Farewell, Old Friend

Buster was with us since June of 1997 and left us today, nearly 14 years old.

He was a small puppy abandoned to the animal shelter in Jacksonville, Florida, where we were living at the time (we were living in Jacksonville, not the animal shelter). He was the second dog we adopted from there. The first left us two years ago. With Buster's death, it feels our last connection to our former home there has been severed.

Buster was a very easily intimidated puppy, and when I would come home from work he would run through the house and in his excitement pee the whole way. He would leave a spaghetti trail of urine on the carpet tracing his path. To help him get over this, the vet told me I needed to be less intimidating when I came home at night. She advised me to get down on my hands and knees and crawl into the house, like a dog, so I'd be closer to his level. I did this and it worked. What the neighbors thought of this I'll never know. Or want to.

Buster was a great trail dog and we spent many hours with him in the Shenandoah, hiking. He loved the water and would splash or swim across streams. The other dog, Ranger, who feared the water (we would have to carry her across) would then bark and scold him on the other side. He didn't care. He was a happy-go-lucky dog who didn't seem to let anything worry him, except food. He was the ultimate food hound and as age and arthritis withered him, that never changed.

When he began to slow down about seven years ago on walks we at first thought he was lazy. Then one night he just collapsed and refused to continue. The vet told us he had serious arthritis in his hind legs, back and tail. We were devastated that we hadn't seen the clues and caught this earlier, although nothing could have been done. Except medicate him. So, for the past seven years, Pfizer has helped him live a relatively pain-free life, although his mobility deteriorated gradually.

But I'll try to remember him as the puppy dashing through the house, leaving a loopy trail of pee. Or the dog who, in his eagerness to get to shore, jumped out of the row boat, thinking he'd land on ground underneath the waves, only to sink. I'll never forget the look of great surprise on his face, right before he disappeared under the water (to re-emerge again, swimming. He was a good swimmer).

A dog's life is too brief. All too brief.

Farewell, friend. If dogs do go to heaven, I hope you are chewing on lots of bones, leaving a trail of pee through God's living room and swimming with abandon.