The Twelve Years of Benny

(In the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas")
On the first year of Benny, my true pup came to me two days after Christmas Eve...
Before he came to live with us, I remember the four of us, my dad & two sisters, riding in the car talking about what to name him. We were thinking of gator names, of course, and Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (aka Florida Field, The Swamp) was bantered about. My sister, Erin, said we could shorten it to Benny, and his name was decided.
I was home for the holidays from my freshman year at the University of Florida. My dad drove some distance to pick him up from a Humane Society in West Virginia on December 26, 1999.
That first day, I stayed home with him and Dallas, our first cairn terrier. He was about a year old. He had no tail, which is very odd for a cairn terrier. He hid a lot; he pooped a lot; and he didn't say anything for days. When he finally did talk, he sounded like a tortured bird.
A couple of days later, he experienced his first Florida Gator football game, a bowl game no less, with the Barry family. He was sitting on the couch next to me. We all jumped up shouting about one play or another, as is customary. Well, we scared the poor little pup and he snapped at my hand, which scared me, though it didn't hurt. I think he ran and hid at least until halftime, when I had the first chance to coax him out of hiding. Even though I was the first one he "bit," he and I bonded pretty tightly while I was home from school. We continued to bond each visit home after that. When I had my first apartment in Memphis, he came to live with me. We've been inseparable ever since.

Spring 2000

Benny and Robert, Fall 2000

Benny at 13 years old