Buddy-Sattva

Buddy Zuko, 2002-2020

“Buddy-Sattva”- Buddy Zuko 2002-2020 -RIP

The last thing on my mind was adopting a Border Collie, or anyone, during my solo gig at the Riverside Arts Festival on Labor Day in 2005. I was still a single mother of three, in grad school. I earned my “living” playing gigs and teaching refugees English at FSCJ P/T.

I had a respectable crowd in my tent, but nothing like the steady eruption of applause and gasps every 20 seconds that was happening outside. On my break, I went over to see what new musical maven could be causing such a stir and found instead a tour of frisbee-savvy performing dogs fresh off a European stint in Amsterdam. When I first began doing Riverside gigs Pretty Boy Freud’s Ed Cotton warned, “Never follow animals or small children on a stage.” Good advice. Too late.

I had to admit, the performance was riveting.

During intermission the place was nuts. Amidst the photo ops, Disc-Connected K-9 merch, and paw print autographs, two displaced Hurricane Katrina dogs were paraded across the grass needing adoption. Buddy was one of those dogs. I adopted him on the spot--the only dog I’ve ever had since I was a kid-- and brought him home to the only house I’ve ever owned- to meet my people.

Amadou was three, innocently spending most of his time wearing as few clothes as possible, digging in the back yard, Yama, a very precocious four, Chelsea well into teen drama. She had campaigned hard to add Zuko to his name Buddy. (like Danny Zuko from Grease.) Buddy Zuko it was. The perfect guy. They were in awe of him, beautiful black with a white-collar. He smiled a lot. He herded the kids, barking and circling them to bring them closer to home.

He loved the car, the beach, long-distance travel, and most of all, meeting the kids at their school bus down the street each day. He didn’t have to hear the keys. He knew the time each day to leave and would let me know, often fortunately for the kids

A year later we brought him to the Riverside Arts Festival. We brought him to the Disc-Connected performance. I imagined that he would look on longingly, musing about the life he may have had had he remained. I wondered if he would have preferred life on the road, the travel, the roar of the crowds, the fanfare. To our surprise, he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He reacted upset. Maybe he thought we were returning him. We’ll never know. I realized then though that he accepted us and loved us despite our shortcomings.

He never had “accidents” in the house as most dogs understandably do. He did however make his way into Chelsea’s and then in later years Yama’s bedroom to poop, no matter how well taken care of by others, each time we (rarely) went out of town without him. His message was clear. “Dear family, Don’t push it.” He always had the best and most loving caretakers over the years, all of whom were loved in return by Buddy Z. They were so good that they unwittingly made me want to be better. People like John and Fiona Citrone, Andy, Kathleen and Donovan King, Silvia Romero, and Valencia, Jane Ashe, Feather Dawn. (Thank you) All loved and cared for Buddy as their own over the years when we were forced to leave him behind.

When Aure joined the family in 2007, moving from Spain. He raised the bar again considerably in the Buddy Zuko care department. They were inseparable. The brushing got more often, the walks got longer. There were mail orders of homeopathic treatments and skincare. And we got WAY more pictures. Aure saved his life three times. Those are other stories for another time.

Buddy Z was well behaved and cordial, He had beautiful eyes and an elegantly shaped snout. He would use it to gently burrow his head under your arm in your lap if you were not paying enough attention to him. He had a private life though when no one was watching. For several years we couldn’t figure out how he was getting out of the backyard when we’d leave. He would never go far, just barge into our neighbors’ living room to visit, opening their front door. One day we pretended to leave, determined to catch him in the act of escaping. He lay behind the fence watching us leave, calmly. When we drove around the block he was already out and sitting on the front porch. We still don’t know how he did it.

We would occasionally return home unexpectedly to find him standing on all fours in the middle of the dining room table. Not sure what that was about.

He loved most people, except mail carriers, a prejudice that did not seem to relate to gender, the vocation, or even proximity to our own mailbox. He went nuts even while seeing mail carriers from the car, far from home. Perhaps it was the uniform.

When Chels gave birth last month to my first grandchild I knew that Buddy would soon be departing us. That’s how families work. Elderly members die and new members are born. At almost 18 life was getting harder for him to enjoy. I worried as we drove to Austin to meet a days old Sebastian Oliver, that we would lose him before we returned. Aure stayed behind with him. He hung on for another 34 days.

In some Buddhist teachings, a Bodhisattva is a person who is able to reach nirvana but delays doing so out of compassion in order to save suffering beings.

I think Buddy hung around longer than he should have for us. He waited for a new family member to enter the world, Amadou to return to Miami, Yama to Chicago. Aure and I were by his side telling him we loved him.

I never deserved to have the love of a dog like Buddy Zuko. I was lucky. We were lucky. He never asked for much. He was unique. He was caring. He never ran away when taken off his leash. He always ran toward home. He is our home. RIP Buddy Zuko.