Remembering

I've been running through all sorts of memories about Buttercup, and I thought I'd list them here, in no particular order.

1) When we first went to the pet store, all the puppies were barking and wagging their tails as if to say, "pick me, pick me!" Buttercup was sleeping away, her back to us. Right away I pointed to her and said, "I want to see that one." As soon as the pet store worker handed her to me, she licked my face all over. We were in love right away.

2) When we got home, the first thing we did together was watch a Duke game.

3) For a while I had those springy shoelaces that you don't tie - Buttercup loved to pull on them and watch them spring back into place.

4) When we lived at my parents' house, she wasn't allowed to walk outside of the kitchen. She could go on furniture if we brought her there. But she often snuck to the stairs and laid on the bottom step if we were upstairs. Then when we came towards the stairs, we'd hear a frantic scurry to the kitchen.

5) To help her get from place to place without walking on the carpet, we'd line up blankets and bean bag chairs as islands she could hop to from our kitchen into our family room. She'd jump, but if she thought we weren't looking she'd run quickly from one safe point to the next.

6) If we were all in the family room without her, she'd pace back and forth on the step from the kitchen.

7) When my sister was getting married, Buttercup got into 2 of her wedding favors - each a bag of 8 Hershey Kisses. She ate all but the mesh bag - even the wrappers.

8) At my parents', she loved to curl up under the kitchen chairs and use the rung of a chair as a pillow. It looked terribly uncomfortable.

9) For a brief period she slept in a crate in the kitchen (before moving up to my bed), and when I put her to bed I'd crawl in with her and sing her a song: "Naive" by Chris Rice. I sang it to her one last time on the way to the vet yesterday.

10) She was afraid of: pots and pans, hangers, black garbage bags, men until she got used to them, garbage cans, the vacuum, other dogs, cats, bunnies.

11) She LOVED the bed. When we were moving from one city to another in Wisconsin, after we'd packed everything up in the truck and were just cleaning, she laid on the floor where her corner of the bed used to be. When we later got a new bed, she jumped on it before we could even put the bedding on it and curled up, claiming her spot.

12) She liked to sprawl out as big as she could right in the middle of the bed. Who knew such a small dog could take up a whole bed?

13) She was ever hopeful for food droppings, especially cheese. The dog was obsessed with cheese.

14) She had a remarkable grasp of the English language, and understood the following words: Mommy, Daddy, potty, out, kibbles, eat, pillow, bedtime, car ride, walk, booger, clean up, sit, stay, come, lay down, treat, cheese, wait, no, kitchen, up, moo stew (that meant kissing my face), water, gator (her favorite toy), bone, dinner's ready (I would say it to Dan about our dinner, and she'd get all excited), get it, pack, do you want, snausage, towel, Peanut, sister, suitcase, trip, C-H-E-E-S-E (she learned the spelling...yep), Walgreens, and some more I'm probably forgetting.

15) She thought she was human. She didn't like dogs, didn't really know how to act like one, and preferred to drink out of a cup or glass rather than a bowl. Sometimes I'd let her drink the last bit of my water from a tall glass, and she had to stick her nose so far in there to get it.

16) Before she got arthritis, she could jump really high. Once at my mother-in-laws, she jumped over the BACK of the couch to get on it. My brother-in-law saw this and was like, "Whoa! That dog can jump!"

17) Once I took her to work with me at my old job. I was moving that day, and had scheduled the day off, but had work that had to get done. But our stuff was stored in the garage of our new place, and we didn't have the key yet, and I'd already moved out of our old place...so I had to bring her along. We got kicked out.

18) She had a pretty short attention span (they say that's typical of poodles) and rarely focused on a toy long enough to destroy it. But I do have one teddy bear she got for her first Christmas that has an ear like Mike Tyson got to it, and an amputated leg I sewed back up after she chewed it to get the squeaker out.

19) She always knew when I was sick or sad and needed some kisses. She was always there when I needed her.

20) She loved to wear clothes. One day when it was like 80 degrees, Dan was cleaning out his car and brought in one of her sweaters. We weren't trying to put it on her (it was hot!) but she stuck her head right in there...so we put it on.

21) She had a fascination with gravity for quite a while, and would push things off the bed or couch with her nose and watch them fall.

22) Once when Dan and I were watching a movie and left the DVD case on the ground, we found her pushing it all around the room with her nose.

23) She loved walks if we could stop every foot and smell for five minutes. She was definitely a "stop and smell the pee-spots" kind of dog.

24) Even though she didn't like other dogs, she had a big crush on a German Shepherd who lived across the way from us at my first apartment. She'd sit on our balcony or at the balcony door and just stare at him, and when we would walk by his driveway she'd try to turn into it. Of course, from our balcony he looked about 3 inches tall so that probably made him less scary.

25) She really struggled with separation anxiety. I hope she knows how desperately I want to see her again someday.

26) For a while at my first apartment, she would jump off the couch and go into a corner to discretely fart.

27) There has never been seen the amount of excitement she showed when I would come home from months away at college. She missed me so much.

28) In our duplex, it was a long hallway with the kitchen at one end, the living room at the other, and rooms off the hall. She loved to play hide and seek down that hall. (I'd hide, she'd seek.)

29) She needed dramamine for long car rides, and it would knock her out.

30) She always knew exactly what she wanted and could communicate that with us very well. She had different whines/dances/paces depending on what she wanted - and she wouldn't give up until we helped her.

I'm sure I could keep going indefinitely...those were just the first 30 that came to mind. Feel free to post your memories of Buttercup, too!