A Vital Vet Publication: We're deeply affected when we lose one of "our own". This article is written in memory of Cyclone, one such soulful creature; he was a renaissance man, a flyball legend, and the sweetest pup you'd ever meet.  We had the pleasure of spending time with Cyclone at the STAAR Conference throughout the years.  He was one of our "Steady Eddies" as a dog volunteer.  He was such a great sport no matter what the class entailed; and a what a charmer!  His story is written by his landlord, chef, chauffeur, and partner in crime, Dr. Jennifer Rouse. This is Cyclone's story.  We will forever miss that kind face and lovable personality.  We love you Cyclone!

And just like that...he's gone. And I am broken.

Cyclone, FG40K, Iron Dog, RATO, TFE-II (4/15/2008- 1/7/21)

He was our very first Border Staffy and we drove to Iowa right after major rain storms and flooding to pick him up. I named him both in honor of his Aunt Chaos who was on our team as well as after the destructive rains that had just passed through...and boy did I pick that name well! He was all head as a puppy and often tripped over it while going full speed wherever he wanted.

He was hell on wheels when it came to trying to keep any plants alive in the back yard (his favorite was to pounce on them and rip them up) and he discovered that "box-turning" off his people was fun before he even knew what a box turn was. That wouldn't have been so bad except that I was expecting Patrick at the time. He grew into an absolutely goofy adolescent and I thought his energy would never be focused enough for sports. We once called him an "80 percenter" and thought that he wouldn't contribute much. And then he grew up one day almost overnight.

Suddenly I had a pretty serious partner in everything that we played together: flyball, disc, barn hunt, he even threw himself straight into lure coursing the only time we had a chance to try it and he even got a piece of the lure. The one thing he refused to do was swim, until...this summer he finally got in the pool and decided it was ok too! He was an avid hunter and scored a few trophies over the years despite my trying to intervene. He had absolutely no personal space and regularly demanded touches...which got him into being a demo dog for STAAR Conference for many years. He was the dog that helped to train new team dogs because he was relatively unbreakable. We called him the "red shirt" at practice (as in Star Trek- "send in the red shirt guy") When he was racing, you knew he was in the ring either by the barking in 2nd position, egging on the start dog, or by the crazy staffy yodeling when he was 1st and waiting to start the race.

We've traveled all over the east coast, and to Indy, Iowa, Michigan and everywhere in between over the years. I was looking forward to a long retirement with him so he could be just an old farm dog and was putting together a sunny porch for him to hang with me on when we had time.

Today we got the news that I feared the most...that he had metastatic hemangiosarcoma and it was pretty advanced. I hastily changed my plans this afternoon to trying to get palliative treatments together and shifted our retirement plans to a bucket list, but 5 hours later it was not meant to be. He collapsed this evening and I had to say goodbye. Thanks to Lisa for bringing over the supplements and for helping me when he went down. I will be forever grateful to Judy and Jim for trusting us with this little ball of wonderful with the big blue spotty head. I will miss you every day my fun police, my Cycopuppy, my Little Boy Blue. My heart is now broken too.  Dr. Jennifer Rouse