Buddy Gromit Goodwin, 2002?-9/15/2015
For the past two days I’ve been hearing the opening to
the service of Compline in the Book of Common Prayer: “The Lord Almighty grant
us a peaceful night and a perfect end.” Buddy had both in the last few hours.
Buddy’s arrival in our life came under the heading of
Sometimes God Just Hands You One. We had just bought a house and I was combing
Petfinder for dogs when I saw Buddy in our driveway, sniffing noses with Simon
the tabby cat. I ran outside to save my cat from a strange dog and ended up
protecting the dog from Simon. Buddy just wanted to be friends.
He had a home, but he was a Houdini, and he was looking
for female dogs in heat. His owner took him back, but a few days later let us
know Buddy had run away again and we could have him if he showed up, which he
did. He didn’t run away as much after we got him fixed, but he sometimes gave
us the slip and went walkabout, though he always ran to the car when we drove
out to find him. He loved the car.
When people asked his breed, we always said he was a
North American God-Knows-What. He was a tricolor, black, red, and white with
both red and black spots; he had heeler spots and floppy ears; he herded, he
pointed, he was smart enough to do the taxes, and he smelled like a Lab. We
heard countless theories about what his ancestors might have been, but everyone
agreed he was beautiful.
We always said Buddy had a St. Francis vibe: he never
stopped befriending other animals. While he loved Lucy the blue heeler, and
later Daisy the border collie/heeler mix, his best friend was Sophie, a
tortoiseshell cat who slept on the couch with him every night. He insisted we
take in a very sick kitten who became Eowyn, our one-eyed warrior princess, but
they were not as close because she was aggressive with him. He once tucked a
neighbor’s cat under his belly and sneaked it into our kitchen in an attempt to
give us yet another cat. He loved all humans except cyclists, but the day I
rode up to the car on a bike and took off my helmet, he did a back somersault,
apologized profusely, and stopped wanting to eat cyclists. He loved to shake
hands, which prompted us to create his favorite song parody, I Wanna Hold Your
Paw. When we brought him to the clinic this morning, both vets on duty came out
to say goodbye before Dr. Colleen helped him into the next world.
Dogs play in different ways. Buddy’s favorite games were
Keep Away, Chase Me, and Neener Neener I’ve Got a Toy and You Haven’t. He would
even run to the fence to show his toy to the horse next door, who was never
impressed. Fetching, however, was
beneath his considerable dignity. He did a splendid high-speed barrel race
around any obstacles in the back yard, provided his humans leapt at him and
pretended they were trying to catch him; he did four laps of that the Friday
before his death.
Buddy survived mast cell cancer in early 2010. There was
no sign of its return until he had a seizure on Sunday, then a series of worse
ones on Monday. It was clear from bloodwork that several organs weren’t working
right, and his symptoms made it obvious that he had a debilitating brain mass.
He seemed to age a month every hour over the last day of his life, going from a
vital, happy dog to an old, bewildered, and very shaky one, but he maintained
his dignity to the last. His last night was crowded, as he was surrounded by
his humans and by Daisy, Sophie, and Simon, all of whom refused to leave him
and took turns snuggling him. Buddy met his perfect end on a blanket under a
tree outside the vet clinic, where he took the first sedative shot without
complaint, put his head down on Janine’s knee, and went peacefully to join
Lucy.
Good dog, Buddy Budster. Thank you for coming to us.
