11/14/2025
PART THREE: Then there was Rufus! I cannot talk about Ranger without talking about the true love of his life which was a very large chocolate lab without a lick of sense named Rufus! Both had recently lost the other dog in the household and were facing lonely days at home alone. Rufus was one of my daily dog walks and had been for a few years. After his big brother passed he was a lonely boy.
He began dropping Rufus off to stay at my house everyday and it was like time stood still the day they met each other! They seemed to share a brain. A very tiny and overworked brain!
Rufus’s dad drank heavily and sometimes forgot his boy. Sometimes he showed up and the neighbors and I would need to get his keys and call him an Uber and Rufus would stay with us. He loved his dog but he loved his alcohol more. We had Rufus a lot and nobody was mad about it. Least of all, Ranger!
A couple of years later Rufus was diagnosed with bone cancer. He deteriorated rapidly, right before Ranger’s eyes. As he slowed down, Ranger met him where he was at. Zoomies around the house and straight out the doggy door and long wrestling sessions gave way to laying side by side with their big furry bodies always wrapped up in each other.
The day he crossed Rainbow Bridge, Ranger, Matt and I were there at his dad’s house. As we loaded his body into the Vet’s SUV, Ranger watched. He would look for Rufus in the back of her SUV for all the years to come, as she remained our vet and made house calls.
Ranger grieved in a way I had never seen an animal grieve. Until last week, if I accidentally played a video that had Rufus “talking” in it, Ranger would jump up and search frantically. He never forgot his soulmate.
