Bugsy, on the couch - Age 16

Posted by Tasha (Chicago, United States) on 27 March 2008 in Animal & Insect.

This is our family's miniature poodle, Bugs. I have called him Bugsy for as long as I can remember, and I don't know why. He was originally my little sister's dog. She didn't originally object to the name "Bugsy", but eventually she came to do so. The name stuck anyway.

He's very old, and every time I've had a clear "bad news is coming" phone call in the past two or three years, I have always thought it was that he had died. I guess I'm still waiting for that phone call, and since we cannot change the past, I am content to wait a little longer.

He is completely neurotic. By the time he was four years old, he was on his fourth set of owners (us). His third set of owners were very good people, but they had a family problem come up and had to send him on to us. His second owners had abused him terribly, and that's where all the neuroses come from, I think. From them, he eventually ended up in a shelter, where his third family adopted him. I don't know how he got from family one to family two, but I think family one was in the military and transfered someplace they couldn't take the dog, and had no idea what family two was actually like.

His tag says, "I am a therapy dog". Interestingly, as neurotic as he is, he is still a great therapy dog. In his younger days he visited youth hospitals, juvenile detention centers and libraries (so youngsters could read to dogs without feeling self-concious about reading to "someone else"). I think he also has done some nursing home visits, and probably things I don't know. These days, I'm told he still goes to the detention centers from time to time, but he can no longer be the star of the show.

He's resting here. I think he's earned it.