Tribute to A Tuxedo 

(Or “How A Random Stray Made Me A Cat Dude”) 

by John Tonetti 

Pictures by John and Jacqueline Tonetti 

We didn’t think of ourselves as “cat people”, so it was serendipitous that he found us at all. Winnie, our miniature dachshund, and ripped out a nail navigating the sliding glass door, and Jackie had taken her to the vet in Pocopson for treatment. There she found a smallish tuxedo cat in a large cage. He needed a home. 

                                                                Snazzy at Pocopson Animal Hospital, March 31, 2016.The picture Jackie sent that sold me on Snazzy. 

The story was that he was young male, probably between three and five years old, and to Jackie he seemed very friendly. One of the vet techs had come across him in Wilmington and after unsuccessfully trying to find an owner surmised that he was either lost or abandoned. It was near an apartment building, so it was likely the latter. 

I was in my office when Jackie sent me a text. “What would you think of adopting a cat who needs a home?” 

“Sure!” I replied, with no hesitation. I have no idea of what prompted me to embrace this idea. We’d had a series of dogs during our marriage, but never a cat or even a desire for one. Winnie was the culmination of this series of dogs, and she never seemed to want to have an animal friend other than the occasional brief encounter with another dog. I called Jackie and she described the situation. I was sold. 

The next morning, I asked when she planned to pick up the cat. “I don’t know about this anymore… I’m having second thoughts,” she replied. 

“You can’t change your mind” I said. “I’m invested in this now. I really think we should take him,” although all I’d seen of him was a picture of him in a cage. We hadn’t met.  Jackie relented, and when I came home that night, I met him. He was on the smallish side, and we bonded pretty quickly. Because he was very nattily attired in an almost perfectly symmetrical tuxedo style, except for a splash of white across his muzzle, we decided to name him “Snazzy”. He was a very snazzy cat. I came to have a lot of names for him: Snazz. Snazzy. Snazzlepuss… the Razzledazzlepuss… the Hardly-Any-Hassle-Puss… The King of the Castle Puss. 

                                                                Welcome home, Snazzy. April 2016 

We set aside a room for him to be in at night, complete with a rudimentary feeding station (a desk, a placemat, and a couple of bowls), and a litter box. But otherwise, he had the run of the townhouse when we were home. It was clear early on that he had decided I was “his person.” I fed him and cleaned his litter box. He loved to sit on the stairs and watch us from above and when we’d watch TV, he’d slip through the bannister and sit on the back of my wing chair until he would gradually come to rest on my legs for most of the evening. When we’d take Winnie for a walk, he’d sit in the upstairs window watching for our return then come down to greet us, always first checking to make sure Winnie returned intact. Snazzy loved Winnie. Winnie tolerated Snazzy. 

                                                                    One of his favorite locations early on was the back of a wingchair                                                                                                                                                                             In which I usually sat to watch TV. Most of the time, I was in it. 

The cat-and-dog relationship was very one-sided. Winnie tolerated Snazzy, but there was little doubt that Snazzy loved Winnie. Occasionally, Snazzy would entice Winnie to chase him, but it was always short-lived. Snazzy was much quicker and Winnie much too lazy. Nevertheless, Snazzy always watched for Winnie and seemed very concerned when Winnie was not around. 

Snazzy didn’t meow. Instead, he made this weird sound that sort of came from the back of his throat. “Eh, eh, eh.” I once blithely said “Maybe no one taught him” and it became sort of a family joke. He also didn’t purr much, and when he did, it was barely audible. You could feel it when petting him though. I know that cats don’t typically “meow” to other cats, but I’ve also been told that sometimes they make that strange sort of sound because their vocal cords were damaged; usually by someone kicking them in the throat. I have no idea of Snazzy’s story on his “eh, eh, eh”, but it was always a special treat when would cuddle and purr. 

Snazzy almost always greeted visitors. He would come galloping from wherever he was in the house to check things out and was usually the first to greet us if we’d been out. And he was always the only creature in my house that would respond when I called their names. 

But Snazzy was far from a perfect cat. For one thing, he seemed to get aggravated if he was petted for too long. Rather than just leave my lap he would first show his displeasure by giving me a quick bite. Ow! I eventually learned to sort of read him and would usually stop petting him before I got a bite. At that point, I would just let him use my hand to sort of pet himself, but that was the extent of my participation. Jackie was less cautious and was quite often a victim of Snazzy’s wrath. One time, she accidentally stepped on his tail and he gave her calf a nasty bite. But it was Jackie who discovered Snazzy’s greatest pleasure: he loved to be brushed. It became a bit of a nightly ritual when Jackie returned from walking Winnie. Snazzy would plunk himself down in Winnie’s bed by the back door and stutter his “Eh, eh, eh”, begging her to brush him. Jackie would almost always relent. 

                                                                    Winnie’s beds always made a comfortable place to hang out. Plus, they s                                                                                                                            melled like Winnie, who Snazzy worshipped! 

We learned early, too, that Snazzy was also “a runner”. I have nothing against outdoor cats, but a cat’s life expectancy is a lot longer if they are kept inside, so Snazzy was kept as an “indoor cat”. But if a door was left open long enough, Snazzy would make a bolt for “freedom”. We sometimes had to entice him out from under the porch or bring out his favorite toy; a “mouse” on a string to corral him. One time he made a run for it, and Jackie caught him by the tail just as he was going over the back fence. They were in a stand-off… Jackie was restraining Snazz by the tail… Snazz holding on to the fence trying to make a break for it… until I came and rescued both of them. 

Snazzy’s greatest fault was that he was a “pisser”. Yeah… he’d mark (or try to) anything that caught his fancy. We discovered it early, and it was only my pleading that saved Snazzy from being returned to the vet. I pledged to break him of this unpleasant habit, and I tried everything… deep cleaning and deodorizing where he’d sprayed to remove his “mark”; cat pheromones so he’d feel secure; CBD so he’d feel mellow; different litters in case he found their odor off-putting… we even had him on Prozac for a while, which did nothing but make him dozy. He particularly liked to spray Jackie’s bathroom. Eventually we learned to live with it, and it diminished, although he was never cured. It was just part of Snazzy that we learned to live with because we loved him, but it was always a discovery entailing both anger and disappointment. Jackie added a new name for him. She called him “the Pain-In-The-Assle Puss”. 

Within 5 months of Snazzy joining us we moved to our small house in Silver Spring. I’m told that uprooting cats is very stressful for them, and we made sure to give him plenty of attention. But in changing homes, we lost all of Snazzy’s spaces. There were no stairs for him to watch from, and we’d given away the wing chair that he loved to sit on. Snazzy decided that Winnie’s beds were good spots, and moved in. It didn’t seem to matter to Winnie, and she tolerated this invasion of her space, although at times she would look at us with an exasperated look as if to say, “What is going on here?” Eventually, Snazzy found his own places: the large front picture window over the kitchen table (yes, he would sometimes sit there through meals); any windowsill he could access; and the back of the living room couch. For Christmas 2016, Jackie and my daughter bought “me” a cat tree with a perch from which Snazzy could watch the world outside. We augmented it with a heating pad, and it became one of his favorite spots as well as later, where he was fed. 

                                                                        Snazzy enjoying his heated perch. He spent many hours                                                                                                                                                               on this, looking out the window or just watching us. 

Snazzy was ever vigilant on what was going on around our house. In Spring 2017, Snazzy alerted us that a female feral cat and two of her kittens had taken up residence beneath a shed we’d erected when we moved there. As it turned out, we had a lot of feral cats in our area, and I started trapping them. The kittens we put up for adoption, but the more mature cats are usually too feral for homing. I connected with some local cat rescue people and learned about “TNR”, a program through which feral cats are trapped, neutered, and returned to their places of origin. The neutering controls the population, and the former “ferals” become “community cats”; generally looked after by people in the neighborhood. We took to caring for three of them on a daily basis. The original feral mom was a beautiful tortoise shell we called “Meryl (the Feral), and two males we believe were her kittens: an orange tabby we dubbed “Gingerpuss” and a white and orange tabby we called “Ringo” because of the rings on his tail. 

It turned out we had a lot of cat life in our area, and over the course of time I TNR’d another five mature cats and had 13 kittens that were adopted out through the Humane Society. Meryl and her offspring were regulars around our house, getting fed twice a day and lounging outdoors. We had a shelter and feeding station made for our outdoor cats. Snazzy made friends with them and would come and greet them at feeding time through the glass door. All the windowsills in the house became “Snazzy places”. He would sit in almost every one of them so he could observe our “outdoor cats” and the rest of the world. Eventually, Snazzy’s desire to be part of the outside world, and our desire not to let that happen, prompted us to build a “catio” off the back of the house. It was a small, screened-in structure in which Snazzy could sit “outside”, accessing it through a window at the back of the house. He would spend hours there, sleeping and observing his domain. 

                                                                 In the catio with Sabrina, Snazzy on the right. Another favourite cat place.                                                                                                                                 Sometimes, it was very hard to get them to come in, requiring human entry 

                                                                into the catio. The cats would get in by jumping up on an inside table at 

                                                                windowsill height, and then entering through a window. It was very hard to 

                                                                keep the catio closed for long. 

In the Fall of 2018, tragedy struck Snazzy. One Saturday morning, he was unable to stand or walk and seemed to be having convulsions. Jackie rushed him to the vet. Among other things, the vet did an X-ray that revealed that Snazz was not at all “a young male”, but rather a very senior citizen. She estimated that he was at least 15 years old and advised us that we should get Snazzy’s affairs in order as he probably had a stroke and would likely not live much longer. I was devastated. By this time, I thought that Snazzy was probably 7 or 8 at the outside, so I thought he would be around for a long time. Now, the vet was telling me that he probably wouldn’t last more than a few months, if that. She gave me some gabapentin and some antibiotics to help with seizures and help him to be comfortable. 

I had a hard time accepting this. Desperately, I called my cousin Tim, who was a retired veterinarian. I was sure that our vet was wrong. After describing Snazzy’s symptoms to him, he told me that it was pretty tough to tell a cat’s age but described how their spines change with age and that it was likely that Snazzy was an old cat. But then he also suggested that we could try being more aggressive with the gabapentin and forgo the antibiotics, thinking a reaction to those might have caused the seizures. As he said, we had nothing to lose… Snazzy seemingly had one foot in the grave already. 

I decided to go with the treatment that offered some hope; namely that prescribed by my cousin. For a while, the outlook was very bleak. One day, we could not find Snazzy as we searched through the entire house. Finally, we found him holed up on a bag in my closet, far removed from his usual spots, alone and away from everything. Every cat person I knew told me that was not a good sign… that’s what cats do when they’re about to die. But Snazzy and I persisted. He took his pills, and eventually began to show signs of recovery. Within a few weeks, Snazzy had mostly recovered and we’d dropped the dosage down to nothing. Snazzy was pretty much back to his old self. He’d run through the house with a slightly sideways lope, and every once in a while, he’d have a tremor in his left front paw, but other than that, he was back… biting on occasion, spraying on occasion but way too often, nuzzling an aloof and reluctant Winnie, and monitoring the neighborhood from his various vantage points. 

In August 2019, one of my neighbors came to the door. I had become the neighborhood “cat dude” and he’d found a small female stray in the parking lot at a nearby 7-11. He wanted me to do something with it. I was a bit miffed; he could have just as easily taken it for TNR as I could. But I wanted to be sure she was well-treated so I agreed to hold her until the local cat rescue folks could take care of her. We put her in the shed with a bed and some food and water and checked on her often. But she was a very engaging critter; skinny, sort of scraggly looking, but very friendly and she purred like a motor when she was stroked. The cat rescue people had her checked out, spayed, and got her shots, but they had no room to keep her. They asked if we could foster her until they found a home for her. 

                                                                                Snazzy and a very young Sabrina watching Gingerpuss,                                                                                                                                                           one of outdoor cats, through the kitchen door. 

Now, I was born at night, but not last night. I knew fostering was a scam for most people. You get this animal, you fall in love with it, and before you know it, it’s not a foster anymore… it’s your animal. And so it was that Sabrina entered Snazzy’s life. She was a tuxedo as well, and it was sometimes difficult to tell the two cats apart. We introduced them and we could tell Snazzy was not pleased. Sabrina followed him around, would try to entice him to play, take his spots… sort of the same thing that Snazzy did with Winnie. Sabrina loved Snazzy, and where Snazzy went so did Sabrina. She grew to be much bigger than Snazz but was almost always deferential to him. For the most part, they became fast friends. Where Snazzy would go, Sabrina would soon follow. They would share the perch, the catio… everything. They would race through the house; Snazzy chasing Sabrina in one direction, and then both cats reversing course with Sabrina chasing Snazzy. 

                                                                                Sabrina (left) and Snazzy in the catio together. 

March 11, 2020 marked the “Dad’s here all the time” phase of our household. The pandemic struck, and I was fortunate enough to be able to work from the house. I think at first, the animals, particularly the cats, found this to be inconvenient. I made noise interrupting their sleep, and would walk around to stretch, stopping to annoy them by petting them or looking to see what they were doing. Soon though, they began to take advantage of me. Winnie would want to go out more often, and the cats were constantly wanting to go into the catio, out of the catio, then run though the house to observe their TNR friends outside. Almost every day, sometime between 2 and 3pm, Snazz would come to where I was working and jump, climb, or give me an “eh, eh, eh…” wanting to be lifted onto my lap for a cuddle and some stroking. He would listen to my conference calls, and eventually they would bore him enough that he would jump off and go amuse himself. It became something that I looked forward to, and often marked the wind down of the day. 

                                                                                                      Snazzy trying to hack into our Chewy account.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    He could never get the password right 

                                                                                                                because he insisted on using the caps lock, but 

                                                                                                                on multiple occasions he was successful at getting iTunes 

                                                                                                                to play, usually in the middle of the night. 

That was our household. We had a young cat who loved an old cat much more than the old cat loved the young cat, and an old cat who loved the dog much more than the dog loved the old cat. But all of them got along, and all of them looked out for each other. The pandemic meant a reduction in travel and going out, so the animals were rarely left on their own for very long or very often. The couple of times Jackie and I did go away, as COVID fears diminished and we started to resume a bit of normalcy, we took Winnie with us and left the cats in the care of our pet sitter, Liz. I continued to work from home, and we had a daily routine. I’d get up, feed the indoor cats, feed the outdoor cats, the indoor cats would come greet the outdoor cats, then I’d feed Winnie. The day would go by, Snazzy would make his afternoon visit, then I’d feed again in reverse order in the evening. We’d evolved to where we’d feed Snazzy on top of his perch to keep his food away from Sabrina, and other than some minor thyroid issues, he was fine. He had a checkup at the beginning of November 2021, and we adjusted his medication down. Occasionally, we’d Snazzy just sitting and staring, as though contemplating what to do next, but otherwise, Snazzy seemed to be in good health. Jackie and I had no qualms about leaving all the animals in Liz’s care for a Thanksgiving reunion with her family near Myrtle Beach, NC. 

                                                                        Another of Snazzy’s favorite spots, the “donut” and favorite 

                                                                         positions. He’d peek up over it around bedtime to check out 

                                                                         where everyone was going before joining us. 

We left on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and for the first two days all was well. But on Saturday morning, Jackie received an early text from Liz. Snazzy was under the chair in my office when she went to feed him and seemingly not doing well. He drank a bit of water but didn’t eat. He was now in his heated “donut” bed, resting, with Sabrina “tending” to him. I wasn’t terribly concerned, as there had always been times since his 2017 incident that Snazzy had been slow to start the day, but he’d rally later. Liz was going out for a bit, and she’d let us know how Snazzy was when she returned and take him to the vet if we thought it necessary. In Myrtle Beach, I climbed on my bike to go for a short ride. I was almost finished with my ride when I suddenly thought “I hope Snazzy’s okay”. Of course, I always had that in the back of my mind when he was “slow to start” but I thought it weird that it would suddenly jump into my head. I cut the ride short and went back to the place we were staying. 

I was hardly in the door when Jackie grabbed me. “Liz wants us both to call her.” Now, I was quite concerned. 

“When I came back, Snazzy had gone to sleep” Liz said. It didn’t register.

 

“What?” I thought. She wanted us to call her because Snazzy was sleeping? Then I looked at Jackie and it hit me. Snazzy was gone. He had died peacefully in his “donut”, one of his favorite places, warm and safe. For an old stray like the Snazzlepuss, I supposed it could have been a lot worse. We asked Liz to cover him in his bed with his blanket from his perch, and I would take care of him when got home on Sunday. 

The rest of the weekend was horrible for me. I really just wanted to go see my cat... my friend. The drive home was slow and painful. When we arrived, I went straight to his catio where Liz had put him in his bed, lifted the blanket, and sobbed. “Stupid cat”, I thought… “I’m a basket case over a stupid cat.” But he was more than a cat to me. He was my friend… my companion. And there was no question… I was his person. 

I had a hard time sleeping Sunday night, knowing that Monday would be the worst part. I got up, and the first thing I saw was Snazzy’s picture on our digital frame. I got Sabrina’s food dish, filled it, and took it to the “cat’s room”, tapping the perch like I always did to tell Snazz his food was there. When I took food to the outdoor cats, I looked at the perch to see if Snazzy was eating, like I always did. My routine had always included constantly checking on Snazzy but now it was wasted motion. I felt totally empty. 

When I called the vet to ask them how to bring Snazz, I could hardly talk. I wept on the drive to the vet and bawled when I lifted Snazzy for the last time and put him in the tech’s blanket. “Goodbye, my friend. Thank you.” 

                                                                                    One of our favorite pictures, taken shortly after Snazzy came to live with us. 

It’s been a few days since Snazzy died, and I still tear up thinking of him. I figure that he was with us for maybe a third of his life, and people tell me he was lucky to have had us. I’m more inclined to feel we were lucky to have had him. He was a special cat, at least to us. I miss him not coming into my office… “Eh, eh, eh” … “Lift me up”. Sabrina looks for him. Any noise and she runs to see if he’s there. But unhappily, he’s only here in spirit, and in our hearts. 

Some people believe that animals have a sixth sense. They need this to be more perceptive because unlike humans, who try to control their environment, animals need to adapt to their environments. They need to be more perceptive to adapt to it; to determine who is a friend and who is a foe; who is weak, and who is strong. Perhaps Snazzy knew he would be leaving soon. I’m sure it was just a coincidence that he jumped into a rainbow bag a few days before he crossed the rainbow bridge. But a night or two before we left, Snazzy climbed in my lap and sat and let me stroke him for a very long time. There was nothing unusual about a nightly cuddle, but this one went on for much longer than usual and Snazzy seemed calmer, content, and in retrospect, at peace. Perhaps Snazzy knew that he and I would not have much more time together. I wish he’d have let me know. 

                                                                                            Our last picture of Snazz. He jumped into

                                                                                            a rainbow bag a few days before he 

                                                                                            crossed the rainbow bridge. Who knew? 

When I took Snazzy to the vet a month ago, he weighed a bit more than 9 lbs. Not a big cat by any means. But without him, our house has been very empty and my heart very much missing a big piece. We may not have been “cat people” when he joined us, but his personality and presence most definitely turned us into “cat people”. I miss him greatly. 

I will get another cat. Sabrina needs one, and I guess I do too. I don’t think it will be long until another cat finds me. Because that’s what they do… they find their people. And I will be forever grateful that Snazzy found me. He will always own a piece of my heart. 

                                                                                   Sitting in the picture window in our kitchen as he often did, looking for his 

                                                                                    friends and his people. 

Pain Is So Close To Pleasure - My First Bicycle Race In A Very Long Time

Since seeing the movie “Bohemian Rhapsody”, I’ve been revisiting my youth (yes, I’m THAT old) and my collection of Queen albums… er, CDs… er, yes… I’m totally e-music. Ironically, the song “Pain Is So Close To Pleasure” came on I was driving to the Black Hills race today. That, my friends, describes bike racing perfectly.

I will admit I was nervous. I think my last sanctioned race might have been before my wife and I were married, and that was almost 30 years ago! Lots of water under the bridge, and I knew I was not in the shape I’d like to have been in. But, one of my teammates talked me into it, and I figured it was time. 

Earlier in the week, I’d listened to a podcast that helped me a lot. One piece of advice was “If you make your goal to win every race, you’ll likely be very frustrated. Yes, you can and should set “outcome” goals, but you should also set “process” goals.” Assuming you’re not Super Dave and winning most, if not every race, (Super Dave is a fabulous racer and gentleman, who has won more than 500 races) “process goals” are what you want to gain from doing the race, or really, anything in your life. “Outcome goals” would be “podium”, “top 10”, etc.

So, I set three goals. 

1. "Have fun." I’m not going anywhere. Not going to the Olympics or Tour de France. Riding hard hurts, but it makes me feel alive. If I’m not having fun, I may as well sit on the couch, drink beer, and watch the NCAA tournament (not that there's anything wrong with that!) 
2. "Get into the process.” Like I said, it’s been a long time since I raced. I used to KNOW when to get there, how to register, when to warm up, etc. It’s all new again. Yeah… I sort of know the ropes, but not really. I did manage to get my bib number glued right (although I forgot to let it dry long enough), and I think I warmed up appropriately. That was not my problem. 
3. “Ride the entire race.” Definitely a stretch goal. I did the Category 4/5 race… I may have done better with doing the Category 5 race. I’ll never know. I thought I got pulled from the race with one lap to go; but I now think it might have been two. Having said that, I did one lap more than I thought the race would go (bad estimate). 

I achieved 2 out of 3, and probably broke even on the third. I call that a “win”.

One thing I was happy about was the race went pretty much as I thought it would. I figured the first lap would be pretty neutral, and it was. I thought that the hill on the circuit before the “finish” hill would be the right place to attack, and that’s EXACTLY where I got dropped. I got boxed in and behind a bad wheel, then gapped, and that was all she wrote. I should have known better. But the reality is I might have lasted another lap or two… I don’t have the horse power to hang with that group over a hilly course. C’est la vie. Getting old is a bitch, but looking at the grass from the green side is better than the alternative, as far as I know. 

I had fun, I managed to get to the start on time and in condition to race, and I got pulled after doing one more lap than I thought I’d have to. So...

Three things that I was very happy about, in reverse order:

1. I had fun. I didn’t embarrass myself, do anything stupid, and remembered a lot of things I’d forgotten (like stay to the outside on downhills so you can go around people who want to put their brakes on! What a total waste of energy!)
2. I had a blast watching the 4/5 ladies race and cheering for them while I warming up! Very strong, ladies!!! You guys… uh, girls… rock!!
3. This was the best thing… Going up that friggin’ hill and having my teammates cheer and encourage me! You have NO idea of how many times I thought “I am so out of this race. I may as well go back to the car”, but heard people yelling my name, and thought “Okay. I can do another lap.” I would have kept going until I fell over with that encouragement! You people totally rock! Thanks!!

That was my race. Thanks to all who cheered for me, and thanks to all who came out. 

Now for my next goal… to up my power by 50 watts, and lose 10 kg. (Not. Gonna. Happen. I’ll find a process goal. 😄)

Requiem for A Bad Dog

He was never what you’d call an “easy dog”, and only from time to time a “good” dog. Oh, there were times he could be sweet, but for the most part, Buster was an “Orange Alert” dog, occasionally going to red, but never, ever going to yellow.

I’m not sure what happened with Buster. He was the third in a series of four Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers I’ve owned, and he was always a bit... unusual. In his day, he weighed in at around 48 pounds, easily twenty percent larger than “acceptable”, but not fat. One of his vets (he went through many) described him as “the Shaquille O’Neal of Wheaten Terriers”. He was quick as lightning when he wanted to be. Which was usually when I didn’t want him to be.

My first two Wheatens, Dubie and Finney, were daughter-father, acquired in that order, Dubie as a puppy, Finney as an adult. Dubie was a good dog; Finney was one of those rare dogs that you are lucky to have once in your life. When both of them were gone, and we were thinking of getting a dog for our kids, we never thought of anything except a Wheaten. We were reluctant to go through “the puppy thing” of training and housebreaking, so when the breeder from whom I got my earlier dogs told me she knew of a one-year old male who needed a home, I was all over it.

Perhaps I should have asked more questions. The owner had four young children and told me she thought Buster just wasn’t getting enough attention. I eagerly arranged to fly from Vegas to Phoenix, rent a car, pick up Buster, and drive back, my new dog proudly in tow.

From the beginning, he wasn’t quite right. At first he was skittish around Jackie and me, and wanted little to do with the kids. We chalked it up to unfamiliar surroundings, and gradually he warmed up... sort of. He’d growl at the kids from time to time... a warning shot across the bow, which told them to back off. “He’ll get used to them, and they to him”, and they all did... sort of.

The first weekend we had him, we took him to my son’s soccer game, proud to have this cute, cuddly pup. Bad idea. He snapped at several kids, and took an extreme disliking to Michael’s assistant coach. That was the last soccer game Buster ever attended. As bad as that was, things went downhill from there. We quickly learned that Buster didn’t suffer strangers gladly, nor bicycles, nor small children. While my daughter was feeding him once, he gave her the type of snarl that strikes fear into little girls, and causes fathers to administer pup punishment with extreme prejudice. I was convinced we had made a serious error in taking him in. Jackie, the animal advocate, thought otherwise. She was convinced that with some training, he could be a socialized, functional family member. Despite my reservations, we went ahead and enlisted a professional.

“He’s an incredibly smart dog”, Dave the dog trainer told us. “Look at how he follows airplanes across the sky, and how he observes everything around him!” And he was eminently trainable. He wanted to be a good dog. He really did. But when he snapped at Dave towards the end of a series of sessions, Dave gave us bad news. “This dog is a serious risk. He’s unstable, perhaps a little psycho, and you’re running the risk that he will hurt someone badly. If he were my dog, and I don’t say this lightly, I’d consider putting him down.”

This was, to say the least, devastating news. “He’s not that bad!” But he was. Despite our best efforts, and our guard. We’d lock him away when company came. We’d never let him off the leash. We took him... nowhere. He loved to go with Jackie to the barn. He’d sit quietly, by himself, and watch her trot around the ring contentedly. But Buster took off after many people, and bit a few. Fortunately, they were very forgiving. He was a loaded gun, waiting to go off.

There was no doubt he was Jackie’s dog, and she was Buster’s queen. He followed her around the house, and although he’d greet me or the kids excitedly when we entered the house, if Jackie came in with us, we were invisible. He’d sit at her feet through thick and thin, and god forbid he thought you were a threat to her. He’d bark and threaten all types of malice even when the kids hugged her, though he never made good on those threats.

Buster could be a delight at times, but like a big adolescent, he always took it too far. He had a set of wheels and at times was good with other dogs, which was fun and a joy to watch. We had to always watch for passers-by though, as he’d take off after them as though shot from a cannon, looking maniacally threatening. That made him impossible to take out for the play he desperately needed. He loved swimming in the pool... I’ve never seen a terrier that loved the water like that. But out of the pool, he’d run around like a dervish, snapping at anyone who got near the sides. He’d jump on the bed and lick the kids to death, but he could never settle down. He was just too excited on the bed, or in the car, where he was impossible to calm, bouncing around for the entire trip. That cost him trips to the barn. It was hazardous to drive with Buster in the car.

When he was 8 or 9, Buster tore his ACL. We were never really sure how, but that slowed him down. You wouldn’t notice except for the occasional limp or when he stood; often on only three legs. He couldn’t take off quite so much, although he could still attack the front door when he heard the doorbell or when we had company. The last house was hard on him... no yard to speak of. But when the weather was cool or inclement, he loved to sit on the back porch and watch the world go by. Going up the stairs was out of the question, which was a relief, as he’d attack the tiles, slipping and crashing all the way to the top. The new dog would enlist him in play, and he’d sometimes go like a puppy until he got tired and wandered off to lie in front of the couch.

After thirteen years, and like all the Wheatens I’ve had, Buster seemed to go from dog to invalid rapidly. For months we cordoned off parts of the house, since he would become disoriented and relieve himself without warning. His hearing went, so the doorbell was no longer a threat, and he developed a cataract in his left eye, making him turn to see us. More and more, I had to nudge him to wake him up, and lift him so he could gather his footing. We were constantly cleaning up after him, as his control over his functions was failing. More and more, we had to question whether he had a life at all.

Finally, the day came when we faced that Buster was only Buster in brief spurts. Jackie and I sat in the “Quiet Room” at the vet’s office, convinced it was the right time, but wondering whether it really was. How do you know? The final drive was like the first one... just as he hyperventilated for five hours from Phoenix to Las Vegas, so he did for the 15 minutes it took to get to the vet’s office. We patted and stroked him, knowing it was right, and wishing it were otherwise.

Our vet knew Buster. He was a “caution” dog. In fact, she was the only one of the many who saw him who put up with his bad behavior. We wept... slightly at first; eventually unashamedly. And Buster, being Buster until the end, did not go gently. He looked at us with those great brown eyes, promising he’d be good, that he could go on, it would be okay... but it was time, and he was gone.

We hugged him, and hugged each other. Why do we fall in love with dogs knowing that at some point, we will betray them?

Was Buster a bad dog? No. He was not always the dog we wanted or thought he would be, but he was always loyal, and parting with him is hard. He was not always a “good” dog, but he will always be a missed dog.