Watching Bubba Age

Carolyn J. Rose 

In 2000, I spotted a small gray dog on the TV news segment designed to match potential owners with pets from the local Humane Society. She looked right into the camera and right into my heart. I raced down to Mike’s office yelling, “Get in the car. We’re going to get a dog.”

We’d been three months without a canine companion at that point, and he was at least half as ready as I was. In a few minutes we were in the car and within an hour I was holding Belle. Her owner had died and the family didn’t want her.

Too bad for them! They missed out on a lot of years of love and devotion, friendship and fun.

After taking care of the paperwork, Mike and I hustled her off to a pet supply store for a collar, tag, toys, food, and other paraphernalia. We hustled her to the vet for a check-up and shots. We hustled her around to show our friends. We were, looking back on it all, ridiculously besotted with her.

She was eight pounds of feisty attitude back then, and clearly not a Belle. Mike took the pink ribbon out of her hair and gave her a new name—Bubba. She grew into it, becoming a ten-pound alpha who arranged the days to meet a schedule firmly embedded in her tiny brain. Always fair, she moved from lap to lap, room to room, checking on us, herding us toward the leash hanging by the door, informing us it was time for breakfast or dinner.

She’s 15 now and often we’re the ones who herd her—waving our arms so she’ll see movement, clapping our hands so she’ll hear. She still informs us when it’s time to eat, but mostly she sleeps, curled in a special cushion in my office, snuggled on the sofa beside Mike, or wedged between the pillows on our bed.

Someday she may not wake up when I pet her head or put a dog biscuit under her nose. I hope that’s how it will happen. I hope she knows it’s time to leave and makes the decision herself. I hope she will go off in her dreams to explore whatever comes next for a devoted dog who always knew her own mind.

Canine Confidential

An Advice Column for People Who Love Their Dogs (Possibly Too Much)

Max: (gnawing on a pencil) Remind me again why I have this.

Bubba: Not as a dietary supplement. We’re starting an advice column.

Max: Cool. (Runs in a circle) I’m jiggy with that. Let’s do it. (pant, pant) Uh, what’s advice?

Bubba: It’s what Mom always gives Dad.

Max: Oh. You mean the stuff he never listens to.

Bubba: Except when she bribes him with the last ginger snap.

Max: Ginger snap crumbs. Oh, boy, Oh boy! (Wrestles with the pencil) How do you hold this, anyway?

Bubba: Use your thumb.

Max: Don’t got one.

Bubba: Oh, yeah, huh? (Takes the pencil from him). Okay, then, it’s settled. We’ll type our answers.

Max: Answers. Yeah. I can do that. Uh, what do we answer?

Bubba: Questions.

Max: You mean those words with the hooky-dotty thing at the end?

Bubba: Right. (Rips open envelope with her teeth). Here’s one: “What’s the best time to take your dog for a walk?”

Max: Ooh. Ooh. I know. I know. “Right now.” (Spins repeatedly until he falls down dizzy on another sheet of paper and reads it). This one asks: “Should you train your dog to fetch?”

Bubba: Easy. “Not without checking your state’s dog labor laws and rules governing the weight of the object to be fetched.”

Max: Wow! Governing! You’re good at this.

Bubba: (Buffing her toenails on a sofa cushion) I know.

Max: So, do we just keep on making up questions?

Bubba: No, we wait for people to write them in the comment space down below.

Max: (peering under the sofa) I don’t see anything down here.

Bubba: (sighing) Down below this blog.

Max: (Chewing his tail) I knew that.

Bubba: Right. And I just grew an opposable thumb.

Max: Okay, so what do we do while we wait for people to write something?

Bubba: I guess you could always chase a squirrel.

Max: Squirrel? (Runs full tilt into sliding glass door then collapses in a heap). Where?

Mellowing Out

Max: Mom says we need to learn a new trick. We need to learn to mellow out.

Bubba: Yeah, Dad says the same thing, but he says we’ve got to chill.

Max: I don’t know if I can learn any more tricks. I already do roll over, jump, dance and drool on dad’s pillow.

Bubba: Mellowing out isn’t a trick, it’s a state of being.

Max: Like the beings Mom puts in salad.

Bubba: Beans. Those are beans. Black beans, white beans, garbanzo beans.

Max: And carrots. She puts carrots in the salad. I like carrots. And celery.

Bubba: (Sighing) Mr. Attention Span. Okay, try to concentrate. (She flops to the floor) See, this is being mellow. Notice that I’m calm and quiet.

Max: Quiet. Sure, I get it. That’s what Mom wants us to be so she can write.

Bubba: And so we don’t have to go to the timeout place.

Max: You mean Dad’s office in the basement. He’s got a nice sofa and soft pillows and sometimes he eats snacks and drops stuff on the floor and after a while he lets us out.

Bubba: And then we run up and jump on Mom’s lap and tell her we’re sorry.

Max: But you’re really not because in a few minutes you’re sitting on the back of the loveseat and barking at anything that moves on the street.

Bubba: Oh, like you’re perfect. Every time that cat comes into our yard you yap your head off and keep going even after I stop. And don’t get me started about the day you chased the fly up and down the stairs.

Max: It was a big fly. It had a wingspan like an eagle.

Bubba: Eagle, schmeagle, it was a fly. A housefly. A baby housefly.

Max: Okay . . . well . . . so . . . but that fly had big teeth. You just didn’t see them. Besides, it’s my job to chase stuff that gets in here ‘cause I’m younger and faster and I have to protect Mom and Dad because they have opposable thumbs and credit cards and they buy the dog cookies.

Bubba: Well, I’m older and slower and it’s my job to bark at stuff on the street so it goes away and doesn’t get in here in the first place. I can’t mellow out and protect the house, too.

Max: Right, ‘cause if you were mellow you’d sound about as mean as Dad when he tells me to get off his pillow. You’d be all like, “Yo, dog on the street, don’t mean to bother you, dude, but you’re blocking my view. Would you mind shaking a leg instead of your tail?”

Bubba: I’m an intelligent female dog. I’ve never said “dude” in my life.

Max: (Sticking out his tongue) Wrong, you just did. Guess you’re not that intelligent after all.

Bubba: (Snarling) Oh, go chase a fly.

Max: (Sprawling on the bed) Later, dudette, right now I’m chilling out.