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Meet Bubba. He’s easy to find. Step into my kitchen and look down.  Don’t worry he’s a little deaf and probably won’t even wake up to look at you.  But if you open the fridge or drop a crumb, he’s on it with his sniffer working over time.

  He loves liver and crisp apples; but not at the same time. Bubba likes sleeping on our sofa.  Bubba is not allowed on the sofa.  Let’s discuss furniture. As a military family you never really have nice furniture because you move every three years and it’s rough on the big items.  One of our friends in Japan had her brand new sofa show up without any of the seat cushions. Imagine that. So finally we had the nice leather couch and club chair I always wanted. And I guess, Bubba feels the same way.

Bubba is a rescue dog.  He’s about eight years old, sad not to know this boy’s birthday.  He’s a little cranky and a little deaf. Though my husband swears his hearing is selective.  Bubba seems to be able to hear cracker packages being opened. Maybe he is attuned to a Saltine frequency.  We know very little about his previous life before he came to live with us; his military family could not get medical clearance for him to fly due to his age and chronic ear problems. Doesn’t that just break your heart?  Imagine having to leave your bulldog boy behind; the one you had raised since a baby.

  There’s a special place in heaven for the Rescue Dog Support Folks.  They took Bubba in and had to endure the heart wrenching departure of his family.  It must have been so hard to see the kids crying as they were leaving their bulldog they had grown up with their whole lives.  I’m getting choked up, let’s move on.

One afternoon when I was listening to Howard on Sirius, he was talking  about the recent passing of his bulldog, Bianca, and mentioned the bulldog rescue groups.  He was shouting about how many people buy bulldogs but don’t understand the special needs of this breed. I know bulldogs.  I’ve only had bulldogs.  My first was brought to my dad as he was dying from cancer by my brother.  I can still remember our summer at Emerald Isle when this squishy faced dog showed up.  Her name was Ivey; kinda weird dog name.   So Howard’s rant  was one of those things that must have been rattling around in my head because later I googled “Bulldog rescue Hawaii” and unbelievably, there was Bubba.

  The adoption process was daunting, as it should be. We had home visits, questionnaires, and references.  Sweet Michael and I laughed that we were able to bring our newborn human son home without all these hoops to jump. We were so excited to have been selected to take this bully into our home.  The first days would have broken your heart.  He sat by the door, looking out to the yard and onto the street.  His expression seemed to say, “Uh, my family is coming to get me and I must be ready to go”.  He needed intensive hugging…I took a vacation day from work;  a whole day just to hang out with him.  I brushed and massaged him, followed by a couple of walks around the block; yes, a singular block.  He’s a bulldog not a marathoner.  He was opening up, I could feel it.  Then one morning, Sweet Michael, opened the bedroom door as I was getting ready for work. “Babe, have you said good morning to Bubba yet?”, he asked. “No why?” “Because Bubba has been sitting outside the room staring at the door waiting for you all morning”, he answered. Oh my goodness, Bubba had opened his broken heart and taken me in.