happy birthday bandit.

good evening, sleepy tuesday readers. i typically do not blog two days in a row. writing can be very emotional for me (especially my most recent entry) and sometimes i need some time off. but i decided to make an exception on this crisp cool autumn evening. october fifth is a special day for me and will continue to be for the rest of my life. today, my childhood canine companion, bandit, would have turned twenty years old. in human years. twenty! i can't believe it. it is a testimony to how quickly time passes. so in honor of my first furry friend, i'd like to say a few words about him and the joy that he brought to my life.

my family adopted bandit on november 20th, 1990. we had attended a buffalo sabres game the night before, at which it had been decided that tiny baby andiepants (five years old at the time) would not accompany her family as they went dog-shopping. it is not because i didn't like puppies. on the contrary, friends. there is nothing that brings more joy to my soul than puppy-cuddles. kindergarden andiepants just had a hard time dealing with all the barking at the animal shelter. hey, i had sensitive tiny ears. don't judge me. anyway, it was decided that my cousin laura accompany the rest of my family to the shelter to select our first dog.

and when my parents picked me up from my aunt's house that day, they brought with them a tiny, black, brown and white puppy, approximately six weeks old, and quivering in a little box. he was given the moniker bandit because of a black stripe of fur that covered his soft little brown head right near his eyes, as if he were wearing a tiny puppy mask, meant to conceal his adorable identity, as he robbed your house of milkbones. my brother later told me that he fell in love with this particular puppy the moment he saw him. bandit had been housed with two other puppies (his sisters, i believe), and one of them was sitting on his head, trapping him in his water dish. we firmly believe that this early puppy-trauma established bandit's deep rooted fear of water, but more on that later.

and thus bandit became a part of the family. danny and bandit would play for hours and hours in the living room, both of them expending endless amounts of youthful energy, running and chasing. bandit would "attack" danny, ever so gently wrapping his little baby puppy teeth around danny's hands and then letting go before any injury was committed. bandit was not allowed to "play" with me, because i was so small, but he came to me after danny tired him out, and we cuddled and napped together.

in the spring of 1991, while i was attending half day kindergarden, my father and bandit would pick me up from school every afternoon. my father was working second shift at that time, and the three of us spent our afternoons together, walking home through the tree lined neighborhoods, eating oatmeal sandwiches (more on oatmeal sandwiches in later posts, friends, i promise) and taking well deserved naps. bliss.

and so continued our happy little family of five, four humans and one dog with more personality than most people i've encountered. bandit had very distinct preferences, and he made them known. if bandit had a profile on match.com, i believe it would read something like this:

"adorable tri colored puppy, mixed breed, in search of lovely, female companion. likes: cheese (preferably american), milkbones, walks, female dogs and their ladyparts, running, playing with my people, the cottage and peeing on no fewer than 18 trees per walk. dislikes: water, being dressed up for halloween, small dogs, and baths (the whole water thing again). you can find me at the big red house on the corner."

and i believe that if the universe had seen fit to outfit bandit with opposable thumbs, he most certainly would have taken the internet dating scene by storm. that dog was the definition of heterosexual. he loved the ladies. and the bigger the better. bandit would take "a self-led walk" (in other terms, he ran away) about once or twice a year, and after only 20 minutes or so of searching, we would find him, attempting to seduce a ladydog three times his size. as we separated him from his one-night-puppy-stand, the looks he shot us were reminiscent of an angsty sixteen year old glaring at his mother for embarrassing him. his behavior around town earned him a reputation and a new nickname, bandit the love dog.

my brother left home in 1998 and bandit handled danny's departure in stride. we had a feeling that he was upset that his person had left, but we didn't know just how upset he was until danny returned home for his first visit home. as danny tried to embrace and love on his faithful dog, bandit turned tail and walked the other way, clearly displaying his displeasure. eventually, bandit forgave him and all was right with the world.

bandit lived a long and happy life, sniffing things, eating cheese and milkbone cakes that i made him every october fifth, and chasing squirrels until the summer of 2003. andiepants had just graduated high school and was preparing to go to college. to this day, i firmly believe that bandit intuitively knew that i needed him to stick around and assist and support me as i made that huge transition. and he did. as i was becoming settled in my decision to move to rochester and being my collegiate life, bandit quickly and quietly passed away on july 14th, 2003. the hardest thing that i have ever had to do was to call my brother on the phone and tell him that bandit had left us. the months that followed were a difficult time for my family. some think that dogs are just superfluous additions to our lives, and form little attachment to them. but not our family. we loved bandit as he should have been loved, as part of the family. and when we lost him, we lost our fifth member.

it was a year and a half before my family decided they were ready to get a new dog, and the memory of bandit never strays too far away from me. i often think about what would happen if our current family dog and bandit were to meet. would they get along? would they fight each other? would they share war stories? "yeah, they dressed me up as a mouse for halloween in '93. a mouse! can you believe that? i'm a dog, for crying out loud! thats the way to give a guy a complex." 

as much fun as i am having conducting hypothetical canine conversations,  i am noting the time, dear readers, and unfortunately, must wrap this up so that i'll be able to counsel the children tomorrow. in closing, i'd like to say thank you to bandit, wherever he may be. do i think there is a dog heaven somewhere where bandit is playfully chasing squirrels and eating entire wheels of cheese? probably not. but i do think his soul is still floating around somewhere, or maybe he's been reborn into another puppy. either way, he was the best childhood companion i could have ever asked for. loyal, cuddly, funny, intelligent, caring and adorable. the perfect puppy package. bandit, we miss you. happy 20th birthday. next year, i'll be sure to buy you a beer.

be thankful,

andie.