Wife #2, Small Dog #3
I won't complain about my first failed marriage as I ended up with two handsome boys. After a while I decided it was time to bite the bullet and try for Wife #2. Yes I know some of you guys may be thinking I'm a glutton for punishment, but this one was a keeper and although we have been through some rough patches having four kids between us from separate marriages at ages 6-8 until now, we have been happily married for over 21 years.
Whilst my new wife grew up with a menagerie of animals, she wasn't too keen at first to get a dog, as her son had a cat, but she eventually came around on the condition (you guessed it) we get a small dog. So we went to the local market which had a pet store and here was this tiny Foxy X Silky Terrier pup in a large cage bailing up a six month old blue healer pup four times it's size. From that moment on I knew this was my dog. Then we found the pup was a female. What tough macho name can you give a female dog I thought. Then it hit me, on TV the kids loved watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so that's what she was called.
When walking through the market carrying her home, she fit in the palm of my hand, every female that walked by would stop us to have a look and say how cute she was. I was trying to act normal in front of my new wife with all this female attention, but deep down I was thinking this is pretty good. So guys here's a tip to get plenty of attention from females, just carry around a cute little dog. But seriously this was the start of a fantastic human to dog relationship for not only myself, by also my wife and children.
Buffy was as smart as a whip, really quick, easy to train, and loved playing ball, chasey, hide and seek with me and the kids. She was so good at soccer (round ball football) that it was really difficult to get it passed her, even though the ball was twice as big as her. You would try to kick it along the ground to the kids and she would stop it half way and then roll it back to you pushing it along with her nose to give you another try. One day we were down the local sports oval kicking the football (Aussie rules oval football) back and forth with Buffy running up and down trying to catch it. On one occasion she jumped onto the ball just as I kicked it and she went further than the football. I ran up to her worried but she was up running around wagging her tail ready for more. Buffy always knew which days my wife would go walking in the morning before work and be ready waiting at our bedroom door with her shoes. On the other days she wouldn't even bother getting out of her basket when my wife got up. Buffy loved to play, but the cat was getting older and only just tolerated her, giving her a swipe whenever Buffy walked passed or tried to play. But when Buffy got older and wiser, she got her own back on the cat. When she saw the cat was outside and about to come inside, she would flick the doggy door hard with her paw then catch it with her nose when it swung back . She waited until the cat got close and let the door go, smack in the cats face and run off. It was so funny to watch.
We had many great years with Buffy, she loved to travel in the car with us where ever we went. On the last occasion we traveled up to my wife's parents hobby farm in the country for her mum's birthday, it was a really hot day so Buffy and the kids went off to the dam for a swim. When they returned Buffy was walking a little strange with her head tilted to one side. She wasn't vomiting or frothing at the mouth, so we thought it wasn't a snake bite. I asked kids if they saw anything happen, or whether she got water in her ear, but they weren't sure. We kept an eye on for a while with no further symptoms, but she wasn't getting any better, so we took her to the local vet 30 mins away. Unfortunately by the time we got there, the vet did a blood test and found snake poison had gone through her bloodstream and without knowing what type of snake it was there was no guarantee the anti-venom, which was very expensive, would work. We have 9 of the top 10 most poisonous snakes in the world and even if the anti-venom did work it was likely that she would have problems with her internal organs, therefore we had to make the worst decision of my life and do what we believed to be the best for Buffy and relieve her suffering, by putting her down (RIP Buffy).
That being said Buffy changed my way of thinking and from then on my wife and I have become the biggest lover of small dog breeds.
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