Gus, A Dog Named Buddy!

Last night I didn't sleep well because I kept having nightmares, so this morning when I woke up I was depressed. I don't like being depressed and am usually not, but this morning I was. Wanting to shake off my depression I walked ten miles before Tony came home from Medina. When he asked me what was wrong I lied and told him nothing was wrong.

When he went outside to do his chores I had a good cry and then I wrote thank you letters to contributors while listening to my music. When I was done with that I cooked lunch while I dumped on my sister Cindy. By the time we ended our conversation Tony walked inside the trailer and we ate lunch and he cleaned his plate, "Thank you, Nancy. That was delicious. I am so glad that you're married to me..."

Tony was being so sweet to me. I could tell that he was trying to cheer me up and it did help. By three o'clock I was feeling much better about the world and I realized that the gray cloud that had been hovering above my head had floated away. Thank goodness.

While I was doing the dishes I was thinking about my parents and how much I missed them. Dad died in 1991 and Mom passed in 2001 and they literally were my best friends. The reason that I was thinking about them was because they had been in last nights dreams and nightmares and as always they were the "good guys" trying to help me.

For some reason I dream about my parents almost every night and it is so fun and comforting to be with them. In my dreams we are always laughing and they are always telling me how proud they are of me and how much they love me.

Several years ago a dear friend told me that when we dream of lost loved ones that is how the dead communicate with us. I like that. Anyway, as I was daydreaming about them I washed a pot, rinsed it and then set it on the drain board next to the sink because the dish drainer was full of clean dishes. Then the weirdest thing happened.

The upside down pot moved about three inches towards me! I stood back and it moved about four more inches towards me—to the edge of the counter. It didn't scare me and it made me smile, because things like this happen fairly often inside the trailer. Who knows? Maybe it was my parents or our poltergeist.

Then the phone rang—it was Kinky. We talked about his upcoming schedule and then he told me that he had just heard a story about a sweet dog named Buddy, who was at an animal shelter in Austin. He was scheduled to be adopted yesterday afternoon and to be picked up by his new owners, but Buddy was mistakenly euthanized before his people arrived to pick him up. Kinky was very upset about it and it really depressed me. I cried for Buddy after I hung up the phone.

When Tone came inside the trailer and saw me crying I told him Buddy's sad story. "Nance, that was Gus' name before we renamed him two days ago. Remember? I asked Charity what his name was at the pound and she told us that they had been calling him Buddy." That made me cry even more.

"You're right, Tone," I said. "Let's go outside and take pictures of Buddy, I mean Gus. I want to post him on my blog tonight and on utopiarescue.com." T. and I grabbed our cameras and went out the door and then Kermit took us to his and Dusty's digs.

When we walked into their pen the dogs were happy to see us. They greeted us with wagging tails and kisses and then they started kissing each other. "You did a good job pairing these two up, Tony," I said as I focused my camera. "They act like they love each other." Then Tone and I started snapping away. Here are a few pictures that I took of Gus, our sweet lovable black Labrador mix with Tony and Dusty.

Isn't Gus a great looking dog! Tony and I had so much fun playing with him and Dusty. When Tony started throwing a stick for Gus to retrieve I took this short 30 second video of them and then we went and got him some toys to play with.

Please tell everyone that you know about Gus. He is one fine, friendly dog like all of our dogs and he is not hyper—just full of love.

Before I end tonight's blog I want to wish Mark Stevens a Happy Birthday today and say, "Dogspeed Buddy."

Y'all have a great evening.