My Dog Buxton

Welcome to this week's episode of 15 minutes to Life and Happiness. This week, I wanted to share with you my story about the happiest soul I have ever met. My dog Buxton.

It's not that she wags her tail more than most dogs or that she can do that happy dog dance wiggling her butt all over the place while humming that hap hap happy dog song. She also can't fetch Timmy from a well, and she is otherwise a pretty normal dog, except for one thing - she's 15.

She's a Labrador mix with what I was told was a Weimaraner that made me fall in love with her the second I saw her. I was thinking of getting some sort of water dog at the time, as I was sailing on a daily basis and I wanted a companion for my long hours on the boat.

I saw her online at the New Jersey Puppy rescue out of Milford, New Jersey back in 2007. She was six weeks old and had ice blue eyes and a silver coat that fit like a poorly fitting set of footy pajamas. I joked when I scratched her ears for the first time that the guy who made her left too much fabric on this puppy.

But 15 years later, she still has too much fabric, but I am afraid she doesn't have that much time left. Labs live an average of 10-12 years and Weimaraners only slightly longer, 10-14. She had her 14th birthday last November. But I kind of think, with her attitude, she'll make it to this November too.

You see she runs, or more like trots quickly, a half a mile behind me and my other dog Paisley each morning on our five-mile walk around the park where we live. She doesn't go too fast and struggles a bit harder every day to finish the walk, but she loves it and wakes each morning with a wagging tail and baying howl when it's time for my wife to leave for work. She knows that it's time to go walking.