My husband and I got our first puppy approximately six months after we were married. It wasn’t until years later that I learned getting a puppy at that particular point in a married life was a typical thing.
Get married, get settled, then…get puppy. “Futz” Roberts (so named by Mick after a tame wolf who used to hang out at a bar in Stillwater) was half Australian Shepherd and half Samoyed. He was the first dog of our hearts, and we loved him dearly. There are stories I could tell. Oh, there are definitely stories. But even now, I’m not ready to write them. I still miss him and he’s been gone for over ten years.
Our second dog was adopted a few months after Futzie died. I named him Bojangles because that week I happened to be in a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band mood. He was billed as “half Husky and Half shepherd” by the shelter, but he looked a little like a golden retriever. Except that he was brown. And, he had a spotted tongue like a Chow. Bojangles was a really sweet soul and he died too young. The urban legend we’ve created in our family is that Bo saved us from a poisonous snake he battled in our back yard at night that might otherwise have hurt us. It’s true that he was a great guard dog. And he would take on whatever animal happened to venture beyond the borders of our fence into his territory. And it’s true that we’ve discovered more than our share of poisonous snakes since we’ve lived here. However, we’re just not sure what really happened to our dog. One day Mick walked out into the back yard and thought Bo had been sleeping a little too long. He had. That was another sad, sad day.