When I retired from the Air Force and moved to New Jersey to be with the woman who would later become my wife, I did so knowing that she was a fanatical dog lover. And that was just fine with me, because I also had been a dog lover my whole life. We had them growing up and I had them during my first marriage, so when Gina told me that she was a dog lover too, well, it all just seemed to fit.
One day when I came home from work and went into the tiny kitchen of the equally tiny apartment we were living in, I saw an advertisement that Gina had cut out of a magazine and put up on the front of the refrigerator. The picture showed a Boston Terrier looking up at the camera, and Gina had made a cartoon balloon with "BUSTER" written in it and pasted it above the dog. From that point on, I knew that we were destined to one day get a Boston Terrier, and his name was going to be "Buster."
That day came two years later on June 8, 2001, two months after we moved out of the small apartment in Maywood, New Jersey and into a 3 bedroom house in Wantage, way up in the hills in Sussex County. My parents were visiting us at the time, and the day before they arrived Gina told me that she had found a Boston Terrier puppy, an AKC-registered purebred, at a breeder's in the next town over, and asked me if we could "please, please, please go get him tomorrow!" I agreed, and on the first day of my parent's visit we all drove down to the breeder's place in Butler, New Jersey and got our first look at the puppy. My father, who has always had a soft spot for dogs, was sold right away, and I have to admit that as soon as I held that warm bundle of fur in my arms and he looked up at me with those big, brown eyes, he had me hook, line, and sinker. We drove home a half-hour later with Buster sleeping in Gina's lap, and we spent the next two days of my parent's visit playing with our new puppy. And honestly, I don't know who enjoyed playing with him more, Gina or my father!
We knew that Buster was a special dog right from the start. Our first clue was that it only took a week for us to housebreak him. We didn't have a fence around the yard, but that proved not to be an issue because Buster never tried to run away - not once. We'd take him outside in the front yard - the back door was a patio door that led onto an elevated deck that was 9 feet off the ground - put him down in the grass, he'd do his thing and then come right back into the house. For the entire 5 year period that we lived in the house, all we ever had to do was open the door for him - he'd go right out, do his thing, and come right back in. And when it snowed, I'd shovel out a big clear space next to the house, and he'd go out into the clear space, do his business, and come right back in.
As much as I hated to do it, when Gina and I left for work each day we were forced to crate Buster because we didn't quite trust him not to go to the bathroom inside the house. I was always the first one home in the evening, and after about two weeks of noting that the bottom of the crate was clean and dry when I came home each day, one day when I left for work I left the crate door open. When I drove up to the house about ten hours later (I had an hour commute to and from work, as did Gina) there was Buster, sitting on the back of the couch in the living room, looking out of the bay window at me as I drove up. He'd gone all day without making a mess, and as soon as I let him out he did his thing and came right back in. And that was the last day he ever spent in the crate.
About a year after we got him Gina and I were playing with him in the living room one afternoon around five o'clock, when all of a sudden Buster jumped up and ran full-speed across the house, turned around, and ran full-speed back. He ran the length of the house over and over, full-speed, with Gina and I laughing our heads off at him. Gina looked at me and said, "What the hell is that all about?" and I replied, "I dunno, I guess it's just the 'Five O'Clock Buster!'" So from that point on, whenever he'd start running around the house, Gina and I would look at each other and laughingly say, "It's the Five O'Clock Buster!"
Buster became an integral part of our lives, and we quickly grew to love him more than either of us thought possible. He'd sleep in the bed with us at night, most of the time on Gina's pillow right next to her head, and I have more than one picture of them sleeping and touching faces as they slept, Buster sleeping on the pillow next to her head. When we'd go out onto the deck to relax he'd go out with us and plop down on the deck, sitting in the sun. That dog absolutely loved to sit in the sun! We had two 12"x12" skylights in the ceiling, and Buster would follow the sun spots across the floor, laying down in one and not moving until it moved; then he'd get up and reposition himself in it, promptly going back to sleep.
We also found out that he absolutely loved to ride in the car, as most dogs do. But he'd never hang his head out; he'd be content to sit in Gina's lap and snooze while I drove, and when we made the decision to move to South Carolina in 2006 this proved to be a godsend. We took him with us on the trip down to house-hunt, and he was absolutely the best dog ever during the trip! He sat in the middle of the bench seat of Gina's Dodge truck almost the entire time, content to just lay there and sleep. When he wasn't there he was laying in Gina's lap, but the main thing is that he gave us no trouble at all during the entire trip.
One of the things Buster never learned to do was walk down stairs, because he never needed to. He always went out front to use the bathroom, and since our back door led to an elevated deck we were always careful not to let him fall down the stairs. So he never learned to walk down stairs, even though he could walk up them with no problem. This bit us in the butt when we moved to South Carolina in 2006, because we bought a two-story house. This meant that every time Buster needed to go downstairs for whatever reason, one of us had to carry him. But considering all that Buster gave us, it was the least we could do in return. But I made sure that when we got our second dog a few months after we moved in, a Puggle we named "Harley," we taught her to go up AND down the stairs! She and Buster hit it off right away, much to our relief.
About a year before we moved to South Carolina we noticed that, true to his breed, Buster was developing cataracts. By the time the summer of 2007 rolled around his cataracts were so bad that he couldn't see anything directly in front of him, and could only see things using his peripheral vision. So Gina and I talked about it and decided that we loved our dog enough to want to give him his sight back, so we had his cataracts removed. I wanted to make sure that I was the first thing Buster saw when they brought him out of the recovery room, and when he came out with all of the fur shaved away from the area around his eyes and wearing that big plastic cone to keep him from pawing at his eyes, and with his eyes open wide and looking around actually seeing the things around him again, I was the first thing he saw. It brought tears to my eyes, and I cried as I carried him out to the car. Both Gina and I were so happy that he had his sight back, and as soon as the vet gave us the green light we turned him loose in the back yard to chase Harley around as they used to do, only this time Harley got a big surprise when she discovered that she couldn't lose him by making a sharp turn and passing in front of him. He was on her like white on rice, and we were laughing our heads off the whole time!
The blessing of cataract surgery is that your dog gets his sight back; the curse is that you run the risk of glaucoma developing and stealing away the gift of sight permanently. We had to put drops in Buster's eyes four times a day to maintain the pressure of the fluid in his eyes, but by that time I had a job where I was only 7 minutes away from the house so doing the drops was no problem. And Buster took it all in stride, sitting so nice and still while we did the drops four times a day. Like I said, he was a special dog right from the start, and he was like a puppy again now that he had his vision back.
But 18 months after the surgery and despite the drops we were putting in his eyes, Buster developed uncontrollable glaucoma in his left eye and lost the sight in it. Six months later the right eye followed, and our beloved "baby boy" as we called him went blind. When the vet broke the news to me I cried like a baby, but once again Buster proved to us just what a special dog he was. He amazed both of us with his uncanny ability to navigate around the house. The vet told us that dogs were capable of that but it would take some time, but with Buster it took all of about half an hour! He knew where everything in the house was, and he made his way all over the house with no trouble! He could jump off of the couch in the living room downstairs, go up the stairs, around the corner, and into the bedroom where Gina was and jump up on the bed without any assistance from us at all! He simply amazed us with his ability to get around! And trust me, he had no trouble finding the kitchen when one of us went in there to get something to eat!
For the next two years Buster continued to amaze us, finding his way around with hardly any trouble. Both of us were always afraid that he'd bump into something and hurt himself, and every now and then he'd bump into something a little too hard and let out a small yelp, but he was always okay. Still, I was concerned, and about two months ago I noticed that his "internal compass" as we called it seemed to be a little off as he was bumping into things more often. Gina noticed it too, but we both expected it since he was now 11 years old, so we did the only thing we could - we kept our eyes and ears open, and hoped that he'd be okay.
This past Friday, May 25th, I was still in bed while Gina was getting ready for work. It was around 5:15AM when Gina put Buster up on the bed and he came snorting up to me, licking my face before going under the covers to snooze a bit. About 25 minutes later I felt Buster come out from under the covers and walk around me to jump down from the bed, and that's when it happened. We're not sure what it was, but when he jumped down from the bed he ran face-first into something and hurt himself - bad. He hurt something in his neck that left him paralyzed from the neck down, and we took him to the vet as soon as the vet's office opened at 8AM. I held him in my lap the entire time we were waiting for the vet's office to open and during the drive to the office, and for that entire time he never tried to move at all. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that the day I had been dreading was finally here, and after examining Buster the vet confirmed it.
Buster had ruptured at least one disk in his neck, and there was only a 20% chance that surgery would be able to correct it - IF Buster survived the surgery. His age and his heart murmur made his chances of surviving the surgery slim at best. I was sitting in a chair with my baby boy on my lap, holding him as I had been doing since the accident, and the tears were running down my face as Gina told me that Buster had been through enough, that we couldn't put him through anything else, and that we had to stop being selfish and do what was best for him. "We have to let him go, Ray," she said, and I knew she was right. So I bent down and kissed my baby boy on the head, telling him that I loved him and that we were going to send him to a place where he'd be able to see again, where he'd be able run and play and be happy - we were sending him to "Rainbow Bridge." (If you've never heard of that before, this would be a good time to Google it.)
I've always believed that no pet should ever leave this world in the arms of a stranger, and I'd long ago decided that if the day ever came where we'd have to put any of our pets to sleep that they'd pass with my arms around them. I also knew how much it was going to hurt, and I dreaded the day that I'd have to do that for Buster. But now the day had come, and for the love of Buster I had to keep my promise.
And I did. He passed quickly and painlessly in my arms, and it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my entire life.
I knew I'd done the only thing I could and that it was the best thing to do for Buster, but that didn't make it hurt any less. I didn't sleep much that night - neither of us did - but when I woke up the next morning Gina told me something that proved to me once again just what an amazing dog Buster was.
Buster had come to her in the night and given her a message for both of us. He came to her in a dream, and in the dream he was young again, looking as he did when we lived in New Jersey. He was running around the house we live in now, doing his "Five O'Clock Buster" just like he used to do when he was young, running up and down the stairs hell-bent for election. Gina tried to catch him but she couldn't, and when he finally stopped at the top of the stairs and she reached down for him, he changed into Harley, our Puggle. And that's when Gina woke up.
I immediately broke into tears, because I knew that the dream she'd had was a message, and I knew what the message was. Buster was telling us that he was fine, that he could see again and was happy, running around Rainbow Bridge like he was a puppy again, and that we had done the right thing. By changing into Harley he was telling us that we should stop worrying about him and take care of Harley, and love her as we had loved him.
I felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from my heart, and at that moment I stopped feeling sad that he was gone and started feeling happy that he was truly in a better place and was healthy again.
I won't say that the past three days haven't been hard on all of us - Harley feels the loss too - but I will say that the message from Buster has made it one hell of a lot easier than it was going to be. I miss him more than words can describe and it's going to take some getting used to him not being around, but I can do it knowing that he's happy, healthy and in a better place, waiting patiently for the day when Gina and I meet him at Rainbow Bridge. Buster was and still is an amazing dog, and with his help I know I can do this.
For the love of Buster, I can do anything.
IHC
1 comment:
Very nice, Ray!
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