Buttercup....I used to be ashamed to tell people HIS name. I was afraid they would think he was less of a dog, or I was....Well, it doesn't matter. It was just stupid. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me tell you my Bubbies' story, and say goodbye.
I remember a lot about the day I got Buttercup. I don't remember if I had been asking for a dog that much, but I was getting one for my birthday regardless. I was about four, and I remember leaning my head on the back seat's passenger-side window. The smell of the Floridian citrus flying through the open windows and toward my nostrils. The car ride seemed like ages then, although I still did not know what was in store for me.
When we arrived at the breeder, I remember there were but two dachshunds left. One a golden yellowish color who I distinctively remember being named twix, and the other a beautiful black doxie with brown patches dabbed here and there as seen on many before him...My Buttercup. He ran away from me at first, but not before looking in my eyes, screaming through his pupils to be whisked away in the safety of my comfort. And so I choose him. The glorious dachshund black as night.
I don't remember naming him, but I'm sure it was an ackward moment for all adults present, something I could not yet pick up on in my young age. About a year later, I asked to rename him biscuit. I don't honestly remember why I did such a thing, but I was told it was too late, and thus the nickname Bubbies soon was born.
I have to admit. I was not the best dog owner that ever walked this Earth, and I still feel so much shame when I picture how I treated him. I loved Bubbies to death, but sometimes I knew not how to handle him. When he barked, and I was too young to know, I would hold his muzzle shut, and for all his life I would sometimes forget to feed him at night...Just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes, but I knew he forgave me.
Speaking of food. I must speak of his love affair with it all his life. Food was my Bubbies motivation in life. I am almost sure it was always on his mind, and he would do whatever it took to get it. He would always go through trash when given the chance, thus forcing us to forgoe indoor garbage cans, and he would always find a way to get on the table had we neglected to put food up when called from the room. When we first fead him the night I got him, my grandmother called him a little piglet, for the food was gone in under a minute, and always would be. Because of this, when I got older, I began to suspect he was abused by the breeder we had gotten him from, thus explaining his begging eyes. But I never pursued the idea much, for I had already saved him.
Needless to say, Buttercup was just plain fat. He was always ten pounds overweight, and he would never go too past the neighbor's front yard when I tried to walk him, for he feared he would not return, I suppose. Or it was possibly because he loved my father so much, as he would walk with him. He adored my father, even more than me...And that was fine. As long as he was happy, I was happy.
Most of his years were the same as the last. He woke, I fead him, he went in the crate, as my mother was always in fear he would chew and deficate on everything in the house, I came home, I fead him if I had not forgotten to, and then he slept once more after running around out back for hours on end. This was of course until we got Honey, a rescue miniature red haired dachshund from someone who kept her chained outside. You could clearly see her rib cage when we got her, and my mother nursed her back to health, thus gaining her undying love.
We got Honey to keep Bubbies company for the days he spent in the cage, and it worked out well. We had them both neutered and spayed out of paranoia, and they never tried to reproduce together. I don't really think they loved each other as husband and wife do, but they tolerated and loved each other like best friends.
I often would tell Bubbies how much I loved him. I would sneak downstairs in all hours of the night, and whisper in his ear how much he meant to me. He never showed his love for me the way he did my father, but I know he cared for me in some way. He was always lying next to me when I was sitting, and he liked to have his belly rubbed.
Then, a few years ago, he gained the fleas. And around that time, money became tight, and we could not affored to take him or Honey to the vet anymore, much less the medication. Thus he gained heartworms, and those pests tore at my heart just as they did his. I cried all the time, and soon with the worms coupled with his weight, he could not even climb the stairs anymore. He even stopped barking, which he used to do when so much as a leaf flew by the door. And a few moths ago, he stopped moving almost all together. Then, a few weeks ago. He did not move for days, and would not eat anything.
When he stopped eating, I KNEW it was his time, which did not hurt so much, as I had been preparing for his death a long time since as he had outlived the breed's normal lifespan by at least four years. But that morning, when, just as I was waking up, my mother told me he was being put down like it was just any other day, my world shattered. I begged my dad to take me to the vet, as I wanted to be there when he passed. My father agreed to pick me up from school when he was on his way. I looked at buttercup without saying a word, and waled out the door to the car. That was the last time I ever saw him.
When I got the call, that told me that my father had it done without me, I was devestated. I was a wreck, not only had my companion of about 14 years been taken from me, but a sacred trust had been broken. My father later explained that the doctors said they might not have to put him down, so he took him in, and after being advised to put him down, he asked about going to get me. They told his they could wither keep Buttercup in a holding cage, or to take him and bring him back in the evening. My father said he didn't want to leave him all alone and scared, and didn't want him to be in anymore pain, so he just did it. And I know that it is selfish, but I wish everyday he brought him back and took him in the evening. I NEEDED to say goodbye to him, and now I will never get to. I still do not know what I am going to do, or how I am going to get past this.
So now, Buttercup. I say goodbye. I love you Bubbies, and I'll see you on the rainbow Bridge.
Day I got him - January 28, 2009