An Ode To Buddy
A note from me: A few weeks after I wrote this, Buddy left this planet and I miss him every single day. He was the very best pupper and I just know he’s running wild and free in doggie heaven.
Today we’re going to take a departure from our normal Parkinson’s content - with a few important caveats: First, for those that know him, our dog Buddy while very, very old, is still alive. So no one panic. Second AFTER I wrote this, I found out some of the details of this long accepted as truthful family story are in fact, completely false. But more on that later.
Fifteen years ago, on a random November Saturday morning, Mike and I were headed to Target when we saw a van for a pet adoption organization at the PetSmart next door. Bobby was 18 months old, Ava was 4, we both had insanely busy work lives, and I had just gone through major surgery on my thyroid and was still recovering. Nothing…not one single thing…pointed us in the direction of getting a damn dog. But while Ava was at a sleepover at her cousin’s, and for reasons I’ll never fully grasp, we were pulled toward the van and then found ourselves inside the store where we instantly fell in love with a black and white, Beagle, Lab, Pug mix named Jay. Yes, Jay.
Jay, the mutt.
At any point in this day, we could have stopped, come to our senses and walked out of the PetSmart but Bobby, who we called Buddy at the time, kept pointing to Jay and calling him Buddy. He was smitten and so were we. We filled out the application and within an hour, we were driving home with a dog renamed Buddy.
For the first week or so, it was pure bliss, He was cute, gentle and sweet and most importantly, house broken. But on Mike’s birthday our doorbell rang pretty late at night and when we opened it, standing on our front porch, was our neighbor holding Buddy in her arms. I swear I’ve never been so confused in my whole life. Why was she holding our dog? HOW was she holding our dog? Maybe the fence gate was unlocked? We took Buddy, put him to bed and made a mental note to check the gate the next day.
Our old fence, which Buddy could apparently clear like a show horse.
I’ll never forget standing on my lawn, checking the gate, when something literally whizzed by my head. Like a small jet plane flying by. Before I could fully grasp what the object was, I caught sight of Buddy streaking down our hill and disappearing out of sight. Did my new dog just clear our four foot fence with room to spare? Did that just happen? I didn’t have time to really process that because, for the first of many, many, MANY times, I was chasing my dog.
So frequent were his runaways that he became a legend on our neighborhood Facebook page. It was like a game of who will win the visit from Buddy today!? Not even a taller, much more expensive wooden fence could stop him. Our only hope was a tie-out and even that didn’t work as I learned the hard way one day when he jumped over the back fence, while still attached to the line. There he hung for a few, painful seconds before squeezing his tiny head out of the collar and, you guessed it, taking off.
For some reason, we were not deterred by Houdini and his great escapes, and kept him. So in love with him were we that we thought it would be a good idea to bring him with us to my in-laws for Christmas a few weeks later. Our entire extended family was sitting watching a movie peacefully one night when I noticed a pile of something wet on the floor near where Buddy was lying. Did this damn dog pee on what was surely an expensive carpet? Please God…no. Little did I know how much better that would have been than the reality of what was to come. I looked closer and found that the pile was actually wood shavings that Buddy had methodically gnawed off of her new Ethan Allen coffee table throughout the entire movie. I’ll give my mother in law Dolores credit, she was annoyed but took it like a champ and my brother in law did some kind of woodworking magic to make the table look presentable. Phew….Buddy is saved!
Dolores is from a first generation Italian immigrant family from Calabria. Her father Giuseppe was a kind soul who wore a three piece suit even when he worked in the garden. I never understood anything he said in Italian but I loved being around him. I thought (emphasis on “thought’) that when he came to this country, he brought with him very little except this incredible mahogany table. This part of the story never really made sense to me - like, how did he get a table on the boat? And how did that table end up in Succasunna, New Jersey so many years later? But so convincing was the lore about this table in my confused brain, that I never questioned it. This was, after all, the table where we gathered as a family after a long drive from DC, arriving late on a Friday and eating pizza from Luigis. It’s where my father in law would open endless bottles of red wine and where we’d listen to Pavarotti at full volume while they worked on the feast of the seven fishes. The table was gorgeous and understated on top but had this amazing detail on the legs with gorgeous finials that no doubt were hand carved a hundred years ago by nuns.
The table is our gathering place - in good times and in sad ones.
For the next two days after the attack on the first table, I kept track of every step Buddy took. He was like a shark in a pond and I never left him alone for fear of another attack. I am not sure when or how I got distracted, probably taking care of my two toddlers two days before Christmas, but at some point I lost sight of him. The panic that set in when I suddenly recalled I not only had a dog, but I was unaware of his current location, sent a chills up my spine. I threw my baby at whoever was closest and set off to capture Cujo.
What started as a casual jaunt around the house looking for Buddy, desperate to not attract any attention, soon turned full out, heart-racing run through each and every room. I was making deals with God at that point that I’ll never admit to. I was yelling at Buddy,, screaming quietly through my forced smile, “nothing to see here, everything is jussttttt fine” I said as I passed through multiple rooms full of family members who looked up but just assumed it was the weird Canadian doing her thing.
You likely know where this story is headed and if you have a weak stomach, now would be a good time to stop reading.
Out of the corner of my eye, as I darted past the opening to the kitchen, I saw this dog, one with a clear death wish, quietly and methodically using the finials of priceless, irreplaceable, hand carved (did I mention by nuns?) table. In one motion, I grabbed Jay by the collar and threw him out the back door. In a full sweat, I ran to find Mike to give him the bad news that we were about to be excommunicated from his family.
You need to know that my husband has the strongest moral compass of anyone I know. He never lies, he never cheats on anything, he gives the hard news to me and others regularly even when we don’t want to hear it.. So when I tell you that he immediately refused to be the one to tell his mother that our newly adopted mutt had now eaten not one but TWO of her tables, I knew we were in a world of hurt. I grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him violently and said “look buddy, you HAVE to tell your mom”. I knew from his ghost white face that that wasn’t going to happen. He just couldn’t bear to turn Buddy in. He slowly shut the door to his childhood bedroom and left me to the execution.
You can see why Mike refused to turn him in
I knew there was nothing to do but tell her before she saw the disaster herself so I crept up the stairs of their spit level house to the bathroom where she was getting ready for church. Somehow managed to squeak out a “Mom, I have something to tell you. The dog ate your table.”
With a loving tone, she said, “I know Allie. But it’s ok, Craig fixed it. All is well. We can move on!”.
“No, ummm (gulp)….he ate the OTHER table”.
I don’t really remember what happened after that but there was a lot of screaming and before I knew it we were driving to the Woof and Purr Inn where Buddy spent the rest of the holidays. Safe to say, Santa did not pay him a visit that year. To this day, we only speak of this incident in hushed tones. And every time I walk by the table, now at my mother in law’s home in Virginia, I say a little prayer to the God of forgiveness on Buddy’s behalf.
Buddy apparently doesn’t like the crust
I could go on and on and on with stories of Buddy’s escapades. He apparently has a fine palette as he once ate an entire wheel of aged parmesan cheese, and he does not like crust as he once scaled our island counter and ate only the middle of the pizza we had just labored to create. I could tell you about the time he darted out the front door during what we in the DC area called Snowmaggeddon where he proceeded to disappear in the 4 feet of snow, popping up every few feet like a reindeer until he stopped coming up for air and causing all of neighbors to simultaneously dig until we found him.
But for every maddening, side-splitting adventure that this dog has had, is a story about him loving us with his entire doggie heart. The day I left Mike to say his final goodbye to his dad after a short and brave battle with lung cancer, I drove down the turnpike with Buddy by my side, lovingly with his head in my lap as I heaved with sobs. When I stopped for a break, I asked a group of big burly rugby players to keep an eye on him while I ran inside. When I came out, his head was hanging out the window giving them as many kisses as he could before we headed home. Through surgeries, sad days, holidays and happy ones, and even during Covid days when we went on a five mile walk every day, Buddy has been our constant.
Buddy and Atka…an unlikely pair
When Mike and the kids go off to school or work, he follows me around the house and sits at my feet while I work. When he could still make it up the stairs, we’d sneak up onto our bed for the perfect sunshine nap. These last few months, as we’ve come to grips with my diagnosis, Buddy has been there every step of the way. I think he knows something is different because he literally never leaves my side. We both long for our walking days together. He still loves anything warm - especially lying in front of the fire place or the oven, or on our exceptionally hot back deck in the summer. Oh, and he loves ham. The dog LOVES ham so, so much.
He is beloved by everyone who has ever had the pleasure of taking care of him especially my Mom and Dad who have babysat him most of the times we have traveled. Their beloved malamute Atka dwarfed Buddy but they were so cute together. Ironically, Buddy was in charge of that duo despite his tiny stature and wherever Buddy would wander, Atka would follow. He is even adored by my mother in law who, despite the mischief he has inflicted on her, loves him to pieces and watches him regularly too. He is, without exaggeration, a legend.
When we adopted Jay they told us he had been abandoned on the side of the road with his puppy brothers and sisters in West Virginia. But we often wonder if maybe that too is wrong and really he had a loving, happy home somewhere that he darted out of, only to get too far away to find his way back. Somewhere there is a little boy, or girl, who longingly thinks of Jay. However he came to be part of our family, I will forever be grateful and there will never be another like him.
This week, Ava and I took Buddy for what I will assume is his last ever check up. He’s almost 17 now and our vet gently told us that his days left with us are few as she handed us papers on when to know it’s time. I sobbed uncontrollably as she told us that he is undoubtedly struggling. He has trouble walking and likely is in pain. He can no longer lift his sweet head and may even have a form of dog dementia which makes him anxious and fearful. His legs give out as he tries to stand and he sleeps most days. Despite this, he still has moments of glory where prances around the house and darts through the backyard with his ears flopping in the wind. He is still the most loving, amazing friend in the world and just the thought of him not being part of our life soon brings me to tears. We are so grateful for the time we’ve been lucky enough to call him ours and we’ll continue to make him happy and comfortable until we have to say goodbye. And when that happens, I won’t be able to breathe for a bit, let alone type, so this is for you now, my sweet Budster. You are the very best puppers ever. We love you and thank you for saving us so many years ago and for saving us every day since.
Oh, right…I almost forgot.
I mentioned to my mother in law that I was writing this and told her I needed to know more about how her dad brought a whole table over from Italy. This is when she informed me that I had this story utterly wrong. The table came from my father in law’s side of the family and she’s pretty sure it was bought at a furniture store outside of Philly. Huh? I immediately asked Mike and the kids if I was hallucinating about the fabled Italian table and they all agreed I was not - although Mike was clear that the table came from his other grandpa Emilio and was not even from Giuseppe. LOLOLOL I’ll never know how I got it so wrong, but part of me is very relieved that Buddy’s legacy is eating a table from Sears and not from Sicily.