Lily's Story 

            In August of 2005 a co-worker came to me with a proposition. She had a litter of Jack Russell Terrier puppies that were six weeks old and one was deaf. She wanted to know if I would take this little white ball of fur knowing I would give her a good home. Having no experience with deaf dogs I did what I usually do and jumped in with both feet!  Before taking the pup home I bought a book on deaf dogs and a book on Jack Russell Terriers. I felt I needed to know a little bit about what I was getting into having two other dogs at home, a 3 year old Keeshond and a 5 year old Chihuahua mix; both male

            Since the pup was mostly white with a few brown markings I thought LILY would be an appropriate name; and so began our life with Lily. She quickly bonded with Ely, my Keeshond; even though they looked like the Odd Couple! He would let her lay on him, near him, anything she wanted. When she was a pup she was out in the yard with him. After 10 minutes or so I went to check and only saw Ely, no Lily to be found. She was no where inside the fence. I frantically searched outside the yard but since she was deaf calling her wasn't an option. I saw her near the road but when I moved toward her she turned away, it was a game! But I had a secret weapon, Ely! I put him on a leash and took him out so she could see him and she came running!  I never found out where she slipped through the fence but I blocked every inch I thought she could squeeze through.  From that day forward when Lily and Ely were outside together she would not come inside until he did!

            We soon found that she was obsessed with playing ball. She would play 24/7/365 if you could keep up with her. She would return it to you if you threw it but if you didn't pick it up she would smack it with her paw like a soccer player to send it to you. She knew where the balls were kept at work and at home so she would sit at attention when someone walked in the door to see if she could get a game started!

 Through the years we ran into some of the health problems that JRTs have, our main one being chronic pancreatitis.We had a few months of intermittent vomiting and diarrhea before the final diagnosis was reached. Once we found a  prescription dog food that corrected the problem life was good.We brought a few more Jack Russell Terrier's into our home because one is never enough and we even had another Keeshond or two. Lily  never seemed to mind other dogs coming into her home although she was pretty much a loner except for hanging with Ely or playing ball with an unsuspecting human visitor

            A couple things about deaf dogs-when they sleep, nothing wakes them! I would come home from work, let everyone

else out and go change clothes. When Lily would wake up, she would somehow know I was home and happily come flying

around the corner looking for me. The expressions with her ears and stubby little tail were easy to read and priceless.

She loved me and all people; she tolerated other animals. I'm not sure if this is true about all deaf dogs but when Lily

barked, it was the shrillest sound in the world. She would see the other dogs barking and would follow along, not knowing what she was barking at but enjoying it just the same! Lily could never jump onto the furniture; you heard it, a Jack Russell that couldn't jump. I had to buy her doggy stairs so she could get on the bed and a set for the living room, also.

            One morning this January Lily wouldn't open one eye. I mentioned it to a doctor at work and she

said to bring her in and have it looked at it. It may be a scratch, it may be nothing. Uh-uh, another genetic JRT condition. Luxated lens, something I'd never heard about before. In a nutshell, the lens is dislocated. In this case to the front of the eye, blocking drainage and causing a build up of fluid.This build up causes extreme pain. Lily could have expensive surgery by a specialist to have the lens removed but I couldn't afford this so we opted for enucleation which is removal of the whole eye. It didn't slow her down one bit. Now deaf and only one eye. When summer came she was outside playing ball, running in the yard like nothing had happened.

            In September I noticed that Lily would be lying by herself and would start growling for no reason. She would wake up in the middle of the night doing this. Not sure what was happening, I waited for a week of so before I took her to the doctor. We did a thorough exam and checked her remaining eye. The pressures were up and the lens looked like it was sub-luxated so we felt we had found the cause of her anxiety. Eye drops were started to lower the pressure and at a two week check they seemed to be working, however by the middle of October her discomfort had returned and appeared to be worse. She no longer wanted anything to do with Ely or anyone but me. Before she was independent, now she was needy. If the other dogs touched her when she was sleeping or she didn't know they were nearby she would tear into them and it was a very confused bunch of dogs. Before anyone got hurt the difficult decision was made to end Lily's misery and let her go. She was able to be in my arms until

the end and even though she didn't know what I was saying I told her she would be going somewhere that she would be able to hear and could

play ball all day long.

-Diane Beebe