B is for Bud, Part 5 - Extended Family by Nan Brooks

Bud likes everyone and every sort of everyone. Well, except for people who deliver packages and are, for some Budly reason suspect. And except for small dogs who want to prove they are bigger and meaner than Bud. For the package deliverers, Bud barks his deepest bark. For small dogs, he cowers and turns away. If things accelerate from there, he rolls over on his back. For small dogs who are polite, Bud likes to lie down and let them climb on him. We might say that Bud is a pussycat.

Actually, Bud has a pussycat companion named Tigress.  No points for originality, but the folks at the shelter found it appropriate and I think they were right.  Tigress believes she is the boss of Bud, which is mostly true. If she sees that he is on his way to another place in the house, Tigress stands in front of him to block his way and he waits until she allows him to pass. If Tigress wants to sleep on his bed, Bud will sleep elsewhere unless encouraged by his humans to share the bed with the cat. If Bud is away for too long, maybe more than half an hour, Tigress calls him. She is part Siamese – the voice part – and her calls are loud and long. If she wakes in the night and doesn’t see Bud immediately, she calls him then, too. Humans tend to find this annoying; Bud has not made his opinion known.

Bud likes to go for walks with humans and adapts to their ways. For the humans who walk quickly, bent on good exercise, Bud trots along. For humans who have difficulty walking or who prefer to stroll, Bud goes slowly, too. He reads as much news in the grass and shrubbery as he can find, sits and waits when asked, and avoids confrontation with the aforementioned small over-ambitious dogs.

Bud has made two new friends in the past year and he walks with them twice each day. Actually they are three new friends, or rather four.  We’ll call the humans James and Sarah. They moved into our little gated community to care for James’ mother, whom we’ll call Ellen. Long ago, James  promised his mother that he would never make her move away from her home here, so when she needed daily care and her hired caregivers were, shall we say, far less than satisfactory, James and Sarah arrived from the north. It appeared that Ellen did not have long on this earth, but their good care has improved her health and their stay has lasted much longer than anticipated. When they arrived, they brought their fine dog with them, but he died after several months at a fine old age. James and Sarah were bereft, which Bud could probably tell. He was a fine therapy dog for soldiers in his previous job, after all. I know that he senses when humans (and cats) are in distress and he immediately attends to them, offering gentleness and humor.

James and Sarah asked if they might take Bud for a walk now and then, and that became a daily routine. During the pandemic, their walks are essential for their own mental and physical health I expect, as is true for most of us. Bud consults his inner doggy clock and goes to the window to watch for James and Sarah, then when they are in sight he dances and whines – I prefer to call it singing and it is a distinctive tune.  He gives Sarah his special smile and that makes her smile, even on difficult days. He is always happy to go with James and Sarah and happy to come home – a fine role model.

One day on their early morning walk, Bud found a dog for James and Sarah. This scrawny white guy was afraid of Bud and of the humans, but Bud convinced him to follow along and, as Sarah later said, “Colonel Bud marched that dog straight to our house.”  They named the dog Murphy; he is a white guy with a bullet-shaped head and he is all muscle.  We can no longer see Murphy’s ribs and his adoration of Bud is clear. Or maybe he wants to dominate Bud; there is a certain amount of male negotiating for rank. Bud just walks away when Murphy tries to climb on him as they walk. 

There are many extended family members in Bud’s world and they live in different cities. When we talk or email with those friends they always ask, “And how is Bud?” with a particular tender sound in their voices.

May we all be like Bud – pleasant, eager for information about others, happy to go out into the world and happy to come home, dancing and singing when friends come to visit, and eager to help other beings in need of comfort and a smile.