Buttons wandered across our street when I was just two years old and he was two months old. He was with his dad, and my mom knew who owned them, so she got my brother and they took them home. But my brother blurted out "can we keep this one?" and he was holding the little puppy. The owner (now my mom's best friend) said sure, and so we took him home.
Buttons was a very cool little booger.
Buttons playing my piano.
We did everything together. He was my baby when we played house. I would put him in a stroller and run down the street and yell "Dun na na na BATMAN!!" and his ears would fly back like Dumbo.
Buttons and me sleeping sometime in 1993.
Buttons and me on our deck sometime in 1995-1996.
I was the only one he would let trim his nails. We used to get out the nail trimmers and just toy around with him. His lips would go up and he would bite at anyone (except me) who tried to touch his feet. We could do this with regular sissors to. Even when he went blind he knew when they touched his feet what they were and his lips would curl up.
Everyone at the vet he went to (and now where I work) loved him. They had their own nicknames for him. When we came to pick him up it would take forever, because everyone had to say goodbye. He was just the sweetest little thing. He was a kissy monster, and even though he had terrible breath, everyone there loved getting kisses.
In 1998 Buttons got depressed real fast after we lost Retread on March 28. My mom found Retread with Buttons curled up next to him one morning. Retread died peacefully in his sleep. Buttons and Retread were best friends, so loosing him was hard for Buttons. My family and I were having trouble coping (and I had a lot of regrets) after Retread passed and we did not want another dog. But, after a couple weeks we knew that Buttons was depressed and we may lose him, so we went to the shelter and brought home Mandy.
Buttons and Retread together sometime in 1991-1992.
In 2002 he developed cushings disease and diabetes and we had to start giving him insulin twice a day. In March 2003 my mom and I left town to go to a Tim McGraw concert and when we came back (only a few days) he was bumping into walls. A few days later he was completely blind. He did fine though, he eventually figured out just how many stairs we had outside and inside. It was only when we would move a piece of furniture that he would get confused.
Me and Buttons, March 3, 2003, literally weeks before he went blind.
Stick 'em up!
In July 2004 I started working at the vet where he was a patient. I was told I was hired partly because everyone wanted to see Buttons more. So, I started bringing him in often to visit. One night in November he started seizing and I was freaking out thinking he was dying (I had never witnessed this before). We called Dr. D and she told us to give him a small bit of Karo Syrup and rush him to the emergency vet (she lived too far away to meet us up at the clinic). $400 later and after only taking a blood sample and feeding him every few hours he was fine. The next morning he went to the regular vet and was given fluids for most of the day. He came home with us that night good as new.
In February 2005 his health started failing. He wasn't eating, drinking, playing ... nothing. He just totally stopped living. When he went to the bathroom his poop was purple and jelly-like and my boss told me that was a sign of his organs shutting down. After another day of this (and lots of fluids and TLC) we decided that he would die soon, and it was cruel to keep him around. On February 10 at around 4:00 pm we called the vet and drove up to have him put to sleep. I can remember that day like clockwork. I was sick myself, but now I couldn't see myself getting any better, ever. That was the saddest day of my life.
One of the very last photos of my sweet man, his 14th birthday was to be in April 2005.
For the months after he died before we got Nova I was so lost. I smelled his collar every day, it still smelled like him. When we got Nova in May she helped me heal so much. (Yes, Mandy was there, and she helped me, but I don't think anything heals for me like a new pet). My pain wasn't erased, I still smelled his collar all the time, but I was happy now.
I'll never forget him. He was so special to me. He was my childhood friend ... and I'll never have another one of those.
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