A Dog Named Butch

I was living in Whetstone, just north of Huachuca City, AZ when Butch came into the household. Jim and I had to have Alanna, our beloved wolf-Chow of 13 years, PTS due to an inoperable tumor in October 1990. We went dogless for almost three years. I was reduced to taking treats to neighborhood dogs and feeding scraps to what seemed to be an orphaned half-grown coyote--a VERY BAD practice which I DO NOT recommend!!

We were active in the local VFW Post in HC and became  good friends with an older couple, John and Alyne Pope, who also were. active members. She died from COPD (they were from Kentucky and both smoked like chimneys!) and he carried on for a bit and got a dog, probably mostly Brittany Spaniel, and named him Butch. Butch got to know Jim and me well, so when John had to go into assisted living and move nearer his adult children, he begged us to take Butch and in late 1993, he came to live with us.

For awhile Butch was more Jim's dog and went down to the VFW almost daily with him--he was an officer at the time and had tasks to take care. of.  However Butch and I got along well too and he went places with me also. He was deathly afraid of riding in a car yet he did not want to stay home. Mostly he would crouch in the back seat of our SUV and if we drove on a mountain road, he totally refused to look out. He  did enjoy going on expeditions with us though ,and went along on a number of picnics and hikes.

He was not much to get on the furniture but I tried to keep him clean as his white coat showed dirt badly. He did not like baths but for a long time I think I could have skinned him alive and he would not have snapped or fought. Here is one of his bath sessions. Doesn't he look crestfallen?

In about 1996 we acquired Sadie, who will have a story of her own. She and Butch hit it off at once and became virtually inseparable. Together they went almost everywhere with us although we did put them in a boarding kennel a time or two, like when we made a trip to Kentucky for my grandfather's 100th birthday in 1997 and to an RWA conference in 1999.

I'm not sure how old Butch was when John got him or when he came to live with us. At the time though he was fairly young and lively. A neighbor had a part Border Collie he had inherited from a nephew who lived with him awhile. The black and white rascal was called simply Dog, Dog and Butch were great friends before we got Sadie and loved to play a kind of doggie-tag chase game. Wow, those two dogs could really run! They'd trade chased and chaser positions and run until I was worn out watching them. Dog lived to be 18, a very elderly canine, and  was around until I left in 2008.

We did a lot of yard work and Butch had a favorite hiding place in the shallow basin we'd dug when planting a small tree. We called it Butch's foxhole. He would rest his chin on the rim and watch us work frr that cool and shady spot! He also took his job as guard dog and welcome officer very seriously and would sit in what I called his sentry pose, alert and watchful until his eyes were drooping shut!.

Finally in 2003 he was going down hill and no longer ran. He even got a bit grumpy and we had to coax him to eat. It was Butch who got down and could not get up when I took Jim to the ER the night before the massive heart attack took him and it was Butch who got his release at the Vet's within a few minutes of the time of Jim's actual passing. Thus they went together to the Rainbow Bridge to collect Alanna, Angus, Flash, Mickey, Madra, Beauregard and a number of other dogs that had been part of my life, Jim's and ours as a couple. Sadie and I carried on after that but it was a hard and sad time for both of us.

So on National Dog Day which I extend to a week, I lovingly remember Butch   It will be good to see him again! In the end he was my dog as Sadie had become Jim's.