Wee Willie

Diane just posted a tribute to her awesome white dog Sundance, so I was inspired to write about Willie, my daddy's dog. No, Willie is no mere dog, he is part of my dad, and a whole person unto himself, and quite the little fashionista rebel, if truth be told.
Growing up, we always had a dog around the house...a terrier named Angel, and her pup John, then there was the Leroy the Chihuahua, Blue the blue tick hound, the toy poodle named Dolly, the standard poodle named Pucci, the part manchester/part doberman Nugget, the ALL doberman Bear, the lahsa apso Odie, and I might be missing a couple, but I never really paid them much attention - it was my sister and brother who were the animal lovers in the family, and it was always fine that way. (And it's not like we were fickle about the animals...we moved a lot and it was not always prudent or easy to take a dog across international borders, and we also seemed to attract the dogs who liked to jump fences and get hit by cars or get irreversible kidney problems and painful arthritic hips).

Both my sister (Sometimes Wicked Witch of Michigan) and brother still have dogs....SWWM currently has a terrier mix named Jasmine and a Chihuahua named Flash. The brother has a pug named Zeus. It turns out however, that it is really my dad who was the real dog person in the family.

When mom and dad split up, he moved to east Texas where he found a stray wild dog, (I think she was more than part wolf), and he named her Jewel (after the ghost of Aunt Jewel who lived in his house). Jewel was a great, loving dog, hairy and big with a snarl to kept all the bad guys away. You always sensed that a wild heart beat inside her chest when she'd look hungrily at you, but she was a good friend and companion to my dad in his dark days. Tragically, she was hit by a car (or something - they didn't stop), and somehow managed to drag herself back to die under daddy's house.

Dad was heartbroken but remained dogless for a while (he had just lost his mom, his dad, his sister, his great aunt, and his first cousin, then his girl friend left him, and THEN he bought Enron.....if nothing else, my papa has impeccable timing). He wandered over to Thailand, then to Costa Rica, he went to the Esalen Institute and took up yoga, roamed around a bit, dallied with a cat here and there, but nothing permanent, and then came Willie.

I am not sure where he found this little white ball of fur, and indeed, even the idea of "Willie" does not make sense to me or my siblings. He looks like he would be a little yappy, high strung dog, not at all what my dad would want, but au contraire! He is a paragon of patience! Willie is Zen, Willie is a Buddha. Willie is the anti-yap dog. Few things rile him up - he used to love to go visit Chica, my aunt's dog that was killed in January - Dad would say, "you want to go see Chica?" and Willie would run over to the car. Chica, a bouncy, Tigger-like Chihuahua, used to try and rile Willie up, and jump on him and nip at his ears...he would just go for her ass a couple of times and she'd run off wimpering.

Dad says he named him Willie cuz there is only one part of him that is not white, and that is his little...well, you know....but Dad also refers to him as Willie Nelson - particularly if Willie is ignoring dad. The stern "WILLIE NELSON" almost always gets his attention. In general, Willie will SIT and STAY til the cows come home and he knows what GET IN THE CAR means. His cutest trick is "Boing." if I could get a good shot of this, I would send it into America's Funniest pets....cuz it is hilarious:

Now, dad doesn't go anywhere without his faithful companion. They drove out to see me a couple years back, on the way to a funeral. While they were here, we took Willie to see snakes out in the desert and let him play with Timmy, the world's dumbest dog. Last year, I went to SWWM's for Thanksgiving and dad and Willie came too. Pop is refurbishing a boat and Willie is a real sea pup now. He also likes to go for rides on the motorcycle. He used to sit on the back seat, claws dug into the leather, but the new bike has no back seat, dad says, so he just tucks Willie into his coat, with his face peeping out and off they go. Last week, they went into town and dad went into a store and left Willie on the seat of the motorcycyle. He said a crowd of people were looking at the little guard dog who was so fierce and never left his post on the back of the bike - truth be told, Willie is actually a little pussy and was probably too scared to jump off!!

I am not an animal person...I travel too much to raise a pet (or a child), but if I had a dog, I'd want one just like Willie.....