When Rambo came to us in November 2000 we were clueless about Italian Greyhounds.  The temperature that day was about ten degrees.  I wanted to make sure that if he had to go he went outside, so on went the leash and out we went.  I took him out the front gate and around toward the back of the house, headed for the mailbox, when he planted his feet.  That was no kind of weather for a tiny, fat-free, almost hairless boy!  Lesson learned.  There were other lessons too.  

Here is how Jerry memorialized our boy:  

Rambo went back to his planet today, almost 17 years after he showed up on ours. We know he came from another world because he wasn't put together quite right - his rear legs didn't pivot quite right, giving him a pegleg-like walk. His eyes bulged a bit like the Area 51 extraterrestials, and his nose was so long that he couldn't drink water without snorting. We suspect that television signals from earth reached his planet and they put Rambo together from the images they saw so he could come here and report back.  

Unfortunately, several years ago, his antenna that he would point so carefully towards a certain part of the sky developed a problem. At first it was a small bend in the middle of the tail, after which every month it bent a little more, until it made a right angle. That is probably why they couldn't download corrective programming to fix some of the obvious issues, and why they couldn't send someone to pick him up.  

Hated to see him leave us, but his batteries were starting to leak, his camera lenses were clouded, his keen sense of smell evaporated, and he no longer could race around the house with his adopted sister Sasha. Guess I'll look up at that part of the sky tonight and see if I can make out his contrail.  

Thank you, Kathleen, for your presence and help--and for your business.  You know, you should be on Facebook--it would be good exposure for you!