Wordless Wednesday

Moon River

I am a creature of habit.  I like everything happening at the same time every day.  At 10:00 at night I go outside to pee with Pocket and Daddy (he doesn’t pee) and then come back inside and get my Kong filled with treats.  But on Sunday night Mommy got ready to go out with us which never happens.

Immediately I became concerned.  What was this?  A late night walk?  A pee examination?

We got outside and Pocket and I quickly peed because we  were anxious to see what caused this change in routine.  We were picked up and Mommy told us to look at the sky.

Look at the sky?  I am eight inches tall.  Looking up is my main occupation.

She picked me up.  “Look at the moon River,” Mommy said.  Moon River?  Well it was wider than a mile.` It was a bright red which probably wasn’t good.  I immediately feared for my parents because of the vampires.  I wasn’t worried about Pocket or me.  We have tiny necks, are good at wiggling away, and are bite sized at best.

The moon seemed to be disappearing.  Slowly.  Very slowly.  And they stood there looking at the moon.  (Sigh)  During my treat Kong time.  Instead of some kibble, and carrots and I looked at the moon.  “Why are we looking at the moon?” I asked Pocket.

“It is hiding.  It isn’t going to hide for decades.  This is our only chance to see it.”  Our only chance?  I don’t know about them but I plan to be here for decades.  

So we kept looking up.  Frankly my neck was starting to hurt.  My parents kept asking if the moon was getting bigger or smaller.  If they didn’t even know that what was the point?  Finally they decided they had enough Moon and we went inside.  My treat Kong was done and I got to work on it.   

Except I couldn’t get that moon out of my mind.  Every few minutes I would stop, look at it and bark.  I don’t know why.  It is like it was affecting my mind.  Damn troublesome moon.  I don’t think there is much super about it..

You know now that I think about it when it comes back decades from now I am going to sleep through it.  The thing was a bother.

Morgan is our September 27, 2015 Pup of the Week

I love my old Doggyspace and my current Tanner Brigade and Facebook friends but there is another world that I get to visit that means as much to me.  It is a world called Blogville.  The pups and folks there are all independent dog bloggers who read each other's pages and leave sweet and supportive comments.  I wish more of my friends would explore this world because it is a wonderful place.

Many of you know the Angel who, while on the mortal side of the River was called Morgan the Miracle Maltese.  Well we have another Morgan and she is proving to be a miracle dog too.  She belongs to the pack whose stories are told athttp://theportuguesewaterblog.blogspot.com/ . 

Morgan is a senior dog and she is showing the signs that all us seniors show.  She has become unsteady and confused with good days and bad days.  When the bad days come her parents prepare themselves for the hardest decision and when the good days come she seems like she has years ahead of her.  

She sleeps so soundly that sometimes her Mom has to check to make sure she is breathing.  She gets her water through a syringe to keep her hydrated and her appetite is spotty.  She gets an Ensure milkshake everyday which sounds pretty good to me.  I love to go to Otie Campbell’s drugstore here for a milkshake but I never got one on the mortal side.  That’s living the dream right there.  Morgan goes to sleep after that but then she wakes up at 2:30 and keeps her parents up with her staggers and bumps  

One recent night Morgan suffered a seizure and her Mom readied herself for Morgan’s final vet visit.  By morning Morgan was back to being normal.  Her Mom called the vet who advised her they could run some tests and put her on an antibiotic to control her ammonia levels.

Knowing that Morgan’s song would be ending her parents decided to do a bucket list for him.  They took her to her favorite spot in the backyard, where she hadn’t been for years do to her health, where she was very happy.  That small trip tired her out but meant the world to her.  She also has not been able to get up on the couch and enjoy her favorite quilt so her Mom put her on the couch and Morgan slept for a few hours.  One of her favorite toys that she no longer played with was pulled out of her crate so Morgan could sleep on it and remember being young.  Sometime her Mom catches Morgan staring into space without moving perhaps remembering her younger days.

Finally the day came to help send Morgan across the River of Life to the Immortal side.  But the appointed day came and once again Morgan rallied.  Again, the vet was called and he said that Morgan was not ready to make her journey.  He then introduced her to the world of B-12 shots.  

The next day Morgan was acting like she had five years ago:  She ate dinner, went outside by herself, ran up the stairs to the bedroom, then had a big breakfast and even went for a walk.  

Her parents wondered if everyone should take B-12.  But her Mom had a different conclusion.  She thinks Morgan sees her doctor, believes that the doctor is going to make her better, and she gets better.  In Morgan’s 16 years of life she has always gotten better after seeing her vet even if the doctor has only given her a kiss on the head and wished her well.

So I don’t know.  Is it the B-12?  The vet?  Is this another Morgan the Miracle Dog?  We don’t know.  We just hope Morgan is around for a lot longer so we can find out.  

Tails from Rainbow Bridge: Molly

I am often asked what life is like on the immortal side of the River.  Truthfully it is not much different than life on the mortal side.  The weather is nicer, neither too hot or too cold.  The sun rises and the sun sets.

I love a good sunrise although I would rather be tucked into my warm bed at that hour.  Why do sunrises need to be so early?  There are mornings I force myself awake, make a strong cup of coffee, and go to special spot to watch the sunrise.  That special spot is Molly’s sun room.

I hope you all remember beautiful Molly.  She was taken from us at a very young age.  She only had a few years with her Mom but they were wonderful loving years.  She succeeded the irreplaceable Daisy in her Mom’s heart, and she picked beautiful Sophie to heal her Mom’s broken spirit when she departed.  In the all too short time she had with her family she had one important chore:  She oversaw the building of her Mom’s sunroom.

Molly and her Mom loved to sit in the sun together.  Molly had her own chair.  She would sit in it and look out the windows to see all God’s creatures playing on her grass.  It took her Dad a long time to get it built, interrupted a spell of heart trouble, But she only had a short time to enjoy it.

It was IMHD, the terrible disease that has affected so many friends,  that took her.  It came quickly and despite tens of thousands of prayers she crossed the River of Life.  She was broken hearted, missing her Mom with every ounce of her tiny being, so her friends built her a sun room of her own.

Every morning Molly wakes up before dawn and climbs into her chair.  Her house is built on a cloud that always face East.  There are eleven teen foot windows facing that direction and a beautiful chair behind the glass.  Next to that are several smaller chairs for her friends.   That was my destination.

I am not a big early morning flyer.  The air is cold and brisk:  Like jumping into a cold, dark water.  But I could see Molly sitting in her chair.  When saw saw me she got up, got me a blanket to warm me up, a hot cup of coffee and invited me into her chair to snuggle and watch the event.

Then the sun came up, first lighting the darkness with orange, purple, yellow and red.  Then the sun rose over the river and the light and the warmth hit us like a thousand little fireflies.  We snuggled next to each other and I realized that a sunroom is a very beautiful thing indeed.

Wordless Wednesday

Spooky Walks by Pocket Dog

River Song and I are very observant when we are walking.  We know what is in every yard and where it should be.  If something is missing we bark.  And if there is something new we bark louder.

There are two times a year when these new intruders cause constant barking.  One is Christmas and the second is Halloween.   During Halloween we give out a special bark.

Because these are not ordinary decorations.  They are demons, skeletons, witches and ghosts.  While I have never seen real ones Foley did when she used to walk around the abandoned state mental facility  She would look in the windows and give a special bark.  It was her “Oh look there is a ghost in the window” bark.

Our parents became very aware of that bark.  Foley would be walking by an abandoned building, stop, slowly start to growl as she stared in the window, then begin a full throated bark.  It is the same bark River and I perform when we see the scary decorations.

While our parents know what we are barking at now, when they were walking around the mental hospital they were afraid of what she was barking at.  They would look in the windows and not see anything and Foley would be barking like mad, wagging her tail and looking in the window.  There are those who say the State Hospital was haunted.  We know Foley would agree.

One night Daddy noticed there was smoke pouring from a building near their house.  He thought it was from the State Hospital because homeless people were known to sleep there at night.  Daddy wanted to check it out but he didn’t want to look suspicious so he put Foley on her leash and together the walked over the check it out.  Sure enough all the abandoned building were aflame.

As Daddy was leaving the four police cruisers came speeding on to the site.  One stopped and an officer got out to question Daddy.  Daddy thought he would look innocent walking a little dog until he looked down and saw Foley with a book of matches in her mouth trying to light one with her paw.  Thankfully the officer did not see the Mini Monster of Mischief and they were allowed to return home.  Foley never walked by  the haunted buildings again.   

In respect to Foley, and her ghost hunting abilities River and I bark at every supernatural thing we see.  But our parents should keep in mind that they live in the Village of the Pruned.  Are we barking at a fake ghost hanging from the porch of is there something mysterious inside that only we know about?

Only our barks can tell

Smoochy is our September 20, 2015 Pup of the Week

Let me tell you something about monkees.  They are darn dangerous.  My very bestie friend Smoochy:  He loves monkees.  He has a house full of them.  They are usually under control, or more accurately under tooth, as his monkees are often in his mouth.

Last year Smoochy lost all his monkees.  He caught the almost uncatchable (for a dog) MRSA illness.  This is one of the worst illnesses a dog can have.  It can be fatal.  His Mom, for a long while, could only touch him while wearing gloves.  And he had to throw out his monkees.  After a terribly long time the MRSA was gone and Smoochy got himself some new monkees.  But there was an issue we did not foresee.

Smoochy did not have time to train his monkees on proper stuffie etiquette.  On Sunday Smoochy’s Mom Kay was watching football on TV.  She got up during a commercial and one of the untrained monkees reached up and grabbed her ankle  Mama Kay fell to the ground.

She felt terrible pain from her hip down to her leg.  She tried to stand but it was excruciating.  She looked around the room but did not see her phone nearby.  To contact the authorities she had to scooch across the floor to the phone.

Scooching was not something she did with great regularity and, when you are a dog named Smoochy, and someone is going scoochy, it is natural to think that the scoocher wants to play.  So while his Mom was painfully scooching across the floor Scooby was dancing around her excited about this fun new game.

Mama Kay called the ambulance people and then she had to scooch past Smooch to get to the door and unlock it.   When the people came to take her away Smoochy realized that something had gone terribly wrong and his hurt Mom was going somewhere without him.

While Smoochy fretted at home his Mom went to the hospital where they took x-rays.  Her hip was indeed fractured but she did not need an operation.  She would to be in the hospital for a few days and then she was moved to a re-hab facility where she will try to get back on her feet in a couple of weeks.

A friend of Smoochy’s Mom brought him to Doggy Day Care where he is being treated like a Prince but no matter how many times we will him he will be reunited with his Mom he is still very worried about ever seeing her again.  And his troublesome monkees.  

So please say a prayer for Mama Kay to get healthy soon so she and Smoochy can be together, and that sometime soon they will get be able to live a normal life, with no MRSA, no broken bones and no troublesome monkees.