March 14, 2014 was a sad day for Charlie and I.

We had to let our friend Pru go home.

She had developed a tumor that was cancerous and in a location that was difficult if not impossible to operate on or for her to recover without extreme pain.  We made the decision to let her have the last of her life without heroics that would only make her more uncomfortable and not help her.  We got about 6 months more with her after that diagnosis.

I remember when I first saw Pru she was 6 days old and a squirmy black little rat looking thing.  Charlie was off shore and didn’t know about her.  I saw the entire litter and had pick but she was the one.

However, since she was supposed to be Charlie’s dog when I took him out to Black Hills in Peterhead to see the litter at 4 weeks old I didn’t tell him which one was HIS. He looked the entire litter over and chose the same one that I had.  Pru couldn’t go home at only 4 weeks but she did follow us out into the cold rainy dark night because even than she wanted to go with us.  We did go back and get her at 8 weeks and we have over 12 years with her.

Pru was insane for a good football and would head butt the ball back and forth with Charlie.  She went nuts running from window to window when the kids played footie in the streets and Charlie almost never was able to watch a Football match in peace because Pru was very vocal in her opinions on the game.  More than once as a pup under six months old, she was red carded from playing by the vet as she kept injuring herself playing with the big girls.

Pru also loved a double cheese burger.  both the plastic squeaky kind and a yummy let’s go through the drive thru kind.

Pru only had one little of pups  with 8 healthy babies.  We ended up keeping 3 of them so her daughters lost their dog mom and football team mate as well.  The four of them were an unbeatable team against us slow two legged humans.

Pru won a few ribbons at our local dog show in Scotland, mostly doing tricks as she was very much into showing off.

A very favorite pass time was lying in front of the fire on a dog bed or a sheep skin rug.  I remember when Charlie would squat down to build and light the coal fire at our house in Scotland, Pru always came up between his legs to stick her nose almost into the fire and help.  She about set herself and Charlie on fire many time.

Pru is the only one of our dogs that ran off the key in Peterhead, Scotland falling 20+ feet into the North Sea because she was so focused on chasing a sea gull in the dark.  One of the guys on the bridge heard the splash and got the spot light out.  We were able to see her in the water and the waves and she finally swam to a pontoon and climbed up.  One of the guys from the ship climbed down the ladder and dragged her up by her collar.  I had to take her home and blow dry her and give her oatmeal and warm milk.  She thought she was in heaven.  The vet looked her over the next day and said she was totally fine and that she was the second dog that had done that just that week.  That was how Pru earned her nickname “Splash”.  Thanks to Mike and Lee and the other guys that night rescuing the daft critter.

Pru was born in Peterhead, Scotland.  She flew to Michigan, drove out to Colorado, lived on the mountain for 7 years, drove back to Michigan and played in the pond on our new ranch.  She is a well traveled border collie playing all over the world.  We will miss you Pru but now you can run and play with BJ and no more pain. 🙂