Matt Jackson

Follow

Feb 23, 2017 · 4 min read

Buster. Busty. Big Bear. Big Busty Bear. Busty Pants. Busty Bottoms. Clip Clops. Clips. Mr. Duck Paddles. Duck Paddles. Waddle Paddles. Mr. Wad Pads.

His name is Buster, and he’s a chowgi. That’s part chow, part corgi. Regular dog on top, party dwarf on the bottom. Now we all know Mr. Hambones as the independent, untrainable spaniel. Mr. Duck Paddles (named for his giant paws on his short legs) is the ultimate dog’s dog. He chases squirrels, rolls around in vomit, digs holes, loves walking in puddles, has a “warning bark” and a “seriously I’ll eat you” bark, and loves, loves, loves his little brudder Jeff. Busty is the watch dog who monitors the whole house, stares out the front door for hours, and knows that the words “outside” and “walk” are the precursor to his most favorite activity of all time.

Busty Bear is the dog you take on road trips cause he’ll go anywhere, do anything, and keep you safe in the process. He’s got the most energetically powerful growl when he’s unsure of a situation, but the most excited, relieved, and genuinely happy face when I get home from what could have been hours away to even just a five second trip out to the car. He’s the truest embodiment of love, yet it’s tempered with the fact that he’s also a truly powerful animal.

Duck Paddles was a family give-up. That’s how he came to the rescue market. A family somewhere in the L.A. area had him from the time that he was a puppy, but when they were expecting their first child they decided to let him go. HOW someone could do that was beyond me. Completely incomprehensible.

Until the day Busty Bottoms bit me.

It was during a walk by the farmer’s market early in his adoption, and he had gotten into a scuffle with another dog while on their leashes. Somehow as I pulled him back, he grabbed onto my leg and popped it open. I didn’t feel anything til I looked down and saw the hole and the blood. Back at the house, with tears in my eyes, I looked at him (because he came into the bathroom and laid right next to me while I tended to my battle wound) and said, “Don’t you want to live here?” I was heartbroken. He was now a confirmed biter- he had to be put down or given away, right? I agonized all night and played the scenario of saying good-bye to Mr. Duck Paddles in my head, breaking me down every. single. time. All the training and possible bites and hours of exercise would be worth it to keep Clip Clops clip-clopping around the house.

So the work began, and it continues. It’s been a year since the bite, and I’ve changed how I work with him like the routes we take on our walks, who we interact with and what side of the street we walk on. It’s work. It’s adjustment. And it’s worth every second. He was a perfect angel all week with my cousin’s gorgeous old Golden Retrievers, Ginger and Marley. The kids loved him. I even got the youngest to regularly call him “Duck Paddles” in her adorable tiny person voice. He let the oldest little cousin walk him tonight and was just a dream. I guess this is my single guy equivalent to having children- being proud when my dog does something good.

Buster’s love is abundant and unconditional, but his snaps and shortcomings are merely fear working itself out. It wasn’t til I went sober that I started to understand how much love I really had to give. I’ve been protecting myself from loving too much, and I used to feel like I needed to bite the hand of anyone who got too close just so I wouldn’t feel pain. I put family at arm’s length and would rather sit at home with my bottle of whatever alone rather than be with the people who loved me.

I was a love hoarder. And the “love cats” were decaying at the bottom of my “love pile” while my “love shades” were drawn and the “love toilet” was backed up so much that I had to use “love diapers.”

We’ll get to my decision to stop drinking eventually, but it’s really why I’m doing everything I’m doing and why I’m on this journey that I’m on. I needed the chip on my shoulder to give me a driving force- a bigger, better, YES for doing everything. I honestly couldn’t give up on myself, on the way I wanted to design my life just like I couldn’t give up on Buster. The bigger YES was a happier, more fulfilled, more loving Chowgi if the right things were applied. Sometimes it’s just getting them all in the right combination.