Saturday morning – my trip to Little Rock ended earlier than expected when we were released from our training on Thursday afternoon.  Taking advantage of this ‘early release’ program I immediately set a course for Oklahoma, and arrived home around 7 p.m. that evening. 

Anticipating my Friday ‘off,’ I relaxed with the Pupster and her sister, (Thursday evening) watching ‘No Country for Old Men,’ a pretty good movie that we (the Pupster and I) had already seen at the theater. It was interesting for Puppy and me to watch it again, and spot some things we’d missed the first time.

The next morning I went about catching up on things and was enjoying my ‘Friday off,’ until late that afternoon I discovered that “Buster,” our original schnauzer, (the dog that our business – Bustersbabies - had been named after) … had died in the backyard. 

Buster had been sick for a couple of months; the vet had told us that he had ‘hook worms.’  When I questioned him about why Buster had them but neither of the other dogs did he’d told me that older dogs were far more susceptible to disease, especially hook worms.  He (the vet) felt like Buster could recover from this, but what was unsaid, although implied, was that he might not.  We don’t know exactly how old Buster was; at the time we got him – our vet – estimated his age at 3-4 and we had him for seven years, which would make him around 10 or 11.  Since schnauzers have a normal lifespan of 14 years, one could say Buster might have been short-changed in length, although Pupster and me can attest that he wasn’t (short-changed) in quality of life.  He had a terrific life here with us, and as Number 1 Schnauzer of “Bustersbabies,” he produced offspring that will populate this part of the world for many years to come.

We buried Buster in our backyard, and we will never forget the little white dog that came into our lives at about the same time we’d came into each other’s lives.

 He will be missed.