For those who haven't heard yet, it is with a very heavy heart that we share the news that Wishbone has passed.  He may have been a small dog but he had the biggest personality of any dog we've ever met. 

Wishbone won over Jim and Diane on July 4th, 2010 (and that story, written by Jim a few years ago, follows after the pictures).  He won them over immediately...it took him 2 years to completely win me over.  You see, from the first day I began working here Wishbone had a habit of jumping up on the desk chair just as soon as he saw you start to go to it.  He would plop down, curl up and refuse to move, so whoever was working that day spent the next 8 hours on the edge of the seat while Wishbone slept peacefully.  Or so it was until 2 years after my first day...I followed protocol until I began having backaches.  Things had to change.  As soon as he jumped into my chair I began picking him up and placing him (lovingly of course) in another chair.  He would jump down and it was a race back to the desk chair.  Sometimes he won, sometimes I won.  When he won I picked him back up and put him back in the other chair.  This went on, literally, for two years.  One day Wishbone and I showed up for work at the same time (he was almost always waiting at the door for me to unlock it and let him in) and he went straight to the other chair, jumped up, plopped down and curled up for his 8 hour nap.  I will admit it, I asked him if it was a trick.  "Wait.  What?  Did I finally win?  Is this a trick?"  He refused to acknowledge me but from that day forward the dog with the biggest personality ever and I had a mutual understanding.  And respect. 

We will all miss Wishbone but our lives are more full because of our Wishbone experiences.

     

 

 

Wishbone (written by Jim)
 
This journey begins on July 4, 2010 at 11:30 pm on a lonely country road in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Normally on the fourth of July my wife and kids and I are down at the family cottage on Keuka Lake, water skiing, tubing, and simply enjoying a break in the usual hectic life we all lead. This Fourth of July however was about to change our lives forever. Our daughter’s boyfriend was having his high school graduation party at 2:00 o’clock that afternoon. After attending the grad party we hooked up the trailer with the ATV’s and headed out to an old friends home on Lake Ontario. Our friend has a giant Fourth of July party each year and has invited us to come for years. This was our chance to check out and pay our respects at both parties and still get down to Keuka before midnight. Seemed like a perfect plan. In my life nothing ever works out the way I planned it. As we left the second Fourth of July party it was pitch dark. And of course the lights on the trailer decided not to work. I couldn’t see well enough in the dark to diagnose the problem so I said the hell with it, and we took off anyway. Now, not being a person of huge means, I have learned how to ride the breaks when the tail lights won’t work so the cops wouldn’t notice that my lights were out. My wife Diane says that I always find a way to add just a little more stress to everything I do. So off we go, working our way through Wayne County, past numerous police cars, and very proud of myself for not getting caught. We crossed into Ontario County and headed south towards our destination on the lake.


Now before we get into what happened next, it is important to know a little information about my lovely wife. Diane places more value on the life of her dogs, cats, wild rabbits in the yard, and the tens of thousands of birds that she feeds each week than she does on my life. My wife would spend every last dime she had, and I had, if an animal needed it.


What happened next can only be described as divine intervention. Whatever god you believe in has to be a god who handles animals too, according to Diane Salmon. It was very dark on route 247 between Rushville and Potter New York. All of a sudden I saw headlights coming at me and swerving into my lane. It was a pick-up truck, and I reacted by driving off of my side of the road and then back onto the highway after the truck had passed me. Suddenly a small white dog appeared right directly in the middle of the road. Diane yelled, “stop, it’s a dog, we have to check on him”. I stopped my truck as Diane opened the passenger side door and got out. I opened my side door as Diane walked around the front of the truck. The second I opened my door the little creature leaped into the truck, and onto my feet. My wife was out in the middle of the road yelling, “Where’s the dog”. I said, he’s already in here with me”! We were in the middle of the road in New York State farm country. No people anywhere, no houses in site. I drove up to the nearest farm house with a light on and walked up the driveway. It was an Amish farm, with three people standing in the driveway. I said “ I’m’ sorry, I know it’s late, but does anybody here own a little white dog?” The farmer was very nice and said another lady had asked about the dog earlier in the day and he told her the same thing. “I own this 700 acre farm, and it doesn’t belong to me, my brother owns the next four miles that way, and my cousin owns two miles the other way and it doesn’t belong to either of them”. I thanked him and started back down the driveway. As I walked to the truck I knew what this meant, that dog was going on vacation with us; he had just won the Diane Salmon lottery.


He was a small, what appeared to be, Jack Russell terrier with short fur. He was filthy and rife with fleas. He somehow looked familiar to me. Then it hit me, its Wishbone ! When my kids were small back in the early 1990’s there was a kid’s television program simply named, Wishbone. It featured a Jack Russell named Wishbone. He was a fine well read hound who dabbled in the arts and sciences. Our Wishbone was a perfect match. He was a very well behaved dog on the trip down to the cottage. He sat on Diane’s lap and the two of them became acquainted. As we drove I told her that we couldn’t possibly keep that dog, after all he had to belong to someone. Wishbone had an old raggedy collar on him with a serial number. The collar was far too thick and tight for him to be comfortable. Diane told me that we were not going to return him to anywhere. I’m not going to give him back to someone who obviously isn’t taking good care of him. He is out in the middle of nowhere, he’s not getting enough to eat, you can see his ribs, and he is filthy and full of fleas. “Ok honey, we can’t steal someone’s dog”.


Upon arrival at the cottage we found a rope to tie Wishbone to so he wouldn’t run away again. We fed him some dog food, which he promptly would not eat. He did however like the left over steak, as he gobbled that up. Through all of this that little dog never made a sound. We all sat by the camp fire that night with Wishbone at our feet. The next morning a pre-planned program was placed into action. First Wishbone got a bath and a new collar. Wow, did he smell great. The next problem was the fleas! If the family had known Wishbone had so many fleas he would have been banished from the cottage. We tried to keep that to ourselves. We made an emergency call to our daughter who was coming down to the lake later on that day to bring the Advantix flea stuff. For a while the fleas were jumping off of Wishbone like rats off a sinking ship. It took awhile, but he was finally flea free! As the week went by Diane became very attached to Wishbone. She had him out on the lake, on the air mattresses. We took him for boat rides and he seemed to really be enjoying his vacation. In the back of my mind was; what the hell are we going to do about this situation? I had a friend who was well connected in the animal rescue and adoption world. She had run the number on Wishbones collar and came up with a name and phone number. I waited a while and then called the phone number which was no longer in service.  I still had a name. In the mean time half of my family liked the dog and the other half said “you can’t steal that mutt” or “you’re not stealing that dog are you?”. I was getting nervous. Diane had already made up her mind, we were keeping Wishbone.


On Wednesday of that week we left wishbone at the college and drove up to Canandiagua to buy groceries, and of course, high end canned dog food. On our way back we stopped in Rushville to check all of the local bulletin boards for any “lost dog” postings, we found nothing. I went into the local hardware store and asked if anyone knew this particular name. The lady who manages the accounts knew the name, but said that information was confidential. I said “look lady, I have the guy’s dog and I am trying to return it”. She then relented and told me in a generic sense where he lived. We drove up to a mobile home with tractors, old travel trailers, and a ton of debris in the driveway. I counted four other dogs along with chickens and geese. As we pulled into the driveway a middle aged man came up to the door of the truck, he was your typical country folk. He asked me what we wanted, and I got the idea not too many strangers drive into his driveway. I asked him if he owned a little white dog and he said “yes, where is he?”. I told him about finding him the other night in the middle of the road and asked him if he wanted him back. He replied” he belongs to my father and I am sure he wants him back. I said ok, we would have him back by the end of the week. Diane had gotten out of the truck and was talking to another man who was working on a tractor in the driveway. As she got back in the truck she turned and yelled “and he’s full of fleas!” Of course if I was going to steal someone’s dog I most likely would not have driven in their driveway with my name all over my truck. Well, that was it, Wishbone would be going home on Friday. We had found Wishbone that dark and lonely night about a mile and a half from his home. Diane was crushed. “I’m not taking him back there” she said! All I thought about was; I can’t steel that dog. What if they were watching television and one of my Vekton or ReBath tv commercials came on. I could just see that man sitting on his couch, jumping up and saying “that’s the guy who stole my dog”. This situation was a full blown cluster mess.


As the week rolled on and Friday came upon us, Diane finally agreed to let me take Wishbone back to his home. She was really sad and when it came time for my daughter and I to take wishbone Diane had taken him on one last walk. When she returned we loaded up the trailer and Wishbone and headed for Rushville. Diane was going home later by herself and as we drove away I could tell she was very sad, almost like she had lost her best friend. It may seem strange that we could have become so attached to that dog so quickly, but you have to understand Wishbone. He was no ordinary dog, he was type A, on steroids. He had a personality like no other dog I have ever known.


Because I have spent my whole life making decisions very quickly and trying to get out of sticky situations, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get out of this one. I had a plan all along in my mind. I had a hundred dollar bill in my pocket and five more hundred dollars bills in my wallet. I had made up my mind, I was going to try and buy that dog even if it took the entire $600 I had on me. My daughter Traci and I drove to Wishbone’s home. I parked in the street and climbed out of my truck with Wishbone in tow with his little rope leash. There was no one in the driveway this time and as I approached the rear of the driveway I could see a very old man sitting in a lawn chair inside what appeared to be a wood shed. It was 95 degrees out and as I approached the gentleman I could see he was in some degree of distress with the heat. Before I could speak, he said “so I hear you have had my dog all week”. I responded, “ Yes, sir, your dog has been having quite the vacation, the kids love him, my wife is in love with him, and he has been waited on hand and foot all week long”. Then I blurted out, “would you consider selling him to me, he would be going to a great home”. He thought for a second and said “ I want him to go to a good home”. I could see some tears in his eyes and he told me he knew he didn’t have much time left because of a lung disease and he had been having a hard time keeping track of Wishbone lately. The dog would run away a lot and was hit by the UPS truck and some other vehicles a couple of times. He said he would consider selling him if he went to a real good home. Again I reassured him that Wishbone would have a fine life and asked him how much he thought he would want for the dog. He thought for a while and said, “Would a hundred dollars be too much”. I of course, was elated, I was getting out of this situation for a hundred dollars and my wife would be happy again. I pulled my hundred dollar bill from my pocket and handed it to him. He said “wait a minute, go knock on the house door and ask my son to come out here”. When his son arrived he asked him to get “Rat Dog’s papers from his trailer. That was the first time I had heard Wishbone’s real name, could you believe it, his name was Rat Dog. The old man’s son walked into a real old travel trailer, which apparently was where the older gentleman was living in the driveway. He came back with an envelope and handed it to his dad. He handed me the envelope which I promptly stuffed into my pocket. I thanked him and left with Wishbone following close behind. As I drove away my daughter and I discussed if we should call mom now or wait until she had cried all the way home. We made the right decision! After I called Diane and told her we still had Wishbone and he was permanently ours and the newest member of you family I reached into my pocket and pulled out the envelope the old man had given me and handed it to Traci. I asked her to see what was inside. She said “ah, dad, this dog has AKC papers going back five generations, he’s a purebred Jack Russell”. Wow, first Wishbone won the lottery and now I have won the lottery! I knew that wouldn’t fly at our home very long. Within two weeks Diane had Wishy’s manhood adjusted a bit at the veterinarian’s office.


The first three weeks were a lot of fun. I called Tony at invisible fence and asked him to fit Wishbone with a new “state of the art” collar, properly sized of course. They trained him and the invisible fence works perfectly to this day. No more wondering off for Wishy. Diane took several pictures of him outside with the other dogs, playing, and in general, enjoying his new life. She mailed the pictures to the old gentleman with a thank you note. About a week later we received a letter back from his son saying that his dad had passed way a few days before the pictures had arrived. He thanked us for sending the pictures and mentioned that his dad was happy Rat Dog had gone to a good home.


As things work out in life this one was written long ago. I love that little dog, it was supposed to be. Even though he can be annoying sometimes and immediately took over as CEO of the other dogs, we all are amazed at the energy that dog has. He will put his heart and soul into fetching dog footballs and other toys until he can’t stand up any longer. Wishbone had come home.