Buddy the Ex-Con

This is Buddy, my neighbor. He's only three years old and already he's been cuffed and hauled away in a paddy wagon at least three times. Don't be too quick to judge him, though, because his arrests were for misdemeanors only—usually walking without a leashed human or pooping on someone's lawn. He never got into the big stuff, like our other neighbor who got busted for having an inventory of five million dollars worth of dope, not to mention guns and ammo. I mean, which is worse? Anyway, Buddy swears he's not going back to jail; now, when he squeezes under the fence to get a taste of freedom, he does it under cover of night. Lucky for him, he's black, so after the sun goes down, humans have a hard time spotting him.

The first time behind bars was the toughest, because he didn't understand the laws and couldn't figure out what he had done wrong. He said there were lots of hardened dogs in the jail with arrest records the size of Florida, and they advised him to chill; his person would come and bail him out. "At least someone's coming for you," they said. "Most of us are headed for the...." Buddy says no one ever finished that sentence (no pun intended).

Al, his human, did come for him and had to pay fifty bucks and buy some metal tags, which he lost before he got to wear them. The second and third arrests were easier. By then, Buddy knew the ropes, and the guards seemed to remember him. They would pat him on the head and tell him it wasn't his fault that he kept getting thrown in the lockup. Also, if you can get a good look at Buddy behind the bushes in the picture, you can see he has a highly evolved handsome sort of cuteness about him; also, he knows exactly how to use his eyes to get humans to like him. There are lots of perks for a good looking dog. Anyway, each time Buddy got picked up, Al had to go back to the prison, pay an even higher fine, and buy more tags, which he inevitably lost.

Buddy says he never heard the end of it until the day Al died. That was a terrible day. Al cared about Buddy, and he was never mean to him. We dogs are really good about accepting life the way it is, but that doesn't make it easy when we lose someone we love. So, Buddy had a hard time for a while. Al's going really shook him up.

That was two years ago, and now Joy has a new man in her life. He's got a cool Caribbean accent, and he's really nice to Buddy. The trouble is the neighbors started complaining about Buddy running loose all the time, so Buddy's tied in the yard a lot. Joan's always throwing dog biscuits over the fence to him, and I try to keep him company when I'm outside. But, it's not an easy life for a dog who was used to spending time in the streets, hanging out with the gang, marking up the neighborhood with his special stud perfume. I told him to try meditation, but he says he's got his nights, and that's better than nothing. Then he gazes down the garbage-strewn, tree-lined street and adds, "Yeah, and I have my memories."

Best wishes, Juno