DOT Spotlight Rerun

More than two years ago Trinket and Bucky were featured on Dogs on Thursday, and I just realized that I never ran that post here on our own blog. Shame on me. So here it is in full. Remember this was written in January 2008.

Trinket

Trinket is my first dog, the first new member of our little family. Trinket is Chihuahua and Fox Terrier mix; he’ll turn thirteen on January 30th.

Couple of years into our marriage, my husband and I still felt like newly weds, but looking at each other across the dinner table every night was getting a bit dull. We needed something to jazz up our lives.

A local rescue group, CARE, was holding an adoption fair on a Wednesday evening, April 6, 1995. It was love at first sight. The foster mom was showing Trinket to other people, and I followed her around like a puppy. When she got good and tired of that she handed me Trinket, “do you want to hold him?” I held Trinket and Bill signed the contract.

At first we were pretty determined to bring up a presentable good citizen; we changed our minds within twenty four hours. Although we tried very hard to be good doggie parents, our little puppy denied the fact that he was a dog, he insisted on eating with us (our food) and sleeping with us (on my pillow). When we left him home alone in a playpen, he chewed up the lanolin floor.

Trinket used to run circles around the kitchen every night, or leap a few feet into the air and land on a big deck in the back yard. He had so much energy and only had these two big humans to play with. We told him he deserved someone to bug the hell out of him.

Oh did he get what he deserves! In twelve years he endured two rescues, a pug brother, and worse of all, a little human brother. Being the smallest in size, Trinket insists on being the pact leader. Sometimes teeth are shown to enforce the leadership.

Bucky

Bucky is a black pug. He turned twelve on November 5, 2007.

The following “How We Met” story has never been told before. You see, pug people are very protective of their beloved little apple heads and big ears, and we were fearful that someone might consider us traitors of the breed and retaliate.

We met Bucky in the flea market. It was January 6, 1996, first Saturday of the month and we were happily strolling along in De Anza Flea Market, as we did almost every month. 

Someone had two little puppies in a playpen, the boy, the little black one, was still available. The little guy had been lying on the cold hard parking lot for the entire day; all he had was some blue tarp for comfort. Yet he was playful nonetheless, tugging on the tarp, and when someone picked him up, he licked and chewed on girls’ hair. I looked in those big googly eyes and couldn’t put him down.

They were asking for $325, as is. Since it was the end of the day they lowered it to $300, and we took him home, with a flea.

We soon found out his energy level was simply out of this world. He ran around so much in the first two years, we could hardly take a decent picture of him. He was our perfect answer to Trinket’s puppy hood, ha-ha. They are about ten months apart, so Bucky has almost never spent more than a few hours alone in his life. He looks to the big brother for the next action. If Trinket thinks he hears a car is in the driveway, he starts to bark, and Bucky follows, and Bucky doesn’t know why Trinket is barking, and he doesn’t care.

Our four-legged children helped us proof to ourselves that we are indeed capable of keeping small creatures alive; in return, they got the human brother, Henry.