You do not even want to know how Bequia scored these Mardi Gras beads....oh the horror and shame of it all!When Furry Husband and I were going to get married - it was maybe a month or two before we said "I Do" to each other when my very first dog, Osti - an aussie shepherd/bloodhound mix, died at age 10. A few weeks later, Furry Husband's very first dog, Conan - an akita, died at age 10. We were both just absolutely devastated. I was so heartbroken that I never wanted another dog ever. I didn't want to go through that pain ever again.
Furry Husband was different. He was like a ghost of a person without a dog. He just looked so lost without man's best friend in his life.
We knew there would be another dog in our lives but the timing wasn't so good. We didn't want to get a dog right before a wedding when we would be so busy and there would be so many different people in and out of our house and then we'd be gone for a 2 week honeymoon.
We got hitched and went on our honeymoon - a Windjammer cruise in the Caribbean...we started in Grenada and went to these little Caribbean islands - Carriacou, Bequia, Mayreau, Union, St. Vincent and then back to Grenada to fly home.
Bequia was our favorite island. It is a traditional whaling island - people who lived there made their living by whaling using little man made boats back in the day. It was a very pretty island and for whatever reason - we just loved it. It "clicked" with us. However, there were a lot of poor island dogs on Bequia.... skinny, scroungy, afraid of people and probably LOADED with parasites of every shape and size.We had lunch somewhere that day and I gave 1/2 of my sandwhich to a uniquely friendly, red dog with upright bat like ears, medium size, no tail and on the thin side. I didn't touch him cuz I figured I'd get mange or a flea infestation or ringworm or lord knows what. We were supposed to bring back 1 bottle of wine per person from a local Bequia store for a wine and cheese night festivity on the boat so we left the restaurant in search of wine...
The evening started with wine and cheese. After an hour or so, we were supposed to have dinner. Well by that time, I was drinking straight from whatever bottle of wine I had grabbed and I was leading our dinner table in a loud chorus of "two foot, six foot, eight foot - BUNCH, daylight come and me wanna go hoooooome"
Now that I am completely plowed - they herd all us wobbly, drunk, stupid tourists onto a small boat going to shore for dancing at a club. Outside of the club is this friendly island dog hanging around hoping for some food. It's the same dog I fed at lunch. Now that I am uninhibited by ANY kind of common sense, I promptly pick up the dog and I am carrying it around like a baby and calling it Fluff.
Uh oh. I get a severe case of drunk tunnel vision.
I won't go into the club but stay outside with Fluff. I don't want to leave the island and leave Fluff. I am trying to talk our very stately, German captain who is retired from the German version of Navy Seals into letting me take Fluff on the ship - pleading and promising that I'd clean up after Fluff and I'd take good care of him and I'd pay extra money to just save this one dog.
I'm sure you can all see where this is going.
I ended up back on the ship without my beloved Fluff. I stormed into our little cabin and yelled at Furry Husband, "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT THE ISLAND DOGS!". Crawled into this little upper bunk bed and passed out.
Nice.
This IS our honeymoon after all.
I woke up the next day wondering what animal might have actually shit IN my mouth. I put a hand to my aching head and try not to vomit. A vivid picture of what happened the night before flooded my brain.....
Oh man. Oh.... Oh geez!
After I brushed my teeth, I apologized to my sweetie pateetie who was wondering what exactly did he get himself into by marrying me. While he was figuring THAT out, I went to see the captain. I was very sheepish and apologized for my behavior.
All was forgiven. Both by the captain and more importantly by my sweetie pateetie!
When we returned home, we immediately went to our local animal shelter, the Denver Dumb Friends League. We looked around and made a list of the dogs we wanted to see. The first dog we met was being called Angel by the staff. She was a young female cattle dog mix. She was perfect. We fell in love with her immediately and threw away the list of other dogs to "interview". Once she was spayed by the shelter, we picked her up, brought her home and named her Bequia in honor of all the poor island dogs we could not save.
