Misty and the Hardest Decision

 Everyone agrees that sending a beloved pet to the Bridge is the hardest thing a parent has to do. But this week, I saw people make a sacrifice that was more heartbreaking than helping their baby ascend to the next life.  These dog parents had to give up their beloved pup up to save her.  

The pups and parents who created the Chronicle of Woos blog, have in recent months, survived terrible blows.  Lightning had an operation to remove a tumor from his back. Misty had an adverse reaction to a rabies shot. Their Dad is slowly losing his eyesight. Lightning, after suffering from several knee injuries and surgeries, cannot withstand any more operations.  He will never be able to run again, and should only be taken outside via leash. He was also was diagnosed with corneal mineral dystrophy and may lose his sight in one eye. Their mom recently fractured her arm just above the elbow. The Woos had enough problems for a dozen packs never mind one.

The broken arm was not the first domino to fall, but it set off a chain reaction that will forever change the pack. The injury required a very delicate and dangerous surgery with no promise of success.  Post-procedure their mom will have to undergo excruciating physical therapy. Given Lightning's mom’s broken arm and his Dad’s diminishing vision it impossible for either of his parents to walk him. When Lightning goes out, his parents watch him closely. Another knee injury would be a disaster. 

Last Monday, Lightning's mom had a surgery scheduled for that afternoon.  She let the Huskies out for their post-breakfast playtime. When she let them in, Misty was holding both her back legs up. Her mom had seen this before, most recently with Lightning.  She contacted her daughter, who took Misty to the vet. The news was worse than she imagined. 

Misty had a full ACL tear in one knee and a partial in the other.  Her parents had been through this with Lightning. Misty would have to be in a crate for 12 weeks and be taken out on a leash and in a sling.  Her parents would have to support her weight by lifting the sling, which is an arduous task as anyone who has done it can attest. She would often need to carried.  Neither of her parents was capable of physically supporting Misty's weight until her back legs healed. Nor could they take her out on a leash. When she healed the other knee would have to be done.  If everything went perfectly Misty would be back to normal by September. But, Misty could not heal properly under the care of two people suffering from 
debilitating injuries. As much as her parents wanted to, they could not provide Misty the care and support she required.

They talked with the vet, and they were given a terrible choice. Misty still has her life ahead of her. No one wanted to send her to the Bridge. But she could not recover living with her parents.

Until Misty’s parents were confronted with this decision, I thought the worst choice a parent had to make was if they should send their baby to the Bridge.  I was wrong. They had to let their baby go, but not to the Bridge. Misty would live with a vet tech who would see her through her surgeries and recovery, but the price was that Misty would make the tech’s house her forever home. 

Two days later, Misty’s mom signed papers giving her beloved pup to the tech.  Now her mom is tormenting herself, hoping that Misty knows that the baby girl did nothing wrong and that her first pack still loves her very much. Her parents feel like they let her down.  The sad fact is that their souls would never let Misty down, but their bodies could not list her up.

Maybe someday, in the future, when emotions are not as raw, her folks will realize they made the most unselfish choice a parent can make.  Letting someone else fully experience your dog’s love, to let them know the beauty of her eyes, her gentle ways, her humor, her love of life is more emotionally taxing then sending a dog to the Bridge. 

We hope that Misty’s parents will continue to be part of her life.  I know if they saw her happy and running as she did as a pup, it would do them a world of good.  But that will take time. As for right now, they are filled with sorrow over their illnesses, injuries, and the hole in their pack, hearts, and lives.

I know  Misty's angels, lead by Ciara, are doing everything they can to make their parents understand that all people, dogs, and angels are in are awe of their unselfishness and love.  They put their baby first and crushed their hearts while doing so.

Their Angels have a lot to deal with:  Mommy’s arm, Daddy’s vision, Lightning’s legs, and Misty’s operation.  We have all pledged to help them.

This fantastic packs of Woos need lots of good times and sunny days.


Help us pray that these wonderful people can be made whole and happy again.

Foley Explains The Power of the Whine

We dogs have a superpower that can bring humans to their knees and make them do our bidding.  That power is called the whimper. 

Dogs have discovered this superpower by accident. To us whimpering is something that comes naturally.  We did it before we began to live with humans. They first noticed when Drog, one of the first dogs to live with men, needed the rock at the cave entrance moved so he could pee.  No one wants to pee in the cave.

 He could not get his owner’s attention, so he made the same whimpering he did when he couldn’t catch food in the wild or find shelter. After a couple of whimpers, Drog’s dad got up from this stone chair and moved the rock.

The next day Drog wanted some ibex meat.  It was on a high rock, and Drog could not get to it. He gave his dad a sad look. It didn’t work. He tried pawing him. 

That didn’t work either. Then Drog remembered the whimper and repeated it. Drog’s dad got up and gave him the meat. When Drog became an angel after being stepped on by a mammoth, he began visiting other dogs in their dreams and told them about the whimper secret. From that day onward, we have used the whimper to get our way.

We are so good at getting parents’ attention that babies tried to copy it by crying, but they could never get the right tone. A cry works sometimes, but a whimper is full-proof.  Children have turned the whimper into a whine with mixed results, which is why it becomes less used when people get older unless they come from New Jersey, then they keep doing it until they are old and smelly.

Dogs can use their whimper throughout their lifetime; We have to concentrate on making sure we use our alto voices.  If we use the bass tone then it comes out a growl and people don’t respond well to growls. If you mix your whimpers and your growls, then you can end up in the shelter for being an aggressive dog instead of being safely in a house for being a wimpy dog.  

I am very proud of my whining abilities.  My whimpers could not be resisted. Pocket does a pretty good job.  Poor River has too much bass in her voice, but she is blessed with a pathetic face, so she doesn’t need to whine.

It goes against my dog code to warn humans about the whimpers, and even if I did, it would be useless.  Whimpering is our superpower and your kryptonite. Resistance is futile.

River Recounts Her Mom's Struggles With A Bad Tooth

Last week our mom's face blew up.

It started innocently on Sunday when she had a toothache. We felt terrible for her. Cavities can be a bother. We were in the middle of a three day weekend. Mommy would not be able to go to the dentist until Tuesday because of Martin Luther King Day. Suddenly Evan Meechum seemed like a sound thinker.

Mommy suffered all day Sunday while watching the AFC championship game without her favorite team, the Patriots, playing for the first time in 8-years. It was like watching Jeopardy without Ken Jennings. It didn't seem right.

 We regret not appreciating Monday as much as we should have. It was the last day before the impeachment trial began. After that day, the networks showed the same annoying program featuring old people arguing about peaches. I had a hard time watching it, and my mouth is beautiful. I don't know how mommy survived with a painful mouth and bad television.

On Tuesday, Mommy went to the dentist but did not get any relief, but she did get some antibiotics. The dentist said that she had an infection and a crack in her molar.  He told her she needed to wait for the infection to subside before the tooth could be extracted, or she could have a root canal. The dentist also said she could have implants. I don't know what that had to do with a toothache. Maybe if she had implants, no one would be looking at her face and see she was missing a tooth.

That night she had pain like seldom had before, and given that she has had multiple knee operations including two replacements, rotator cuff surgery, and migraine headaches, that is something. Her face swelled up on the left side like it was stuffed with watermelon rines.  By Thursday, it was so severe she had to go back to the dentist. He gave her pain pills and told her to go to the oral surgeon down the street to make an appointment for a root canal. The surgeon took one look at her, put her in his chair, and did a partial procedure. The tooth was too far gone to do a full one.  She would still have to have it extracted. She went from two options to none.

The swelling on the side of her face had lessened, but her it was like a flushed toilet bowl. By morning it would fill up again.  

She was told to make an appointment with another oral surgeon to have the cracked molar removed. She was hoping it would be done the following week, but the woman who answered the phone at the office showed little sympathy for Mommy's plight and scheduled her appointment five weeks later.

After seven days, the swelling had gone down some, but she still looked like she had a pinch between her cheek and gums.   The tooth did not hurt, but her cheek had small bumps on the inside that hurt in the extremes, and she could barely open her mouth to swallow.

 A week after first going to the dentist mommy ran out of antibiotics.  Her face swelled up like Buddy Hackett making a hot air balloon impression.  It hurts so much that waterboarding seemed like a gentle massage by comparison.

She called her regular dentist, who was stunned that the oral surgeon they recommended had not extracted her tooth yet.   He prescribed a stronger antibiotic and helped Mommy get an appointment extraction on the following Wednesday.  

Yesterday the terrible tooth was finally removed, and my mom is on the road to recovery. It has been a hard time for all of us.  I have even missed naps! We hope the rest of the winter passes without any more drama and pain for all of us.  

Wordless Wednesday

Beat This Caption

Can you please hurry it up?  I got two more rolls to go tonight and I don't want to fall behind

Monday Question

A simple question:  How much do you weigh?

Pocket:  I weigh six pounds

River:  I weigh 13 pounds

Angel From the East Side Cat Arrives at Rainbow Bridge

I know why humans don't like to go to the funerals for people who are not their family members.  It is hard to go to a service where you don't know the people, where you have to introduce yourself, and express sorrow over a passing when you know the pain you feel is a fraction of what the person you are speaking with is experiencing.

That is what it is like when we dogs go to greet a cat who is arriving at the Bridge and is not a member of our family. We know all the dogs who cross and the angels who preceded them, but with cats, we might only be familiar with the arriving angel.  We can't help but feel like interlopers.  

Most of the cats I know come from the blogging world.  Even online pups and kitties are separated into separate groups as if it was God's plan.  It is only in the independent world of blogging where the lines begin to cross, and we visit one another's pages.  It still took me a long time to befriend cats in Blogville, but now I visit their pages every day and enjoy their antics. 

This weekend our friend Angel from the East Side Cats ran out of heartbeats, and her parents had to restore her to her original settings and send her to the Bridge, where she will be happy and whole again.  Cotton, who is my counterpart at District Four cats division, sent me an alert from her I-Paw, informing me of Angel's imminent arrival.

We angels are much like you humans.  When we learn of a passing, we try to figure ways of not going to the service until we accept that we must attend.  At the time of Angel's arrival, I put on my musher's wax to protect my paws, grabbed my walking stick, and headed towards Kittyspace, where Angel will stay while waiting for her parents.

When a new soul passes across the Bridge at Doggyspace, her angel friends are anxiously zooming up and down hills, laughing, and barking loudly.  Cats are much more reserved. As they waited for Angel's arrival, some were standing at attention, others were lying in the grass, and a few seemed to be sleeping.  I wondered if it is because cats don't love as much as dogs.

Then I saw Angel cross the Bridge, and all the cats ran to her.  They made a big circle around her and began purring and licking.  It was quieter and refined than one of our greetings, but I liked it. Their welcoming was simple and moving.  Sometimes I think we dogs are too loud for our good.   

I made my way into the group of cats, and introduced myself to Angel, told her that I was very sorry that she had crossed the Bridge and that she had lots of friends on the doggy side who were available if she needed help adjusting to life at the Bridge or learning how to visit her family.  She gave me a lick of thanks and invited me to her welcoming dinner.

It was a marvelous time, even if there was a bit too much fish.  I did get a little tipsy on the catnip. We dogs have to develop an equivalent.  The celebration was more reserved than the doggy dinners. There was no howling, no counter surfing, no bacon. After a few hours, I began to miss all the craziness of our festivities.

I excused myself, hugged Angel, and walked back home.   It was good to travel and see other customs, but it is nice to get home back to the noise, drool, and bacon.

I know Angels' mom is grieving again. She has done it lots of times before and will come through with the help of her family, friends, and angels.  All our moms and dads do.

I.promised Angel, I would spend more time at Kittyspace.  It will be good for me to expand my horizons. We could all benefit from seeing how the other half lives.