Buddy Turns 14 Years Old

When my husband and I were dating, his neighbor's dachshund seemed to always be at his parents' house when we visited. The dog was always around us and refused to go home. His owners didn't really take care of him or care about him. Mostly he was left to wander the roads and farmer's fields (which often got him shot at). He is still terrified of guns and will hide if he even sees a water pistol. He would often spend days, if not weeks at a time at the folks' house. When we visited, we would drive him to his house. I will never forget the time we took him home and he refused to get out of our car. We had to carry him out, and put him on their porch. By time I got back in the car, he was standing in front of us again. We had to carefully drive around him. I guess even then, he knew he really belonged to us and he probably didn't understand why we were driving off and leaving him behind.

A couple of years passed, and again we visited and again Buddy was there. Maybe he was waiting for us? By this time he had been hit by a car and he couldn't walk properly. It was clear he had not had been to a vet and the leg/hip healed on it's own. To this day he can't walk right. At this time my husband and I were out on the road fulltime. Buddy had been at Joe's parents' house for more than a week. When we left, we decided to take him with us for the two weeks we would be gone.

It was during this two week period that I fell in love with Buddy. I had always been a cat person. My husband had wanted a dog since we got together, but not me. I didn't really care too much for dogs. But that was before Buddy. I loved the time we spent together on walks all over the country. I loved how he curled up with us at night when it was time to sleep. I enjoyed petting him as we traveled all over. Then the two weeks were over. We were sure the owner would have noticed he was missing by this time.

When we came back home for a visit, as we were getting ready to go to bed for the night, Buddy ran home to his old owner. It broke my heart to let him go. He had changed my life, my outlook about dogs. I cried myself to sleep that night.

It was clear that in that two weeks I had become a dog person. The next day we went to three different shelters looking for a dog to adopt. We came home with none. There was just no replacing Buddy. =(

We had to go back out on the road that evening. As we were getting ready to get in the truck, I opened the door, and running up from out of no where was Buddy. At the same time, Buddy's owner came driving by. I stood there, Buddy at my feet and his owner slowed down. I thought for sure he was going to stop and say something about his dog being gone for 2 weeks. At that moment Buddy jumped from the ground into the truck. Jumping into a tractor trailer is a pretty big jump, but he must have really wanted to get in. His owner saw this, and then drove off. He never gave us permission to take him, but he never stopped us either. We took Buddy with us for another two weeks. We decided that when we came home the next time, if Buddy stayed with us, he would be ours. He did, so we took him to the vet, apparently for the first time in his life. We had taken him for a basic exam, but ended up leaving him there because he needed surgery. We explained to the vet that he wasn't really ours, that we took him and at that point, had him for a month. The vet told us that if his owner had made no attempt to reclaim him or find him that legally he was ours, and since we were providing medical treatment for him, if it ever came down to a legal fight, he would testify on our behalf.

It never came to that. His owner never came back to the house, although he drove by several time and saw us and Buddy outside. He just didn't care. I will never understand who someone would just give up the best dog in the world, but he was ours now.

The date we took Buddy to the vet was August 19, 1999. We didn't know his birthday and they needed a date, so they picked August 19th . We don't really know what year he was born, so we use the age that the vet estimated. From that day forward Buddy's birthday was August 19, 1991.

Since that time Buddy has traveled the country, coast to coast more than most people ever have the chance to. In recent time, as his age has caught up with him, he spends more time home. He was the first of the dogs, and it is really a testament to what a wonderful dog he is that the other dogs joined us. If there was never a Buddy, the others wouldn't have had a home. I was *not* a dog person.

I really believe that although it took us a couple of years to catch on, that Buddy knew long before that he belonged with us. I am glad we finally saw the light.

Happy 14th Birthday Buddy-dog. Your Daddy and I love you with every fiber of our soul.