A decade later, it's Butters time!

It's been a number of years that my dear Mariposa passed on to the next doggie world. But every time I see a mariposa, I know she's nearby. My name is Butters. It used to be Buttercup. My older sister named me. She thought I’d be a girl. But they got a boy dog. Still she named me Buttercup. That was my baby name. As I got older and more manly (doggly), my older brothers decided that Buttercup wasn’t manly/doggly enough and they shortened it to Butters. Now, I’m Butters. I am 6 and a half years old in human years. I have a pretty chill life. I sleep. I eat. I love to eat – anything and everything. I got out to pee and poop. I go for walks. Occasionally, I play with other dogs. Other times, I bark at them. I don’t like to chase the ball. I like to chase dogs chasing the ball. I do not swim. In fact, I do not like to get near the water; I scurry away from the water. I love chasing squirrels and rabbits. Especially rabbits. And occasionally, cats. It depends on the cat. I used to chase deer, but there are too many of them so I gave up. Occasionally, there is a fox in my back yard. She ignores me, and I ignore her. This hound and that fox aren’t getting friendly. My mom is trying to figure out why I bark at some dogs and want to play with others. But she’s a human and a mom, so she just doesn’t get it. Some dogs are just to be barked at! And some dogs scare me - like the loudmouth fierce 3 pound chihuahua and her 2 sidekicks, whose parents are friends with my parents. I have many friends, but my most favorite friends are my next door neighbors – Pixie and Johnny. They’re 2. They’re full of energy. They lift me up when I see them. I can see Pixie across the entire dark field. I pull my mom toward her. She’s so much fun to play with and sniff with! There is also Luka, Diego, Mahalo, Eli, Cookie, Butter, and some other friends. Even my mom notices an extra spring in my step when I see Pixie. When I was a puppy, I used to be all over the place. While I didn’t chew up the furniture legs like Mariposa did (well, because she had done it and they hadn’t updated the furniture, there was nothing more to chew), I did pee all over the carpets and made some serious scratches in my parents’ expensive blue leather couches. I mean I need to make myself comfortable, right? Mama kept the carpets rolled up and out of reach for 1 and a half years, until I learned not to pee inside. I love to sleep. I can sleep on the couch. On the floor. In the yard. In the sun. In the yard, in the sun on the yoga mat. Mama puts out that yoga mat to do yoga so I help her with downward facing dogs by getting under her and trying to lick her face. Then when she’s done, I do my own outward napping dog on the mat. I have a doggy daybed in the dining room. I have my “apartment crate” upstairs in the bedroom. The “apartment crate” is a big, now broken, gray storage box, in which Dadda picked me up when he came to get me. When I was a tiny puppy, it was huge. But as I started growing, I learned to tip it over to get out of it. Now, it’s just turned sideways with a cushion inside it so I can sleep in it. Now, I barely fit into it. It’s my apartment. I don’t have a crate. Never had. I also have two favorite couches: one outside on the porch. And the other, is an Ikea Pong sofa in the bedroom. I also have two human beds. One is the lower bunk in my brother’s room, in which currently no one sleeps in. The other, is of course, my parents’ bed. I like to sleep there, right along side with them, with my head on the pillow, between them. Just like they do. (Mariposa used to like to ask to get under the covers and then go and sleep by their feet. Not sure why. It’s much better to sleep next to their heads.) I don’t think my parents understand that I am bored.