Mollie, Jilly Girl and Emmy are our June 17, 2012 Pups of the Week

I consider myself quite a wordsmith.  I have always prided myself on my ability to turn a phrase.  As I look back on the last seven days the same thought comes to my sharp as a tack mind:  This week fiicking sucked.

This past week has been like living through the Battle of Hogwats with no wizards, spells, or trolls.  Just the carnage.   We lost sweet Emmy, the spokesperson of the Dogs of Brazil, at the age of nine.  Her blogs about the flooding in Brazil in January 2011 were like reading Ernie Pyle’s reporting from the Pacific.  She was both truthful and compelling.  She just got to a new home and money was becoming available to her family to build a no kill shelter so desperately needed in her area.  But she won’t be there to enjoy it.

Then we lost Jilly Girl.  A short time ago her brother Jack got diagnosed with Cushings Disease  Before he went to the Bridge we learned that Jilly Girl had the disease too.  An operation was planned, but then got moved up when the vet had an opening.  The operation went well, but poor Jilly never awoke.

And finally after a brave struggle against the horrible IMHD we lost my very good friend Mollie and this just broke my old Yorkie heart in a thousand tiny pieces.  We lived Mollie’s life with her.  I remember her first blog which was about going to training as a pup.  It seems like yesterday.  She kept us informed when her Mom had a retinal tumor.  She rallied us to pray for her mother’s operation and those prayers helped her through it.  She told us about Tabby, the uninvited kitty who took up residence on her porch, much to her umbridge.  In October of 2011 she informed us of what would be the greatest project of her life, the building of her sun room.   That was interrupted by her Dad having heart problems, but, again, Mollie nursed a parent back to health.   In February the sun room was finally done and we rallied together to make sure Mollie’s chair was placed in a place where she got plenty of sun and could see outside.  Then she got hit with terrible allergies this spring.  Most of May was spent with visits to the vet.  But there was good news.  After 38 years her Mom retired to spend time with Mollie in her sunroom.  But it was not to be.  She got hit with the IMHA and there was nothing nobody could do.  Mollie was gone.  

I must admit I got angry.  I try to help other dogs.  I put in a lot of time.  And I have never asked for anything, so I asked for this one thing, for Mollie to live, and I was told no.  I don’t like being told no.  We did everything right.  We had prayers coming from pups on TB and DS.  We had humans on the Face Space praying.  Mommy got prayers going on Twitter and Blogger.  There were enough prayers to move a mountain.  And they were all answered no.  I went outside, looked up at the night sky, and I howled in anger at the moon.  Pocket joined me.  She asked me why I was upset and I said that Mollie was gone and I wanted answers.  She asked if this was the way she felt when I lost the siblings who came before her:  Blake, Jax, Copper and Skye.   I said yes.  She asked if Mommy, Daddy and I had prayed for them to live and I said yes.  She then asked if they had all lived if we would have looked for another pup after she was born.  And I guess we wouldn’t have.  And if we hadn’t Pocket wouldn’t have been with us.  “So maybe that’s why they had to go,” she said.  “So I could have a home.”  It was a rare moment of clarity for Pocket.  Then she said something either very deep or very silly.  “Plus, if no one ever went to the Bridge we would have no place to put our stuff.”  When I asked her what she meant she said that, if there were six dogs in the house, some would have to sleep on the floor, and we would have to put bunkbeds in my kitty condo.  While I was still sad, somehow her words had made me think, and I’m not sure why, but I was no longer mad.

We are all sent here with jobs to do, all of them to help humans.  Some are long term, like mine, almost 12 years, and others are short term, like Blake, Jax, Cooper and Skye.  Looking at all that happened during Mollie’s much too short lifetime, nursing her Mom back to health after her retinal surgery, nursing her Dad back to health after his heart problems, seeing her Mom through retirement and helping build the sunroom I wonder if her work ws done. Then she was called home.  I don’t know if this is true.  I’m just trying to make sense of something that makes no sense.  

But I have to tell humans the big difference between us dogs and humans.  And it’s not that opposable thumbs thing.  That’s way overrated.  So you can button a shirt and got a job at The Gap.  How’s that working out for you?  No, the difference is that we enjoy every single second with you.  Every moment.  In  the words of Pete Townsend:
I dig every second
I can laugh in the snow and rain
I get a buzz from being cold and wet
The pleasure seems to balance out the pain

So enjoy us as much as we enjoy you.  Because we enjoy and love you so much, and I know you do too.  Don’t let the little things in your life get you down when you’re with us.  

Despite what the Dog Whisperer or Dog the Bounty Hunter or the Road Dog might say, when you come to do a silly dance of joy with us.  Run with us, play with us, kiss us, laugh with us, and just enjoy us.  If you think you need to be calm and assertive with us little pups who do nothing but love you then do it, as long as the day comes when it is time for us to go to the Bridge, you can make the decision calmly and assertively too, if not, take my advice, pull down your pants, and let’s slide on the ice.

Because I think that was the way Mollie, Jilly Girl and Emmy lived.  And this past week has been senseless, and when something senseless happens, you have to try to make sense of it, even if the sense you make of it makes no sense.  Does that make sense?  I don’t know.  I miss my friend.

Although I don’t bark about it often I know someday I will be at the Bridge, and when I get there, and I am reunited with Mollie, Jilly Girl and Emmy and they tell me that I lived a life they were proud of and my Mom lived a life their Moms would be proud of, then I would know I accomplished whatever I was sent here to do.

Good night Jilly Girl, Mollie and Emmy, my Princesses of planet Earth, my Queens of North America.  May we follow in your paw prints.