Pudgie Boy

My brother came to town last night. I wish it was just for a visit, but no, there's more. He came to take our Pudgie dog. It's really his dog, but for the last several years we've had him.

John and I have tried to think of ways to get rid of him plenty of times. Whenever he happened to escape out of the gate we would joke about moving before he came back. Or locking the gate so he couldn't get back in. Of course, we were just joking. He's a great dog - as far as dogs go. His only annoying feature (more annoying than normal dog things, I should say) is that he likes to dig. So the grass in our back yard was slowly and methodically turning into big uneven piles of dirt. But he rarely barks. And he killed his share of backyard intruders (see picture below for an example). And he loves my kids. They LOVE playing outside with him and making him "soup" and feeding him "coconuts" (pecans) and making him chew on sticks. He's their "country dog" - you have to say that with a really thick Texas accent.


But we can't take Pudge with us. So my brother has come to take his rightful place as dog owner and Pudge is leaving for Austin with him this afternoon. I'm going to miss that stupid dog. I will probably even cry. In fact, I did cry yesterday when John David and I were outside talking about it all. I didn't want Little to see though so I changed the subject and went back inside.

All the goodbyes are so hard. This is like taking a really long time to pull off a band-aide. Maybe we should have told everyone we were moving the day before. That would have been quick and way less painful. My hormonal emotions really need some hellos instead of goodbyes. Sigh........