He seemed to be the perfect guy:He loved little kittens, was unceasingly kind to all, greeted everyone like they were royalty. And he would show his affection for the love of his life, Sue Buchholz, by reaching over as he rode with her in the family pickup and putting his paw on top of her hand as she held on to the stick shift.

"I couldn't move my hand when he did that,"said Buchholz, director of the Central Dakota Humane Society. "It was nice … He would leave it there for several minutes."

Good boys like him don't live nearly long enough.

Buddy, age 13½, apparently died in his sleep Monday night.

He leaves behind Buchholz, and a canine friend, Tula - who jumped on a nearby couch and stood there trembling after she nosed him and realized he was gone.

And Buddy leaves a whole slew of other friends - because he was considered Central Dakota Humane Society's mascot. The first dog the shelter sheltered.

"It's been hard,"said Tara Garland-Hoffman, the shelter's office manager, about losing Buddy. "He was everybody's buddy."

Buchholz said she has received dozens of e-mails from people who write that they can't imagine Buddy not being in the lobby anymore.

It was 13 years ago, Sept. 19, 1994, when a guy came driving up with a 6-month-old homeless black mutt he'd found out in the country.

He said he'd kept the pup over the weekend, but couldn't find an owner, and wanted to leave the pup there, at this place he heard was the new site for the Humane Society.

Buchholz told the man they weren't open yet. They had just bought the building and had a ton of cleaning, organizing and remodeling to do.

But she ended up taking the pup anyway and put it in a kennel while she worked.

The teen-pup stayed in the front of the kennel, watching her as she walked back and forth. Buchholz finally decided that was silly, the dog didn't need to be stuck in a kennel. She let out the quiet pup and went back to her work. At one point, she looked down and there he was, at her feet, and there he stayed. He quietly stuck to her side the rest of the day.

"I didn't fall in love with him (right away). It took about an hour," she said, and laughed.

By the end of the day, she knew the pup wasn't going anywhere. No adoption for him.

At night, he went home with Buchholz; during the day, he had the run of the shelter.

Buddy would lie in the middle of the lobby, waiting for someone to walk in so he could get up and greet them. If the staff members got busy and forgot to feed him, he'd politely peek around the corner and just stare at them. And they knew right away what the the problem was.

He'd spend time outside, sometimes, where he was safe because he never wandered from the shelter, located north of Mandan on State Highway 1806.

Staff would see him prance by the windows as if he were on some sort of mission, and they'd laugh.

"We wondered what he did all day,"Garland-Hoffman said.

They always intended to videotape him for a day to find out, but never did.

They did know that, even toward the end, when he was getting slow and hard-of-hearing, that if the Tupperware top that held Buchholz's mom's homemade baked goods was barely opened, he would somehow hear that sound from wherever he was and rush in. If it was a really good day, he'd get some of his favorite food in the world:rice krispie bars.

His jolly spirit didn't dim much, unless he was left with friends while Buchholz was on a trip. He'd hang his head, not even get excited when his baby sitter drove to the bank and Buddy, along for the ride, knew it was his opportunity to get a dog biscuit, said Garland-Hoffman, who witnessed his glumness.

Now it's his friends' turn for some glumness.

It hasn't been talked about yet, but the tradition of having an open-house party and fundraiser in March in honor of Buddy's birthday will probably continue.

(Reach reporter Virgnia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)