A Dog Named Buff (This is not a musing about a general topic like the others)

A Dog Named Buff (This is not a musing about a general topic like the others)

The article about the dog who waited by the highway months for his owners to return brought back one of the saddest situations in my life.  I was quite young then, somewhere like between 8-14 years of age; it was a emotional trauma for me which I never really got over. Nor would separation anxieties ever be something I could really conquer.

Buff was supposed to be a miniature collie. Well, he grew to be anything but a miniature anything. He was a mixed breed of some sort, and a free spirit of all sorts. Buff and I became inseparable buddies. He thought everything I did was a riot, unlike more mature people in my life. We roamed far and wide for miles around, some kind of weird Bonny and Clyde roaming around like bulls in a china shop. This was the first mistake. He ended up, often on his own, knowing every inch of the neighborhood for like a two mile radius. No dog around had a bigger playground. 

Buff was pure friendliness. He never bit anyone, ever. He thought the world was a circus and everyone one in it a fellow clown. Kids loved him, he was a kid just like the rest of us. I began to teach him exceptionally neat, funny ha-ha tricks. Like he would sail in mid air by someone’s head and remove their hat just like that. I could detect when he was about to do so (he would commence staring at a hat) and I couldn’t wait for the person’s reaction.  And then the game was for the person to chase him around to get their hat back. He also learned to wrestle—literally. You could be standing there and he would suddenly take you down at the knees and the game was for you to try and get up. It was a lot of fun—well, at least for me; not so much for others who preferred more dignified activities—for example, Edna Titler, a stout, dignified, prominent member of our church, who screamed bloody murder when Buff took her down, on a most memorable day, at the knees, to wrestle. Now how could that not be funny? Probably the only time Edna Titler ever looked undignified. Buff would never bite, but growl and try to keep you pinned on the ground. My mother was horrified and of course my father heard about it from her in no uncertain terms, with unlimited aghastness. My dad worked exceptionally hard to soothe the social pillar of the church and made me promise to shut up about the incident and if Mrs. Titlar complained others were aware of it at all, Buff would have to go. So I kept it secret. She is long since dead so I guess no harm of telling it now. The irritant to me was that it only happened because my mother insisted I not disappear as soon as Mrs. Titlar arrived, that I stop being so anti-social and visit a bit before I took off with Buff. I think Buff got real impatient standing around looking at flower gardens and decided Mrs. Titlar was the ringleader of such a boring waste of time, thus it was time for a take-down and a little wrestling. 

Buff liked to visit school bus stops and grab hats, wrestle, or grab lunch boxes. Kids loved it but parents a tad less so, especially when they raced out of the house and their kid was pinned down squirming around with Buff growling away. But then all the kids would pile on and pull Buff off and he would be all happy and playful for another contest. When some tempers flared he would be wagging his tail wallowing in the fun of it all. No amount of commotion was too much for Buff. He came the closest to a dog who could smile like Denis the Menace.  Buff enjoyed creating circumstantial chaos. He always kept everybody’s blood circulation robust.  

It was not uncommon to see a police car pull into the yard with Buff sitting in the back seat looking majestically proud of his ride home. The police invariably liked the dog, but patiently explained to my parents that other people miles away didn’t like him visiting them or their dog. One time, when a cop was petting Buff—bam, just like that Buff had his hat and the chase began. The cop merely mumbled “This dog is crazy”. Buff liked to wrestle with other dogs too, some enjoyed it, some  dogs only reluctantly went along. Then, when the owners of the other dog would bring their dog into their house, Buff often managed to get in before the door could close and then run around touring the whole house. He never damaged anything unless it was a pot roast sitting outside on a picnic table, in which case that could be gone as quick as a hat. Only a pot roast you didn’t get back.  Nor a deer hung up to cure (I forget the right word) in someone’s yard.  One of the neighbors had a deer hung up like that, and my dad was horrified to find parts of a deer carcass all over our yard one morning. I never did know whether my dad ever told them what happened to their deer. My dad was pure gentleman, and the back neighbors were pure backwoods, in a non derogatory sense. No one could believe Bud James had a dog which had become the ‘terror’ of the neighborhood. It was a total mismatch, as was my being his son in the eyes of many.

My dad was a very respected and gentlemanly like chap who never bothered anyone, or did the slightest thing out of line with his idea of respectability.  He didn’t drink, smoke, swear, ever take advantage of anyone, pull any fast ones—you get the idea. He would wear a suit to a picnic—a real embarrassment to a young kid who wanted a ‘cool-ass’ dad. He actually was, but I didn’t realize it until much later in life. Anyway, my parents finally tied Buff up in the yard but Buff would bark so much in frustration that the nearby neighbors would plead for my parents to let him loose. But when loose, the far away neighbors would demand he be tied up. My poor parents were between a pillar and a post. They really never deserved to end up in the middle of such a neighborhood dilemma. They knew the neighbors were right and yet they didn’t want to deprive me of my ‘best’ friend. They were hopelessly boxed in. 

I never personally blamed my parents when they told me Buff had to go. I understood the problem, but my emotional attachment and loyalty to Buff was intense. It ought to have been intense—Buff was Buff because I taught him to be Buff. They found a buyer for Buff, but when the new buyer arrived I had managed to get Buff up the ladder which led from my room into an attic space. Buff thought that was a great adventure, trying to get up the ladder. When the new buyer saw the situation he refused to take the dog since all this was causing such grief for me, a mere kid. Buff and I were securely barricaded up in the attic. Hercules himself could not have opened the attic hatch door with all that was piled on top of it. 

One day I came home and Buff was gone and my parents sadly informed me he had been given to a farmer upstate where Buff could roam to his heart’s content. To this day I fear, as soon as he was let loose in his new place, that he took off and they never saw him again. Buff would try to find home, but it would be too far away and the territory unfamiliar to him. Maybe he didn’t run away or maybe someone finally took him in along the way, but I doubt it. People don’t take in a dog with such a nature. The only real hope is that it was a farm with lots of animals and kids where Buff just might have been free to be Buff without all the neighborhood problems.

What kind of dog would Buff have been without me as his companion?  Probably everyone, which includes me, places much of the blame on me. Then again, I have had many pets throughout my life and none of them remotely approached Buff in personality. Perhaps my age was a huge factor. It must be remembered that 90% of others found Buff amusing in his antics. He was encouraged by many others besides me. I have another boyhood recollection of a dog and this a much shorter tale. A boyhood friend and I were walking down this road when some little dog bolted off the porch, broke his chain in the process, and proceeded to tear into my friends pants and bite him in the process. At that moment this old lady came off the porch and hit my friend over the head with a broom and told him to “stop playing with the dog.”  To this day I manage to enquire if he has stopped playing with other people’s dogs. It also occurs to me that back then these were nuisances and tales to talk about. Today these are trails of law suits, animal control, and fences. 

It wasn’t so much I couldn’t survive without Buff as it was my keenly acute regret that Buff would feel so abandoned by me. It would not be the last time, when the chips were down, that I would be helpless and unable, or not strong enough, to save another’s fate. Personal survival is not always victory. The last man standing contests in life are unfair and tragic. Winning at someone else’s expense has a hollowness to it that lingers for the rest of our lives. We know life is not easy, but the tragico-dramatic chapters of our lives never really lose either aspect. We often don’t really win, we just endure while others, less fortunate, fade into oblivion. In the end, death is the great leveler, and we all fade into earthly oblivion. Only TIME stays, WE—all of you and alas, me, GO. 

Goodnight Buff, wherever you are.  Maybe Buff is in heaven snatching halos.  Even “God” needs a laugh now and then.