Binkey and Bongo

In 1992 Barbara and I decided we wanted to add a dog to our family of two cats. We talked for a while about what kind of dog we wanted, and spent some time checking out the dog park to see what breeds we liked. We decided on a Westie as I remembered my great aunt's dog Minty very fondly and we wanted a small dog.

We were living in LA at the time and I found a breeder in the paper that just had a litter. I had to drive about an hour out to this interesting house where they were going a little overboard with the Christmas decorations. I fell in love with a male called "Taco" but I couldn't take him home right away. I arranged to pick him up after Christmas when we got back from our traditional trip to Houston and New Orleans. I missed him already even though I had only known him for an hour.

When I went to pick him up, he had grown quite a lot, he was 10 weeks old at this point. On the drive back he was not too happy to be leaving his parents and he cried a lot. When we got back to the house we were a little worried about how he would interact with the cats. Our worst fears were realized when he immediately started chasing them around the house as soon as we put him on the ground. We also found out he liked to eat out of their litter boxes, so we had to have designated cat areas where they could feel safe.

We also found out it is a lot harder to have your own dog than to have a family dog where your parents really do most of the work. House training him took a lot of time as we both worked and he liked to bark a lot so we were always worried the neighbors would complain. However, Binkie soon became a beloved family member. So much so that we thought we would get him a dog sister. About a year later, I called the breeder we got Binkie from and they had just had another litter. We drove out there and Binkey did so well with the puppies that we felt comfortable taking Bongo home with us. The funny thing is, even though Binkey is older, Bongo was always the dominant dog, bossing him around and being queen bee.

We will miss them both very much.