the life of Bubba

I live in a house dominated by dogs. And when I say dominated by dogs I might as well say overran with dogs, 15 of them, 12 are house dogs. And if that isn’t bad enough, most of them are canine senior citizens so I live in a doggie rest home, a geriatric care center for dogs. It wasn’t a business plan; it’s just the result of a soft spot for dogs, and the passage of time.


This week I had to have one of the dogs we loved put down. (That was the 16th dog.) Bubba wasn’t the oldest of our dogs and certainly not the one I thought we would have to use one of our holes on. Before winter we had dug two holes and saved the soil in the barn. We had two 15 year old frail dogs going into winter and I do hate to have them cremated. But they made it through winter and just as I was thinking about filling in the holes, Bubba got sick.

Bubba was a 10 year old black cocker spaniel. He lived in a kennel connected to our barn with Sarah, a Jack Russell and next to Gus and Brandy, also Jack Russell. These are the only dogs that don’t share our home inside. Bubba was always a happy go lucky dog who loved to eat, so we noticed when he didn’t want a meal one evening. Snacks didn’t tempt him either. He had eaten well in the morning so it didn’t seem too significant. But two days went by and Bubba refused to eat anything. Attempts to try to make him take something in his mouth made him disappear into his outside run.

By Sunday he seemed very lethargic, and while he drank water no food tempted him. I checked him out thoroughly, feeling his stomach to see if he felt bloated or would act like it hurt him, I suspected a blockage. But he didn’t seem to have a tender or bloated belly and didn’t react to me feeling his belly. He just seemed very tired. He was favoring a foot that seemed swollen.

On Monday first thing we visited the vet. Bubba perked up a bit for one of his favorite things, a car ride. Blood tests showed that Bubba was very sick. His red blood cell count was so low the machine couldn’t read it. His liver seemed to be failing. The foot seemed to be an incidental thing, maybe precipitating a crisis that was slowly sneaking up on us. The vet guessed it was auto immune hemolytic anemia, something that happens to older dogs with no apparent reason. We discussed the very expensive options for treatment.

In the end, partially because of finances and partly because the vet gave him a very poor prognosis even with treatment, I held him in my arms as she put him down. Poor Bubba had one more car ride home where my husband laid him into one of our holes in the garden. It is a shame that my finances limit heroic efforts to save my beloved dogs, but it doesn’t mean I don’t care. And maybe it’s better for them anyway; there is a time for all things.

Every dog has a story. Bubba’s wasn’t as remarkable as some dogs but still he had a story. So this is Bubba’s story. Bubba was bred in the south, probably at a puppy mill, but according to his first owner, who went to the south to buy him, he was from a cocker kennel that still bred cockers for hunting. Bubba was a tall, rangy cocker, and he did have a very strong hunting instinct. His jet black coat was pretty good, but he had some white markings on his chest and toes. His tail had been docked especially short, with barely a nub to wag. Despite his AKC papers I suspected that somewhere in his lineage a taller spaniel such as a springer may have been involved. Bubba’s full name was Michigan Bubba.

His first owner worked with my husband Steve. When Bubba was a year old he started to get too rough with the man’s children, according to him. Knowing that we had dogs, he asked my husband to take him, saying that he’d drop him off somewhere in the country if we didn’t want him. Steve is as soft for dogs as I am and brought the dog home from work with him.

We never noticed Bubba being aggressive with our grandchildren, but he was a high energy, extremely active dog that could overwhelm small children with jumping on them and chasing them. We thought we might re-home Bubba, but it never happened. We did put him in an outside kennel, he was very happy outside, rather than spending most of the day in a crate as he had been doing at his previous home. Our kennel runs are very large, and he had two high energy dogs next to him to interact with too. Later on grandmother Sarah came to keep him company. They were good friends, with a zest for hunting in common.

Bubba got to run in the larger fenced yard frequently, he would race in circles until he dropped. Turned out by the pond for the first time he dove in and began to swim after the ducks. They were domestic ducks who didn’t fly but had no trouble swimming just out of Bubbas reach. He swam after them until we grew anxious that he would drown himself. He just kept circling and we could see him getting lower and lower in the water. Steve had to step in water up to his waist and grab him as he swam by to make him rest. He was exhausted but very happy.

One night, long after we were in bed, we heard a commotion in the barn, barking, things banging around. Since Steve had to work the next day and since he was having a hard time with his back at the time I dressed and went out to see what was going on. Bubba had gotten out of his inside kennel and actually tore a panel off the wall that divided the kennel room from the rest of the barn. He was under the steps to the barn loft, where he had cornered a huge opossum.

The possum was just out of his reach and it wasn’t playing dead. It was snarling and growling as aggressively as Bubba was. It took all of my strength to wrestle Bubba away and tie him up while I got rid of the opossum and repaired the wall. I didn’t want him to get bitten by the opossum. Opossums plagued us that year, they would get in the large pine inside the kennel runs at night and just sit there while the dogs went nuts and kept everyone awake. Bubba learned to climb up on one lower limb of the pine that summer and he would spend many a day and night perched on it to better survey the world.

Bubba did not like cats or chickens or varmints of any kind. He would kill them if he came in contact with them. He was generally kind to other dogs, even when females were in heat. This was much in contrast to our Jack Russell’s who would fight at the slightest sneer by another dog. He did defend himself if attacked, but preferred to avoid conflict.

Bubba’s joys in life were running, swimming, hunting through tall grass, going for rides in cars, eating and being petted. He didn’t mind going to the groomer, but gave her a bit of trouble when she touched his feet. He had never been sick until his fatal illness at age 10.

About 18 months after we got Bubba his former owner called Steve at home on a Sunday afternoon and offered him another cocker, a female they had bought after they gave us Bubba. This time the excuse was that she kept their new baby awake with her barking and the wife said she had to go that day. Once again he said he was going to drop her off at a farm somewhere if we didn’t take her.

It turned out that Honey, as she was named, had been bred by a rottweiller. We suspect they knew that. And Honey has her own story. But we now had a registered female cocker and after she had healed from the long travail with her first litter and subsequent complications we decided to breed a litter with Bubba.

Both Bubba and Honey were nice looking, healthy dogs and had very good temperaments. They proved eventually to be a delightful match, the kind of unexpected click that produces puppies even nicer than either parent. But at first we didn’t know if Bubba had it in him to be a daddy. He didn’t seem to be too interested in Honey when I took her to his kennel. She was an eager little hussy, but he seemed reserved and aloof.

After a few days of bringing her to the kennel and waiting I decided to leave her with him for a few hours. It worked, although I wasn’t sure until I saw her start to show. He was a shy breeder but a fertile one. I never saw him breed a dog. Honey had three litters with him and all had 7 or 8 puppies. He also had a litter with Cricket, a larger sized Yorkie- Russell mix we own. She managed to get inside his kennel someway when she was in heat. She was fine, although we worried, and she produced 5 puppies.

We still have two of Bubba’s kids with us. Barack is his 2 year old son, a beautiful almost mirror image of his dad and Bessie is his 6 year old daughter by Cricket. She looks like a Scottie. Barack is a delightful dog, extremely good looking and smart, without a mean bone in his body. He is the baby of our dog family.

Bubba was the kind of dog that didn’t cause trouble often. When you have a large family of dogs you try to love them all and give equal attention but I have to say Bubba probably didn’t get all the attention he probably wanted. He was ok with that though, always happy, always ready for a treat. Although a heavy eater he was never fat, always lean and active up to a few days before he became ill.

It’s hard to believe he’s gone. There was little time to prepare for his loss. But he rests in peace in our little pet cemetery. Bye Bubba. Sarah says she’ll see you soon.