The Bud Man Abides

Some say we anthropromophize our dogs because we need to believe they have a soul.  

I say, if you can't see the great spirit inside them, you aren't f*cking looking hard enough.  

My God has blessed me with that ability, to open up to that beautifully complex and unspoken companionship.  

I reflect on it today, the one year anniversary of the passing of one such great soul, Buddy Morgan, Ginger's heart dog.  

I wrote a ballad about him in which I referred to him as 'Bad Beat Buddy' because he never had it easy in life.  Not much was known of him in the early years except that he was from N'awlins LA and a Katrina rescue and that's how he came into Ginger's life.  At the time she was Executive Director of the Memphis and Shelby County Humane Society.  

Buddy was starved and had a half gnarled leg which appeared to have been tangled up in barb wire that he had to chew off to survive.  Buddy also had buckshot in his arse presumably courtesy of a farmer he had made the unfortunate mistake of trespassing on their land.  

His strife didn't end there - once rescued, Buddy was adopted out to several families in Memphis all of whom returned him for various reasons and by reasons I mean stupidities, so he became a ward of the shelter.  

Ginger ultimately adopted him as her own.  

I had the great fortune to spend time with the Bud Man in the last months of Murphy's life.  He, Hudson, and Murphy and I stayed in Ginger's living room and became known as the notorious Couch Potato Kidz, and it was then and there that I got to know him.  

Buddy had two forms of expression that I described as 'The Bud Man Abides' (inspired, of course, by my love of the Dude) and 'The Bud Man is Not Amused'.  The picture nearby personifies the latter cause he really hated when Ginger dressed him up for photo ops.  

There was no middle ground with him and I think that's what I loved best about him.  

Not too long after Ginger became a part of this our story, Buddy's left eye started bulging out and the diagnostics revealed he had a cranial tumor.  Radical surgery removed it along with his eye and part of his jaw, too.  But despite her heroic efforts, the cancer spread to his lungs in the winter of 2010 and slowly sucked the life out of him.  

After Murphy died I went on an 18 day fast in Tennessee.  Within a week of my return from my fast Buddy slumped over and passed away from congestive heart failure.  Ginger says he was waiting for me. 

I miss him deeply and absolutely, and whether you believe that to be true, I've been witness to many things most people wouldn't ever believe... 

Open up... Puppy up