Pup 3: Butch

January 2006

I stopped by the adoption store one day last week just to say hi, and I left with Butch. A volunteer had asked me to hang on to him for a minute while she took care of another task, and then another volunteer started begging me to foster him for the night.

Butch was skinny and scared and decorated with pink spots whose source turned out to be a puncture wound in his ear. Though he clearly had some pitbull in him, he wasn’t remotely butch. I imagined his previous owner as some macho guy who wanted a tough dog and who dumped Butch for being gentle. I admit that I’m wary of dogs with pitbull in them, but I got over it with Butch. (Maybe I’m not that shallow after all.) I thought he was more of a “Willie” so that’s what I called him.

His tail had three speeds. He put it in low when he suspected he liked something, medium for greeting me, and overdrive when he was with M. He loved her so much I was afraid he was going to crack in the middle for joy.

He was a perfect guest save for some puking episodes the day after he was neutered. We were sad to give him up after five days but he had new owners waiting.