That little foot gets my attention as well.
I don't know if the VMS r is modeled after the Latin "r + tail" (Latin "i plus tail" also is written like this) but... from gathering thousands of samples, one thing I've noticed is that many scribes wrote "r" both ways (both with and without a foot) without any change in meaning.
I don't know if the VMS r is modeled after the Latin "r + tail" (Latin "i plus tail" also is written like this) but... from gathering thousands of samples, one thing I've noticed is that many scribes wrote "r" both ways (both with and without a foot) without any change in meaning.