Jasper The Bear

by Bruce
(Calgary, Alberta, Canada)

Jasper age 15

We got Jasper at the local SPCA and he was with for almost 15 years shy two months. The reason we called him a bear because he was like a real teddybear and always want to be with us where ever we would go.

He was not house trained even though he was 9 months old be he learned in a couple of weeks, his intelligence kept us on our toes as he would sometimes out smart us. He was kept penned in the kitchen when we went to work and went to bed but would escape. One night he refused to stay in the kitchen so I put his blanket beside our bed and he slept there until we moved into a house.

He usually made friends with most other dogs, loved water and was ok at agility as we were unable to keep going with it. I taught him to "sit pretty" when giving him treats later this would make for funny for putting his front legs straight up in the air especially when there was a good treat he liked.

One time when we we first were going to Superdog class he met an energetic small dog who ran circles around Jasper, so Jasper in his great intellect put his paw down on the small dog to stop him from running and to check him out. He was always so curious with other animals that, but most would get scared and run away like cats.

The only exception was birds he wanted to get al of them, since he had a few run-ins with the first being he was chewing on a soup bone in the yard when 3 magpies showed up. They would squawk behind him so he would leave the bone, he would jump up and chase them but one would go after the bone. This came to an end as he saw the one bird at his bone. So he set a trap for them, laying 3 feet from the bone, the birds thought great he left the bone and proceeded to pic the meat off the bone. To their surprise Jasper made his move and charged the Magpies to which one lost a tail feather. We miss Jasper our buddy and cuddly dog.

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