Bosco 9

When we first met our dog Bosco she was squirming in the bottom of a white five-gallon bucket with about four other puppies just like her.

She was covered in fleas and looked like a miserable mess.

It was a snowy day and we had driven for more than an hour to find the house where Bosco was listed for sale in the local newspaper.

Listed as a pug.

For $25.

That seemed too good to be true.

And it was.

She was no pug.

But after driving into the mountains of Floyd, Virginia on a snowy day and climbing a fence and wading through three feet of snow for half a mile to the creepiest set of trailers that made you listen for the notes of a fiddle, well, we decided we would take her anyway.

Rescue her, really.

We wanted to grab all of her squirmy siblings in that bucket and then free the forty more mangy pups and dogs tied and barking under the exposed cinder blocks holding up the three shabby trailers.

But we didn’t.

We just handed the lady? wearing the Carhart jumpsuit our $25 and trekked back out the path, afraid to turn our heads back in her direction.

That was about fourteen years ago.

Yesterday when we returned home from church we discovered that Bosco had passed away.

Bosco 9.

Our medium dog.

Back in the early days of the Keigley family – sans children – Kevin and I treated our dogs as family.

Not in the dress-my-dog-in-a-matching-sweater way.

Nor the give-my-dog-a-human-name-like-Pat-and-call-myself-its-mommy way.

But in the let-the-dogs-sleep-in-our-bed way.

And the maybe-even-let-the-dogs-have-a-Christmas-stocking way.

And

in those days

we had three dogs.

Large.  Medium.  And Small.

Sadie Poe – our yellow lab.  Bosco 9 – our white “pug”.  Kipling Sunshine – our rat terrier.

Large.  Medium.  Small.

(All Keigley dog names are required to contain a reference to the Beatles.  It’s a rule.)

And

in those days

we let all three of those dogs, all three I say, sleep in our bed.

It was a mess.

Seriously.

We still treat our pets well, I think.

We consider them family still.

But they mostly always live outside.

Magnus has never set giant paw on our bed.

And that’s the way I hope to keep it.

But Bosco – sweet, patient, obedient Bosco.

She was really a perfect middle pet.

Complacent.  Gentle with many, many children.  I think the dog maybe growled twice in her life.  And those were directed at Kipling.

When she was a puppy we called her a little clown.

(And we also carried her around on a pillow as if she was some kind of royalty. But that’s sort of a ridiculous tale and you would have had to have been there to appreciate it.  And to see how stinkin’ cute she was.  You would have carried her around on a pillow too.  Seriously.  She was adorable.  All perky ears and fluffy white hair.)

Bosco – I already miss you.

Who will bark at the UPS man and who will greet our Suburban pulling in the driveway?

Who will let Piper Finn lounge across her back and brush her hair with a stick?

Sigh.

Bosco 9,

medium dog,

the pug who was never a pug,

you were a good family member.

Thank you.