September 11- Ginger and Buffy

 I don’t have that many pictures of my Ginger – maybe 12. No puppy ones.  She was adorable and looked a little like Benji.  The other puppy in the cage at the shelter was picking on her.  Grandma next door named her and spoiled her so much.  She liked playing with plastic soda bottles and when I took her on walks.  She definitely was my girl and my best friend.

   One time she got really sick when somehow she got the bottle of cough syrup open and drank nearly the whole bottle; poor doggie.  My dad kicked her out in the yard one day which was so mean.  Our neighbor Mrs. K saw this and yelled at him which we were glad about.

  She was such a good girl but Dad was so mean to her sometimes, probably because he was jealous of the attention that we gave her and the fact that he was kind of a miserable person.

  Mike squirted Milk Mate chocolate syrup onto Ginger once which wasn’t nice.  Jessica called her the Milk Mate dog which we did laugh about.

   I wish that I could remember more about her.  She was only 7 years old when Dad had her put to sleep.  We should’ve had her for 5 or 6 more years.  I wish that we had never taken that trip to Virginia – she might’ve gotten her sickness from the boarding place.  She might’ve just needed an antibiotic and would’ve recovered. 

  Buffy was definitely like a gift from God.  Mom and I were supposed to go to Columbus Flea Market but it was raining so we went to the pet store instead.  Mom asked if there was a girl spaniel in the cage and the salesperson said no but another one overheard us and said that there was one in the back.

   It was love at first sight. I had already picked out a name for her- Buffy Willow, after the 2 characters in the show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. My brother is actually paid for her. We had talked about getting a cocker spaniel for months before this. She quickly became a grandma’s girl. She loved playing with her pet rocks and also getting tummy rubs from us.

   I had lots of nicknames for her like Sunshine spaniel. It’s so corny that sometimes I’d sing “You Are My Sunshine” to her. Some of the others were Twinkie,   pork chop, sugar cookie, little lamb, cream puff, sweet potato, dumpling, turtle, Miss Piggy, lamb chop and Pillsbury Dough Dog. I’d call her that after rubbing her belly and making that laughing noise like the Pillsbury Dough Boy does.

   Sometimes I’d sing “My Little Buffy” to her using that song from the My Little Pony toy commercials -so cheesy. She was like our little cream colored Pony. She had a super short stub which made her even more special to us.

  We should have taken many more pictures of Buffy when she was a puppy.  She was very cute. I only have about 12 of them. One time she had something in her mouth and we thought it was a rock but when I took it out and saw that it was a big beetle I was so creeped out by this.

  She used to steal moms and my hankies sometimes and chew holes in them. We called her a hankie thief. She chewed and messed up part of the rug that Aunt Ann made for under the rocking chair.   Luckily she outgrew this stage quickly and didn’t ruin much else. She did chew the plastic nose off of my stuffed bunny too.

   Our sweet spaniel did have many health problems – arthritis, allergies, ear infections, a sprained back leg, pancreatitis, weak heart and liver and kidney troubles.  I feel so guilty about some of this. If we had taken better care of her teeth and given her the non – steroid allergy meds she wouldn’t have gotten so bad that we had to have her put to sleep at 12 years old. The vet assured us that we were good owners.

   I miss our little pumpkin muffin so darn much as does mom and Mike. Mom was spoiling her with too much food at one point and we had to put her on a diet for a while. We hardly ever took her for walks. We should have brushed her more. I can’t help beating myself for not doing much more for her.