The curious non-story of Buster the Pug.

It was July 1994. We lived in relative sin in Bedford, OH. We planned on getting ourselves a dog.

He was to be a pug. Buster the Pug.

We made an appointment to visit a pug breeder south of us close to Akron. We traveled down after lunch on a sunny Saturday to see the mother and make a deposit.

It was awful.

The pregnant mother looked ragged, was in the middle of a pack of other misbehaved dogs, and was generally harassed by all the other dogs this "breeder" had around. Um, no thanks.

So in the age before cell phones and the internets, we glanced through the newspaper with our road map and saw if we could find a pug from another breeder. Nothing.

So, on our way back northward we hit up every pet store and mall we could find to locate our elusive future pug named Buster. Nothing. No dice.

Backtrack 6 weeks to June 17, 1994. Somewhere in Nebraska a particularly bright snow white Lhasa Apso is born on a puppy farm and soon thereafter transferred to a puppy farm distributor in Kansas. Shortly after that, this particular dog is sold to a retail outlet and ends up far away at a pet store in a mall in Fairview Park, OH.

Back to that Saturday in July, Chris and Kimberly have been shopping for hours to no avail. Finally, in a last ditch effort, we end up at Westgate Mall in Fairview Park, OH. Far away from Akron and quite a haul from our eastside digs in Bedford. The store closes at 9:00pm. We enter at 8:30pm.

There he was. Not a pug. Not by a longshot. But a snow white fluffball in a cage with a hospital bracelet around his neck. Breed? Lhasa Apso.

We take him out. We bring him into a little cubby to pet and play with him. He bites us. He gnaws on our fingers. He chews on Kimberly's purse.

So logically, we take him.

It's 10 minutes before the store and the mall closes and we are buying a dog (and bowl and food and treats and toys and leash) from high school kids at a mall on the westside of Cleveland.

"Sidney". We'll name him Sidney.

In an epiphany in the car in the parking lot, Kimberly exclaims:

"Sam. We'll name him Sam."

Happy 14th birthday, Samuel J. Buttinski. June 17, 1994 was a wonderful day: the day the best dog anyone could ever hope for was born.