In Remembrance...

Bug-Si

Bug-si came in to our life June 1st, 2003. We were all instantly in love. We all fought over him. Tim, my husband, has never really liked dogs and certainly never liked them in the house. Within 2 weeks, Bug-si was in the bed sleeping in between us every single nite. Every time Tim went outside to do whatever, Bug-si was on his heels. He was his best friend. We had to go on a 8 day vacation in Tennessee the first week in July. My brother and his family offered to watch Bug-si (which they now have two pugs because of Bug-si --- they didn't want to give him back). We called every day to check on him and missed him so much that the vacation just wasn't as fun as we thought it would be. My daughter, Jordan, wanted to come home the whole time because she missed her little pal.

Bug-si loved to travel. Everywhere we went, he wanted to go. He loved to ride in the car. I took him on several long trips and he was a doll. On August 14, 2003, it had been raining and was muddy outside. Bug-si had been in Jordan's room with her while she was watching TV. I had to go to the post office, so I went outside and Bug-si followed. I hollered for Jordan to come get him that he was in the garage with Pongo. I went towards my truck and Bug-si, who by then had rolled in the mud and grass, tried to jump up in the truck to go "bye-bye"! I shooed him away and told him no that I'd be right back. I picked him up and ran him back in the garage so I could leave. I ran to the post office (1.5 miles away) and was gone 5 minutes. When I was pulling up to turn into my side entry driveway (we have a front circle drive and a side driveway also), I saw Bug-si laying on the side of the road at the edge of the driveway. One of my neighbors evidently had hit him. No one every came forward and told us tho. I was hysterical. My kids heard me. They came running. Jordan just held his little body sobbing. I called Tim (who had left work and was golfing) and was so hysterical he couldn't even understand me. Needless to say, he was home within a 1/2 hour. My brother and sister came over immediately and tried to help. Jordan didn't want to let him go . I couldn't stop crying. My brother finally picked him up in his arms and moved him back towards the back of our property so we could wait for tim to bury him. We have 2 acres and this big tree in the back of our property. Bug-si is buried there under the tree with a big 3 foot cross my daughter made for him with his name and birthday and death date. It also says "Jesus died for Bug-si"!!! We don't know what happened other than he must have went up the side driveway to look for my truck because he was facing in the direction that I had left like he watched me go.

We all will never forget Bug-si. He was a special one-of-a-kind little dog who had a very short life of 5 months. I don't know how we could possible have loved him as much as we did in that short amount of time, but we did. IT tore us all to pieces.

We couldn't get Jordan to stop crying for days. She didn't want to eat, didn't want to do anything. I honestly didn't know what to do. So we talked to several people, including the vet, and they all said for us adults it takes longer but with kids a new puppy works wonders. So I grabbed jordan up and we went and found Smitty! It took Tim about 3 weeks before he would even look or play with smitty. He still can't really talk about Bug-si. He later admitted to me that his grief was the worst thing he'd ever felt. He'd never had a dog that he was close to like that (he never had a dog growing up and all we'd had was Pongo who was outside and Piglet, the chihuahua who hated Tim). He said Bug-si was his best friend and it really tore him up. He couldn't help Jordan in her grief because of that.

Needless to say, Smitty worked wonders on all our hearts. We keep a watchful eye on him because of what happened with
Bug-si and his little 3 day escapade where he went missing. Bug-si will forever be in our hearts!