special by all the time we spent taking her out to do things and many of those memories included time spent with our friends and their families. Our friends and family have always been a great source of support and strength in the toughest times and they continue to be now. Josie will live on with us forever in our hearts.
It was always Josie’s world; we were just living in it.
