Wednesday, September 27, 2006

My Friend Bauer

A few weeks ago my older brother and his wife suddenly lost their greyhound Bauer. I have been wanting to write some stuff here on the blog but figured I would give them time to post something on their blog before I posted here. Since they now have posted something there I would like to take an opportunity to post some of my memories of Bauer.

I first met Bauer in the summer of 2004 when I traveled out to San Francisco to attend my brother's wedding. The first day we were there Shawn and Emma had a get together for the two families at their place and this was the first time I got to meet Bauer. For some odd reason dogs and cats (especially) are automatically drawn towards me when we are in the same room. Before I met Bauer, when someone said "greyhound" words such as hyper, racing, and endless energy were the first things that came to my mind. As soon as I met Bauer it was obvious that these were misconceptions. When we arrived I think Bauer was laying on the floor and looked at us as we walked through the door then went back to his relaxing on the floor. As the evening went along I was able to get him to go out to the backyard. My plan was to get him to play "fetch the stuffed animal" which didn't work out very well. I would throw the stuffed animal across the yard and tell him to go get it and bring it back. Instead he just looked at me with his big eyes and I bet if I could read his mind he was probably thinking 'yeah sure whatever I go get it, NOT'. So I would start running toward the toy hoping he would follow and find the toy...but he just stood there looking at me like I belonged in a mental institution. After tossing the toy a few more times I finally gave up but I have a sneaking suspision he was mildly entertained seeing me running back and forth.

The second time I really got to hang around Bauer was when we visited Conn. last December after Christmas. While we were opening gifts Bauer kept licking a spot or something on his rump which Shawn or Emma would tell him to stop. Whe he continued to do it Shawn got out a pair of red boxers that had smiley faces on them and put them on him...it was a humorous site to see him wearing the boxers.

This summer after I spent the week here in Albany searching for an apartment I went over and visited and stayed over at my brothers before heading home. When I arrived at the house both Shawn and Emma were still at work so after getting in the house I went upstairs and hung out with Bauer and Berkeley until my brother got there. When he got home Shawn and I took the guys for their evening walk. I started out with Berkeley but he was being somewhat stubborn so I traded and was walked by Bauer. That evening when it was time to go to bed Bauer decided that he wanted to sleep downstairs in the room where I was staying which was really cool.

I will really miss not seeing Bauer when I go to visit my brother.
-c

1 comment:

Shawn said...

I'm betting the main reason he slept downstairs was that you took him for a walk. This was the way to his heart. After that you were BFF!

The only other time he did that was when he was pissed at us for not taking him for a walk. Then he stayed downstairs all night for spite.