Snuffling, Slobbering, Shedding

My Saturday list of things-to-do was long. I made coffee while mentally preparing for the hard work of getting my husband to help me spading through and weeding out the old garden. It would be challenging since we're expanding the garden area this year.

I sat down with my coffee and opened my email to see a notice from a friend of a friend on Facebook Marketplace:  "FOR SALE:  Handsome 6 month old bulldog. We're a missionary family of 6 traveling in a travel trailer and he just needs more space." It had been posted the day before.

I looked at the pictures and tears sprang into my eyes while my heart went thumpity-thump. "I could buy him today," I thought. I had been saving money to take Jack, our 1 1/2 year old Paint, to the vet to be gelded. "Springfield, Missouri, is what, three hours away?" I wondered. "We could drive there and back today and still be home by early afternoon."

My husband emerged from the bedroom and I didn't even say good morning. "Pancho, come here. You have to see this!" He looked at the pictures and suggested I call the owners to see if they'd already sold him.

They hadn't. So ended the Saturday To-Do list.

So here's the new baby.

He looks a lot like Buster Brown, our faithful friend of 9 years who died last year.

For two years now, an adopted Boston Terrier has lived with us.  His name was Buster, also, when we adopted him, so until Buster Brown died, we had two dogs named Buster. People used to ask me, "Do they both come running when you call them?" But no, once they figured out they had the same name, when I called, "Buster!" they thought, "She probably meant the other one." And neither of them came.

The missionary family who raised him from an infant named him "Big Boss," and affectionately called him Bosster.

Bosster. Buster. We tried to call him Boss or Bosster on our drive home from Springfield, but kept accidentally calling him Buster. Pancho said, "His dad's name is "Brightbull's Blaze of Glory," and he has that blaze of white across his back, so we should just call him Buster Blaze."

So it is.

An affectionate dog, Buster Blaze has taken to all of us very well, even Jack. Jack says, "Hey Bud, thanks for saving me from The Operation of Doom."

"Yeah, pal," says Buster Blaze. "You owe me."