Buttercup

This isn't Buttercup, but rather a cute dog named Casie. I chose her because she resembles our Buttercup.

Our little dog Buttercup will forever be our friend. She has been gone from this world since 1981, and we still talk about her.

Last week my niece Robyn mentioned her to me which brought back a myriad of memories.

I decided to write about our sweet little friend. First of all the word "little" is not being used lightly. She was only about 8 inches long, and weighed a little more than 2 pounds. You may have guessed by now that she is a "deer chihuahua."

She lived 12 years with us and we loved every minute of it.

She was born in the kitchen of our Sunset, Utah home, while my sister Sharon, Kenny, Mike, Cari, and I watched.

Sharon was living with us at the time, and her even smaller Chihuahua named Baby was mother to Buttercup and one other pup.

Buttercup was the larger of the two pups, but she was so cute I choose her. As full grown dogs, she ended up being the smaller of the two.

Buttercup was born September 1969, when Kim was 6 months old. Kim and Buttercup literally grew up together.

"Butter" was given that name because of her coloring. She was light yellow to shades of tan. I have lots of pictures of her in our albums in Utah.

In April I will put her picture on the blog.

When she was two months old, I came into the living room and saw Kenny asleep on the couch with her curled up in his arms.

It only took a few minutes to realize Kenny was crying not sleeping. When I asked him what the problem was, he admitted that he had disciplined her because she had piddled on the carpet.

Immediately, I noticed there was something wrong with our little dog. Her head was turned and it lay on her back. Each time she tried to turn it - it just flipped back into that position.

We got her to the vet as soon as possible, consoled Kenny, and was told that Buttercup had had a stroke! I don't know what Dr. Pontius in Roy did to save her, but by the time we brought her home she was already recovering.

This happened around Thanksgiving time, and Ken (Kenny's dad) who insisted he didn't like dogs, kept sneaking turkey to her.

He also brought her up to our room and made a little bed for her at the side of our bed. It was amazing that in that condition during the night, she climbed up the bedding, and crawled into bed with us.

Dogs are so forgiving. They never hold grudges like humans do.

Another piece of bad luck on her part was that I closed the door while her tail was in it. To the day she died the tip of her tail was crooked where it broke. (They don't put a splint on broken tails for dogs.)

One day I was holding Buttercup and realized that every time I held her I itched. I also thought I saw some bugs on her. Dr. Pontius told me that she had mange. And there was no cure, and that she would probably die. I insisted that he give her some medicine and that she was going to live!

He did! The medicine did help, but I guess she had mange until she died of old age.

Another funny thing about Buttercup was when we went to visit my mother in Bountiful.

Buttercup would be asleep in my lap, but every time we got to a certain intersection a mile west of Mother's home, buttercup would awaken, and jump for joy.

She knew we were going to Grandma's house. Now, Buttercup loved Grandma, but Grandma insisted (Like Ken) that she didn't like dogs.

She tolerated Buttercup as she climbed into her lap, and the funny part was that she would pet the dog by starting at the back and running her hand to the dog's head. Butter was so little that her back legs came up, and her head went down.

She looked like those fake birds that tip their heads, to get their beaks into water. I guess you would have to see it to appreciate it. Buttercup never minded a bit. She just loved Grandma.

The worst experience of all happened when we were in the process of moving from Sunset to Riverdale.

We moved our food storage and other items to the house, and we left Buttercup!

Unfortunately, no one took notice of her missing until that evening. We immediately drove back to Riverdale hoping to find her, but to no avail.

We were horrified the next morning as we quizzed neighbors and discovered that the kids played with her by putting her into their mailboxes and such.

Bottom line is they didn't know who she belonged to and just left her on her own when they were through with her.

We put an in the newspaper asking for help in retrieving our dear little dog.

It was a week later when I received a phone call. The lady was hoping beyond hope that the little dog she was holding wasn't the one we were looking for.

Buttercup had a very distinctive marking that resembled a collar around her neck. Except that it didn't go all all the way around. My description of her along with the natural collar was enough to convince her that this was our dog.

We met in a parking lot in Roy, and you should have seen Buttercup. She took one look at us and jumped all over that car trying to get out, and over to us.

She jumped all over me, and gave my face a good kissing. Then she took turns at each one of the children, jumping and kissing them.

There was no doubt in this ladies mind that Buttercup belonged to us.

I offered her a reward, but she flatly refused. She was still sad to lose the dog she hoped to have, but was very happy for us and the dog.

During that week, Buttercup somehow with her built-in radar, knew her way home! She had walked a block north, which is the wrong direction, but strangely enough, if she had gone south she would never have made it.

Going south would have put her eventually on Riverdale Road, one of the busiest streets in all of Utah, and was known as the street that had more accidents in the state than any other street.

She had walked north a block to 4400 So., then walked between 2 and 3 miles east, which was the right direction. She had to cross at least 3 busy streets to arrive at 1900 W. in Roy, the busiest street in Roy!

But she was at a better place to cross, than if she had gotten over to Riverdale Road and tried to cross.

I've never stopped to realize this situation until I starting writing this down. It truly would have been impossible for her to have survived the trip if she had gone the other way.

The walk from there is 4 to 6 miles. And there were at least 6 busy streets to cross before turning west to our home, which was another 3 quarters of a mile.

The lady found her in the vicinity of the same parking lot where we met to get her.

The angels were truly watching over our little dog, and we felt very blessed in getting her back safely!

She lived 6 more years after that with us in Riverdale. She grew old and we loved her. When it came time for her to be put to sleep Ken took her to the vet.

As I said, he insisted he hated dogs, well, I loved this dog and didn't think I could do it. Ken came home with red tear-filled eyes, and told me never to ask him to do anything like that again. He did love the dog after all.

Cari never forgave us for putting our dog to sleep! We all loved her so much, and we always will!