I
first saw Bubba at a pet store in Tanforan Mall (San Bruno, California) during
one of our lunch walks.
She was just a little white ball of fur. I was hesitant buying her at
first, but my friend Ward had previous experience with Samoyeds assured me that
they were smart, did not shed a lot and were self-cleaning. 
Here I am holding her at the pet store.
I decided to purchase her as a early Christmas gift to my wife. At the time, she was working at a hospital. When I went to picked her up, I wrapped a red ribbon around Bubba's neck and presented her. She was so excited, she had to bring Bubba into the hospital to show her mother. How she got the puppy into the hospital, I'll never know.
Bubba, where did that name come from you ask? Especially when he is actually a she. Well, lets just say the wife and I failed canine anatomy. It also didn't help that the papers provided to us from the pet store also said "male". I wanted to name her after the Antarctic explorer, Admiral Byrd. But we settle on Cupertino's Puff of Snow, naming her after her mother, Rockwood's Puff of Snow. Oh yeah, Bubba ... I guess it started with us calling to her with "Hey Bub!" and asking "Whats up Bub?" Bubba just kinda stuck to her.
When we first got her, we lived in a townhouse with no yard. At first, during the day we kept her in a crate. You know, dogs will not soil their home theory. Wrong. Not only will they soil it, they will roll around in it. So, after a long day at work, one of us hosed out the crate while the other hosed off the dog. Okay, so the crate thing wasn't working out. We decided to block off the kitchen. Thats when Bubba the Carpenter showed up. She chewed the baseboard off, dug a hole in the drywall, and ripped up the linoleum. Strangely, the ripped out linoleum was in a shape of a steak ... As she got older, she was given more freedom in the townhouse. Her favorite spot was on the tile hearth. Nice a cool. She would lay on the tile and pick at the carpet edge. Eventually unraveling a good portion of the carpet along the tile.
The townhouse was 3 levels. When Bubba was a youngin', we could limit her damage to one floor. Then one day the sister-in-law taught her how to navigate the stairs ... gee, thanks.
As a youngster, Bubba swallowed the wife's leather slipper. That earned her a day long stay at the vets. Fortunately, she was able to pass it through.
One of the saddest days was when she had a couple of her teeths removed because of my negligence. I got lazy and wasn't brushing her teeth as frequently as I should have been. I felt terrible ...
One year we decided to drive to Placerville and cut down a tree for Christmas. We got only like 30 miles from home when I noticed Bubba was looking kinda sick in the back of the truck. We stopped to check to see if she was okay. We decided to abort the trip to Placerville and go to Santa Cruz Mountains for a tree instead. First, we put Bubba on the floorboard at the wife's feet on the passenger side. Well, Bubba was not having any of that. After a brief tussle, Bubba won the passenger seat and the wife had to sit in the cramp Xtracab portion behind the seat. All was right in the world, order had been restored.
Once she ate a whole plate of chocolate chip cookies. The wife had baked a batch of cookies and placed them on a plate. She pushed the plate all the way to the back of the kitchen counter thinking no way Bubba can get that. Wrong. No more than 10 minutes later, empty plate.
She had an iron stomach. Ate anything. Only thing she wouldn't eat is corn chips. Doritos, Cheetos, etc. she would eat. But Fritos? Nope. Beats me.
She was scared to death about bodies of water. During one warm day, we tried to get her into my mom's swimming pool. She wasn't going in willingly, so we picked her up and placed her on the first step into the pool. Only about a couple of inches deep. Poor dog, she was shaking in fear.
She was a pampered pup too. Once a month, she went to the groomers. At first we brought her to Classic Dog Cuts in Mountain View. But after every grooming, Bubba would sleep the afternoon off. Apparently they were giving her something to relax (without our knowledge). Took her to De Anza Dog Saloon in Cupertino and she loved it there. Greta and gang took good care of her. Funny thing is Bubba would get all excited going there. I imagine it was something like visiting with the "girls" and catching up on the gossip. But when we picked her up, she could hardly wait to leave. One time the mother-in-law washed Bubba and used blueing fluid on her. Not sure that was safe, but man, she was blindingly white!
It was funny watching her walk from behind. She would swing her hips. "Swish, swish, swish." Such a tease!
Speaking of walks ... typical Sammie. Who is taking who for a walk? And walking in the straight line is not possible. Sniff here, sniff there, sniff everywhere. Oh, is that a squirrel? Lets go there! Oh, is that a cat? Quick, before it gets away! And did she like to pull! One time my mom decided to take her for a walk. Didn't even make it to the end of the driveway before Bubba pulled my mother to the ground. Once I had the great idea that I would hop on my bike and have her pull me. She pulled alright .... pulled to the right, pulled to the left, pulled through the bushes. Outa control! That was a short lived experiment as was the skateboard idea.
Don't remember if she had a favorite toy or food (other than Doritos). Dog food was Pro Plan fed twice a day (breakfast and dinner). Prime rib days were exciting for her as she knew there were choice bones coming soon.
Loved car rides.
She was the queen of the house. I was just the doorman. She would come up and nudge me if she wanted to go out. If she wanted in, she would bark. Sometimes it got ridiculous ... in, out, in, out, in ... arg! When nobody was home, she stayed outside in the yard. At night she would normally sleep on the bed or next to. Oh, she just didn't sleep on the bed, she slept smack dab in the middle! She liked to cuddle too. When or not if I was laying on the bed or laying on the floor, she would plop herself right next to me or on top!
October 1989 earthquake - I was home at the townhouse starting to lay down on the couch to watch the World Series, then the earthquake hit. The first thing I did was grab Bubba and we watch things fall over. She didn't freak at all. After the shaking stopped, I put the harness on her and we walked around the complex. She didn't like the harness and in no time, she had chewed threw the nylon straps.
Didn't listen to the wife much. It was funny because the wife would try and give her commands and Bubba would ignore her. This was an endless source of frustration for the wife. Yet, I could come right after and Bubba would obey. Too funny.
This one is too funny. You tell me who has who trained. At night, if Bubba needed to go outside, she would bump the bed a couple of times. Well, one time my sister slept over when I was out of town. It was early in the morning when Bubba started bumping the bed. Well, it was apparently too early in the morning for my sister so she tried to ignore her. Bubba kept on bumping, my sister kept on ignoring. Bubba jumped on the bed and began to lick my sisters face and that just pissed off my sister. So what did Bubba do? As she looked my sister in the eye, she squatted on the bed and pee'd on the comforter. Needless to say, from that day on, when Bubba bumped the bed, my sister got out of the bed to let her out.
[more memories to come]
With the arrival of the first nephew in February 1998, Nicolas, Bubba was very well behaved. Naturally she was very curious, but always gentle. Here are a couple of photos of Nicolas at 10 months with Bubba -
"Uh-oh!"
"YUCK!"
Bubba died during a record heat (113 degrees F) on June 14, 2000. A couple of weeks prior, she had started exhibiting problems getting up, specifically her hind legs. I struggled for a while whether or not to put her to sleep. I decided that as long as she was not in pain, I would care for her. On June 13th, I made an appointment with the vet. The next morning, I placed her outside in the shade with a bowl of ice water next to her, and left for work. I came home at noon to take her to the vet for her appointment. From the kitchen, I saw her lying on the grass and knew something wasn't right. She had past away sometime during the morning.
After her death, I decided I wouldn't get another dog until Christmas time. The first week without her, I thought the house was way too quiet and needed some mayhem. Thus the arrival of the white tornado, Kobe.
Here are some pictures of my best friend and companion -
