Happy Puppy Day

You never forget your first. This little girl was my first baby in 1968. She was leading a great escape,  a jail break if you will, at a department store called Arlan's in south city which had a pet department. She had opened the cage and led her littler mates to freedom, or I should say, to the kibble buffet. She ripped into the bag and invited her brothers and sisters. I knew I had to buy her for seven dollars or risk having her be in BIG TROUBLE when the young male clerk came back from break. So I did. She was my girl for fifteen years.  

The year was 1969. My friend, Sheila and I, both expectant mothers in Alaska, were walking through the woods when we came upon a tractor tire on its side. It served as a pen for half a dozen puppies. The owner was not thrilled with them. Seems a Husky hooked up with his sweet white poodle. He begged us to to take a pup. So I did. Buffy Marie was my baby girl and not much bigger than the size of her own head when I chose her when she was eight weeks old. 

If you look at the bottom of the picture you can see Willy, my ex husband's puppy. He weighed sixty pounds at three months old. Buffy was such a smart girl, and Willy was a playful goofus who swiped things all around town. One day it might be a kid's winter cap and the next a large size bra he snatched off the clothesline up the road.

These two always frolicked freely in the woods. Buffy almost always had to drag Willy home in the evening. She was always ahead of him yapping for him to "Come on!"

One time my wonderful husband Bill, sometimes called Willy by my late friend, Sheila woke me after I had gone to bed. He was on the computer and saw I had received an acceptance.

"Wake up, honey. That story you wrote about me has been accepted."

In my sleepy fog, I wracked my brain for the story. I asked the title.

"Oh you know, the one you wrote about me titled, Goofy Willy."

You guessed it before he did! I had to let him down gently. "Honey, Goofy Willy was a dog I had forty years ago."