Today I’m reminded of something I touched on briefly in My Life With Dogs, Part Two: the death of our dog Budly.
It happened on this date in 2000. Except it was Easter Sunday back then. What would become a very, very sad Easter.
I can’t believe it’s been seven years already. It doesn’t seem like that long, nor does it seem he’s ever far from our hearts. We think about him all the time.
Wayne believes he still thinks about us, too. Budly was a cocker spaniel who was nuts for tennis balls. Morning, noon, and night he’d play catch or fetch if we let him. (And could keep up.) And could that dog catch! Rarely missed a shot, no matter how high, far, or tricky.
Nowadays, a lot of times Wayne will be out running, or we’ll be out walking around, and all of a sudden we’ll find a tennis ball. Wayne says it’s Budly’s way of saying “Hi!” I like to believe that’s true, because sometimes we’re nowhere near a tennis court when this happens.
Speaking of tennis courts, that reminds me of one of my favorite Budly stories. (I have a slew. That dog was a mess! He couldn’t go anywhere without getting in trouble. Take him to a triathlon, he breaks lose and creates havoc on the course. Take him to Vegas, he catches a crook. Take him camping, he gets skunked.)
But for today I’ll stick with the tennis court story because it never fails to make me laugh remembering it. And that’s how I’d like to remember him today, not in the sad way we had to part, but of all the funny moments he graced our lives with.
Budly the Tennis Ball Snatcher
Budly went to college with me at the University of Arizona. Many nights while Wayne ran around the mall, Budly and I would walk it. (The mall was a big grassy esplanade, not a shopping one.)
One summer night when the campus was dead and no one was around to complain, I let Budly off leash to roam near the tennis courts. There were a couple of people playing on one of the courts. Not uncommon. Nor was it uncommon for us to walk over there.
But on this night Budly got a wild hair and all of a sudden dashed onto one of the courts, lunged in front of one of the players (who had his racket raised to swing, which luckily he didn’t), and snagged the tennis ball out of mid-air. Then he sprinted back to me looking rather proud of himself.
Thankfully the tennis players had a sense of humor. After they stood there staring in disbelief at each other as if to say, “Did that really happen?” they started cracking up.
I was mortified, took the ball away from Budly, and tried to give it back to them, but they insisted I keep it. Not so much because it had Budly slobber on it as because they felt that if the dog had wanted the ball that much, he’d earned it.
Like I said, he did a lot of funny things, because he was bursting with intelligence and personality, but that one always tops my list. He’s dearly missed, but never forgotten. I love you, Budly!