Buddy is definitely not a thing of beauty or a role model for his breed. His value can only be measured by the pleasure he brings to all who care to rub his stomach or feed him a treat
Buddy came to be a part of our life at the farm in fits and starts. He first was a day visitor to the farm accompanying his owner, one of many transitory workers who worked for us briefly and moved on. When Buddy’s owner was no longer needed, or was fired, he gathered his belongings and left, but left Buddy behind. You can see from the picture, Buddy is a purebred mongrel with hints of Boxer, and he obviously is the victim of a botched home made ear job. The ragged ears contributes to the somewhat ferocious look which belies the demeanor of an orphan looking for love where ever he can find it.
In the early days, the occasional visitor would offer to provide Buddy a home, and we always agreed, thinking that one less animal would lighten our load. Of course, it never lasted. Buddy might leave with a putative new owner watching us with sad eyes as he draped his paws over the tail gate of the truck in which he was being taken away. It never lasted long. In thirty minutes, a couple hours, or a day or two, he always returned with a self-satisfied look on his face seeming to say, “you can’t get rid of me that easily”.
As Buddy became a part of the farm, he became it’s protector just as the farm provided for and protected Buddy. Buddy loved to watch the continuing stream of construction workers and the buzz of activity that swirled around him. We had something of a to do when the workers began to complain that someone was stealing lunches out of their trucks. The mystery was unraveled when we found Buddy lurking around a pile of construction materials with a half-eaten home made burrito in his mouth. I chastised Buddy, but not too much. I learned that Buddy would eat anything. The trabajadores learned to roll up the windows in their truck to safeguard their lunch, and Buddy learned to look for his lunch in other places.
I’ve never really been much of a dog person having only had one dog of my own in my long ago youth, but my growing affection and esteem for Buddy was solidified when Buddy became my fishing companion whenever I cast a line or baited a hook. I don’t know whether he thought I might toss him a fish I didn’t want, or if he just liked my company……more likely the former, now that I think about it. Once, I was fishing for catfish at Brennigar’s Lake near the show barn when, needing to rebait a treble hook, I found my jar of stink bait had gone missing. I found Buddy laying in the shade of my truck licking the last of the stink bait out of the glass container. I think he even belched softly as I grabbed for the jar, hoping in vain that some would be left. The belch was only a precursor for a week to come of horribly noxious odors emanating from Buddy’s nether regions. To put it bluntly, Buddy farted stink bait for a week.
I ultimately decided that Buddy needed a running partner and got the first pick of a litter of a well bred Lab, and Daisy came in to our lives. Daisy and Buddy became fast friends and partners in mischief. They often would return from an evening of carousing with odors of skunk clinging to their coats or a piece of the remains of an unlucky squirrel at the corner of their mouth. As the years went by, Buddy learned he couldn’t keep up with Daisy as they struck out in pursuit of real or imagined prey. Buddy, like me, became a little lame, but his desires for the chase ran hot and true. He began to eschew the chase for a ride in the back of the mule with Javier as he made his rounds feeding the horses and mucking stalls. Buddy got a little fat as he progressed to the end of his middle years and learned there was as much pleasure to be had from begging a dog treat as from the thrill of the chase. But however he did it, Buddy always ate well.
So you can understand our distress when we received a call from our horse trainer yesterday telling us the bad news that Buddy had disappeared. Brian and Javier had searched the farm and beyond to no avail. S. and I went into a deep funk. Buddy had been a part of the creation of our farm. He had made us smile, and given us years of joy. And now, for reasons we couldn’t fathom, he was gone. We played out various theories that would account for his disappearance. We became alarmed when S. thought of the possibility of Buddy having gotten into a fight with the pack of dogs we’d seen roaming the area the past week. We called Brian and asked him to look some more. I even thought of driving to the farm and joining in the effort myself. We finally concluded that Buddy’s fate had been determined by some immutable law of nature, and that we would have to be satisfied with our memories.
To make things worse, we had been subject to a series of concerted skunk attacks over the last week, and as we scrambled to mount our defenses, we had thought of bringing Buddy up to the main house as an additional line of defense. Since we were going back to Dallas, we’d decided to set out a series of skunk traps around the house and let fate take it’s course. It had not been a good week at all.
This morning, as I was sinking in to a depression brought about by Buddy’s loss and the ignominy of having to prep for my colonoscopy tomorrow, Brian called again. Hallelujah! Buddy had been found, and, moreover, he was safe. No pack of wild dogs after all. “Where did you find him” we asked. “In a trap”, he said. Confused, I thought of the hog traps we had out, but had not been baiting. “Why would he go in a hog trap”, I thought. “No, Bryan said, “he was in one of the skunk traps at your house. Evidently he smelled the sardines you were using for bait, went in to help himself, and the trap did it’s job”.
Buddy is now back in our life and at the barn mooching food from whoever will pay attention to him. I suspect he’s sworn off sardines for life.
