Buster Brown

Buster came to us, as many of our dogs have came,

"unexpected".

Michael had returned from Arizona and a friend of his

came over with the cutest little dog. 

When she commented she was going to have to

get rid of him due to her new apartment rules I

couldn't imagine her just leaving him at a shelter.....

so began our long journey with "Buster"

often refered to as "Buster Brown".

It didn't take us long to figure out this little dog was

pretty smart and could "out smart" us in a few things.

He knew how to push under the chain link fence and

soon taught our Lab - Kady to do the same.

They would spend endless hours roaming

the neighborhood and on more than one

occasion Buster was picked up by the animal officer.

On the first occasion to "bail" him out,

while I stood at the counter to write the check

he actually peed on my ankle........

He had been boarded in a cement kennel overnight

and was not about to pee in there,

but by now he couldn't hold it anymore

and I was the best thing around to hike his leg on.

Buster had quite a knack for carrying his food dish around.

He would snag up the food bowl, full of food,

and scoot under the fence with it, spilling none.

That would keep it safe from Kady

til he was ready to eat it himself.

Buster went to live with Mischel and her kids

for several years.

He had quite a reputation around her neighborhood too.

It was not uncommon for Mischel to receive calls

from her neighbors "Hey Mischel, I'm missing my cat dish.

Would you see if your dog has carried it home?"

And there tucked in the back of his dog house

would be an assortment of dog and cat dishes

collected thru out the neighborhood.

Eventually Buster came back to be with us.

Once again him and Kady would be kennel buds.

He still would take the food dish,

lay under Pat's truck and just wait with it.

He wasn't ready to eat, but knew if left on the deck,

Kady would devour all of it.

I watched him cross the snowy draw behind our house

one morning, carrying something, yes, sure enough

he was packing home a cat food can from the

neighbor's who were out of town.

As I watched him come around the house,

there in the snow was a nice ceramic dish,

from a previous visit across the way.

The neighbors were out of town and someone

else was feeding for them.

I'm sure she wondered where that dish had gone

and then how it got back there?

Yes, "Buster Brown" you were a "good ole' dog"

Your beagle bark will be missed.

Thank you for some good memories