Dog Tales

Bunker right after I adopted her

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil 

or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside 

on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where 

doing nothing was not boring—it is peace.”
~ Milan Kundera

Dogs have always been a part of my life.  I tried, once, to bring a kitten home, but that didn't work out too well.  About five-or six-years old at the time, I saw the little thing roaming our new neighborhood and somehow sneaked into the house and my bedroom without getting caught. Unfortunately, my adverse reaction to the grey fuzzball—swollen eyes and face, severe breathing problems, and hives—gave me away.  Out went the kitten.

Little Lady Bird

Not long after, we ended up with a black-and-white Cocker Spaniel mix, Lady, so-named for Lady Bird Johnson.  While she was really my mother's dog, Lady was also a very big comfort to me.  There were many days that we hid in the knee well of my desk or, as I aged, between the bed and wall, trying to stay away from the noise and confusion of my father's rants.  The night he died, Lady and Snoopy (one of her puppies) lay on the bed with me, rocks that anchored a very confused me.

Lady (L) & Snoopy, her puppy

I got my very own first dog after I graduated from college and moved to Columbus, Ohio, to teach. I knew no one and was lonely, so I looked in the paper to find a dog.  Someone was giving away a Welsh Terrier. I had never heard of a Welsh Terrier, but I wanted a dog, and those people didn't want a dog.  I went to pick her up.

I like to think that my first view of that Welsh Terrier was of her whirling around and doing doggy back flips as she rushed to the door to meet me.  (Anyone who knows the breed will understand what I mean.)  In reality, what I saw was a blur of fur—a swirl of black and tan streaking toward the wooden screen door and crashing into it just as a man came into view.  By the time the man opened to door to admit me, his wife, bouncing the screaming baby on her hip, joined us.  Tail springing back and forth, the dog wiggled around me as I stood talking to her soon-to-be former owners.

Bunk on her throne

Bunker apparently wasn't too wild about staying with her former family, and she yanked me down the steps and whizzed on their meager lawn for the last time.  I opened the car’s back door, and she jumped in and immediately bounded over the seat back and onto the passenger seat.  Bunk sat on the seat next to me, and we were on our way.  I didn't give it much thought, but Bunk never seemed depressed or upset that she was in a new place.  Perhaps it was because she knew she could rule my world simply by wagging that moldy hot dog tail, but she settled in and never seemed to give her former owners another thought.

Our first family portrait

Luckily for me—or perhaps it was luckily for him—Mike bonded with Bunk. She usually bounded right onto his lap, enjoying the additional attention that Mike bemusedly bestowed on my little princess.
    “It’s a good thing Bunker likes you,” I informed Mike, “or I’d have to rethink our relationship.”
    “It’s good that she likes me?” he asked.  “What if I didn’t like her?”
    “We’d miss you,” I joked . . . I think.


Before the wedding, I decided that it would be grand to dress Bunk as a flower girl so that the photographer could take a few shots of her and me before I left for the church.  I bought a few extra feet of the peach ribbon used in my bridesmaids’ bouquets and made bows for her hair.   On the morning of the ceremony, my mother Lady, Snoopy, and Bunk in the basement so they wouldn’t be in the way.  In the chaos and excitement that ensued, I completely forgot about the photo.

When I became pregnant, hormonal changes wracked my body.  For months, I suffered from severe nausea, and the mere smell and sight of food would sicken me.  I spent a good portion of five months bent over the beige commode in our townhouse.  Bunk followed me from the bedroom to the bathroom —putting her little head on my foot and watching me while I gagged and retched—and back to the bedroom—laying her head on my shoulder while I tried to lie still and calm my queasy stomach.

Bunk meets Jason

By the time Jason was born, Bunker was seven years old.  My feeling had always been that the people who gave her to me had gotten rid of her because they had had a baby and didn't want a dog anymore.  I made sure to let Bunk know that we were not going to abandon her.  We brought Jason home from the hospital and introduced him to Bunk immediately.  I sat on the couch and called her to sit next to me.  Michael handed me the baby, and I held him so that Bunk could see and sniff him.  Her tail wagged the entire time, and she poked him with her cold, wet nose.  Then she lay down and put her head in its usual place on my lap.  Later that afternoon, we found her asleep under Jason’s crib.

After that, she spent most days sleeping under his crib and would run to alert me if he started crying.  As he grew and was able to sit up, she tried to get Jason to play with her and would bonk him in the head with stuffed animals and rubber balls.  She sat near his high chair while he ate, always willing to eat any food he rejected and pitched her way, and there was a lot.

Our Christmas photo when Jason was 11 months old

Fast forward three years to a time right after we moved to Atlanta because Mike had accepted a job at CNN.  I can't go into it even all these years later, but suffice to say that one night not long after we moved, Bunk got sick. I rushed her to the vet the next morning, and he kept her to do tests. By the time I got home—not 15 minutes later—she was gone. Gone.  I had no warning, no chance to prepare.  I didn’t get to say good-bye.

I still miss Bunker.  I like to remember her in that wedding photo that we never had taken:  Dressed in my white, silk organza gown and veil, I’m bending over and staring into the black, button eyes of my hairy flower girl, a wreath of white mums crowning her little head, peach and white ribbons flowing from her pink, rhinestone collar.