So a funny thing happened...: My baby boy is 16

Sunday, June 20, 2010

My baby boy is 16

On June 13th, 1995 I peddled my bicycle clear over to the Blue Mountain Humane Society. If you are from Walla Walla or know anything about it, I used to live over near Ice Burg and the Humane Society was clear out past the airport. It was not a quick ride. Anyway, when I got there I asked them where their dogs were. A nice lady named Mary showed me around where they had the small dogs, and then in the back area where the bigger dogs were.

I was looking for a cocker spaniel. My first dog when I was born was a cocker spaniel named Duke:

And I loved him. But he was put to sleep shortly after I turned 6.

So after I saw no cocker spaniels anywhere in the building, I asked her if they had any anywhere else. She took me back into where they keep a lot of the supplies and then down this little hallway where there was a swinging door with a porthole. "This is where we keep dogs to make sure they are healthy enough to be adopted out. We have a cocker spaniel puppy, he is in the bottom far right kennel. He just came in late last night. Someone found him wandering out on a rural road."
I looked at him and knew that he had to come live with me. I asked her how long they spent back there and she said one week. I asked her if I could adopt him and she told me that if I came back in a week with an application and he was free and clear of disease or other major problems, yes I could.

I took home a 6 or 7 page application and filled it out, and I'm pretty sure I called the day before his week was up to make sure he was healthy. They said yes.

My mom drove me over there on June 20th, 1995, and I paid $77 and change to adopt my dog. They hadn't even brought him out to the portion that you can adopt dogs from.

He didn't have a name for about a week, and then I finally settled on Buster. He had 2 other possible names... Wiggles (because his little tail wiggled ALL the time) and Happy (because he was just a super happy puppy).

They didn't know exactly how old he was when we got him, but they said that he was at least a year old. So, June 20th is his birthday to us.

Young Buster

He has done lots of cute things, lots of silly things, and occasionally he eats a chocolate birthday cake, or takes Paul's hamburger from his plate.

But my baby is 16 today.