At this time Bon Jovi should also be mentioned on the page of the dogs no longer amongst us - but this is far too soon - as he has also had a special place in my heart (and especially my husbands). He has all his life been in the shadow of his very talented little sister, Aiki.
He is born 19/7-90, and was also quite good at agility. Bon Jovi had always had the disadvantage to be right about 43 cm high, so he has been running agility among the BIG dogs. Bon Jovi has been on the Danish national team 3 times (1994, 1996 and 1997). He was however not allowed to participate in 1996 and 1997, because the Danish Kennel Club would not accept that Annette, as a handler, participated with 2 dogs, as Aiki was already chosen for the mini team.
Of course Bon Jovi was a Danish agility and jumping champion. He has been among the best agility dogs in Denmark for quite some years: no. 3 in "Agility dog of the year 1992", no. 2 in 1994 and no. 3 in 1996. At Danish championships he had a 2nd price in 1997 and a 4th price in 1999. He was also a participant on the winning team at the "Danish championships - team event", where "his" team won in both 1999 and again in 2000!! The teams name was "Working Poodles" and consist of Lars Bang with Border Collie Abby, Per Hvid with Golden Retriever Balder and Luise Wibroe with Border Collie Xinnie. As no poodles are a part of this team, the name refers to the fact that we train agility together in the Poodle Club every monday under the supervision of Erik Nielsen.
"Working poodles" has been in the lead of the competition "Agility team of the year 2000" through the whole year, and very convincing we won the complete competition.
In 1998 Bon Jovi had the honour of obtaining the Finnish Agility Champion title.
Bon Jovi is a Danish obedience champion since 1992, a title he obtained only 22 months old. When the title Danish elite-obedience champion was introduced, we decided that this title would look good at him, so we went for it. He obtained it in 1997.
In 2002 Bon Jovi had his first agility (and this should unfortunately also be the last) as a medium size dog. He was officially measured to 42,8 cm. He also managed very convincing to qualify for the Danish Championships in agility 2002 on the first 2 competitions - but he died before the competition - a strong dog, active to the last day.
Actually he was NOT mortally sick or anything. Just an used, old dog with some minor defects. But to have him become better, he'd need an operation for inguinal rupture and he would need to go through a rehabilitating-program. I would not let a 12 year old dog go through that. Since last summer Bon Jovi has been limping due to a damage on 4 lumbar vertebrae. He has been seeing a chiropractor (for horses and dogs) and she helped him a lot. The reason why he was damaged was because he, Devin and Kiva was running very fast in the garden and bumped into each other at the end of it (they were running because the neighbour bitch in heat was standing at the fence). He was trained again, muscles build up again and we started agility training again.
I was very eager because Bon Jovi had his first year as a medium dog and what I expected to be his last year in competitive agility - and I really expected him to obtain some results, because he suddenly ran quite fast on the low jumps. In May I took him to obedience training where he educated a 16 month old Collie male, which became frightened of him, and fell on him. After that Bon Jovi had a lot pain and limped again and I had to stop doing agility with him. I went to the chiropractor again and she saw that his back was still OK, but the hip was dislocated. But she could not do much with him, because of a rupture - he had to much pain. I had not seen it - I though the pains was caused of his hip. The vet pushed it back in place, but told me that an operation was not likely to last - her experience was not good for old dogs. For 3 weeks I did not bring Bon Jovi anywhere, and he was quite sad about that, but I was afraid that his rupture would pop out again. Then one night when he was just walking round the garden, he had suddenly problems when walking - the rupture was popped out again. Then I decided to have him put to sleep the next day. What an awful night..... On top of his defect on his skeleton he suddenly was almost completely deaf - it came from one day to another in November. But he managed very well and I saw no problem in that. He could hear a scream and he understood my hand and body signals very well. He could also hear the clicker-sound when very close.
But all in all I decided that this was the end of his life..... Sometimes I regret my action, butl it would have been hard work for him and not much chance of a good outcome - so it seemed more sensible to stop now. I took Kiva with him to the vet, (not my regular) because Bon Jovi was very afraid of the vet, and I needed Kiva to calm him down. I did not bring Devin because I was afraid that he could tell Bon Jovi that he was at the vet (he actually did not find out before it was too late - and therefore he never became afraid).
After we lost Bon Jovi, Devin has been very depressed and could not run agility - he lost the drive and he was suddenly afraid of everything - because there sas no Bon Jovi to tell him, that everything is under control. For a whole week Devin abnd Kiva were like zombies in our house - no playing, sleeping all the time.
Still now 8 months later I see situation where Devin needs the support of Bon Jovi and reacts based on that.
Bon Jovi was the brother (same Mum and Dad) of Aiki.
Bon Jovi's full name with titles are:
BRGPR DKLCH LP4 DKELCH DKAGCH DKSPCH FINACH Ophian Bon Jovi Best Behaven
This page was last updated April 18th 2003
