The Ruby Rose and the Big Little Angels 3 Blog

Having reached eleven I am starting to get nostalgic about Christmases past. With that in mind I went into the basement of my condo and pulled out the journals of my Daddy’s childhood dog Barney. (Back in those times before computers and the Internet dogs had to write in journals and hope that someday humans would invent something to allow their stories to be widely distributed.) I dug out a journal that said Christmas. There was the story about how he chased Santa down the driveway barking at him when he paid an unexpected visit; the story of the Jewish lawyer who each year brought the family fruit basket and for years Daddy and his sister thought Hannakuah was a day people of the Jewish faith brought Christians fruit. But then I found one I thought you would enjoy. It is called: “The Calvey Christmas Card.” From the paw of Barney Dog: It was a freezing cold December morning. I was trying to keep warm in my dog house but some days there just weren’t enough wood chips. I

Christmas is a time for many things. Three of them are old friends, new friends, and miracles. The Pet Pack managed to provide us all three in a spawn of five days. We had only heard from the Pack once since May of 2010 when they came back to our dog park and barked that they were here to stay. They also introduced us to a new Pack member: Her name is Cinnamon, she is a lab mix, and came from the shelter her Mom works at. She was a Christmas gift to the family. She is sweet and fit right in with the Pack. But as soon things went terribly wrong. She became very sick. Her breath and her ears reeked. She had come home the most playful of pups but now she had no energy. She only wanted to drink water but her nose very dry. She had terrible diarrhea, just liquid squirting, with continuous accidents. Her Mom made a vet appointment for her and asked for prayers. Her Mom also spent as much time with her as she could. She fell asleep in a chair with her for two hours.

This morning when we got up to do our business there was a box on our steps. Of course it was for us. All boxes that come to our house have things inside them for us. After we completed our business requirements we came back to the house and Daddy brought the big box inside. He told us it was from Hobo and his family. We gathered round as he jabbed a kitchen knife into the carton and ripped it open. And then he picked up what was inside. A beautiful, big orange ball. Daddy called to Mommy and told her that they got oranges from Hobo and family. We are so full of balls in this house we don’t even call them balls. We just name the color. While Mommy and Daddy were looking at the orange I got on my back legs and had Pocket crawl up my back and get in the chair. From there she was able to tug on the box and pull it over to the edge of the table. She then stuck her face into the box and one by one dropped four of the orange balls on to the floor. Let me tell you, for those w

Congratulations you! You are our Pup of the Week. It’s about time isn’t it? Now you might be wondering: Me? Why me? Well, because I have spent time on DS in the last two months, and if there is anything that it has made me realize how wonderful you are. Don’t misconstrue my meaning. There are absolutely wonderful dogs on DS. I would love them to come here. I think they would be happier here. But then there are....The Others. Some of you former members of DS may remember the Saturday night flights. On Saturday night Levi would be tucked into bed with his stuffed (or inflated) Princess and the members he monitored so closely would begin to fight, never about dog issues, but always about that someone said something that they shouldn’t have said, or was misunderstood, which started a fight which everyone needed to chime in on and the Saturday night fights were on. I had forgotten how unsettling the Saturday night fights were until last night when a week of fighting b

There are days we dogs dread on the pup calendar. Bath day; vet day; and then the worst of all: Christmas card picture day. We knew it was coming. Most mornings, while Mommy is doing her hair, I sit in my chair and Pocket sits next to Daddy in the recliner and trembles because she hates when they leave. Tuesday morning I was chilling and Pocket was trembling. I am much better at reading my humans’ vibes than Pocket is. I knew they weren’t going anywhere. The tree with the seizure causing lights was up, the stocking were hung, the little village crowded the shelves, there was only one thing left, the dreaded picture taking. If you read the blogs about my foot injury you are aware that my parents do not respect knowledge. Without any medical training in the least they dictated how my paw would heal. This was going to be the Battle of the Bloody Paw all over again. But this time there would be photographic proof. Mommy used the instruments of torture on her hair. Pock

Just before us pups are placed on this earth we are given our instructions, find a human who loves you then gives them all your heart. You are very happy and fulfilled doing this. But, since we give our hearts to our humans, ours don’t last as long as human hearts, which break their hearts. It all sounds like a vicious circle to me. This brings me to my good friend Paco. Paco lives in Italy, which is part of Europe, which is like a land where there are a hundred United States, one more screwed up than the other. Paco and his Mom were both very fortunate to find one another. They gave each other their hearts so they would beat as one. But Paco’s heart, after many years, has grown weaker. He had to go the the dogtor (or, as they call them in Italy LaDogtor) for an echography (I am sorry, I don’t know what this is, I asked Pocket, who has an honorary doctorate from training school and she said you perform the test by going to a cliff and throwing a dog against a wall, then

Zoe Boe is a good friend of ours. She is very sweet and docile. But this week we learned something remarkable about her. Zoe Boe is a super dog, called to help humans in need who flash their Zoe Boe signal off their smart phones. When Zoe Boe sees her signal she runs outside, leaps in the air, and takes off tracking the source of the signal. Earlier this week she saw it shining in the sky to the West. She flew there within minutes. She landed at an airport. One of those silly men in the brightly colored suits and ear phones ran to her. “What is the problem citizen?” she asked. “There is a bad man on the plane with a hand held device. We don’t know if it’s a bomb but he’s ranting and raving. Zoe Boe you are our only chance!” Zoe Boe put a reassuring paw on the man’s shoulder and told him to keep everyone away from the plane. She then took two steps back, ran towards the plane, jumped on the wing, slid to the window and clawed at it until it was open as she gained acce

Who wants to read an interview with my shy and barely seen Mom? And see pictures? She was luckily enough to be interviewed on the famous coffee with canine blog. There is even answer to how Foley got her name. You can read it HERE

It has been bred in dogs since the stone age to attack the postman. At that time people communicated by drawing on stone with slate. The postman would be weighed down with stones, so, when they walked up uninvited to our cave opening, we gave chase, and, because they were so weighed down, they were easily catchable, and because food was scarce, well, things could get ugly. Their only recourse was to throw stones at us, which allowed us, after the chase, to catch up with news from the other caves. Strangely, this means of chase and learn still exists in Afghanistan. Today I think we dogs have to agree to overcome our breeding and let the postman be, because as of late Pocket and I have received more mail then Mommy and Daddy combined. In our village Daddy leashes us, takes us for a walk to do our business, and to get the mail. The mail is kept in a little room at the front of the village. Because this is the Village of the Pruned there is a handicapped ramp leading to the r

You know, sometimes all you want is a sun room. That’s all our friend Mollie, her Mom Cindy, and her Dad wanted.  A sun room.  But this sun room became to them like an Alby Truss, something that follows them around and brings nothing but trouble. The building of their sun room began, according to my calculations, sometime in 1992.  Mollie has her favorite spot in the sun removed.  There was banging and booming, sawing and swearing, all day long.  Now they are waiting for the painters to get done (we remember the hot week in July when the painters took over our house, no fun) and then for the ceramic tile to come in.  Seems endless to me. And they need to have an inspector come in.  An inspector is a lot like a dogtor.  They poke and prod until they find something wrong.  We can only hope that Mollie’s sun room is done before the snow melts. But that is not why we honor Mollie, much like our our friends last week, we honor them because after all this work, her Daddy has taken ill.  He

I have never sought the spotlight. I prefer to stay off stage and comment on the events of the day. But today I reluctantly found out that a long forgotten incident has caused me to become fodder for the American tabloid machine, even though I did nothing wrong. The incident began, as so many do, innocently enough. I was a young dog. I had been working for months creating, and perfecting, squirrel jerky. I was selling it out of the sliding glass doors of our condo when a passing kitty told me there was going to be a National Restaurant Convention coming to the Boston area later that month. The kitty said I should go to it to peddle my jerky. I saved my kibble and bought a bus ticket to the big city. I loaded the jerky into my fanny pack, boarded the bus, and headed off to make my fortune. I set up my Squirrel Jerky booth. While some of the humans showed a slight interest none of them saw it being a big item on their menu, and they reminded me something I, in my young and

If you read my blog last week you will know that I suffered a paw injury.  Mommy, who has no medical training, attempted to fix it, while I knew that all wounds can be healed by a dog’s tongue, and we battled over what treatment was better, until it was healed, whereby we both took credit. Shortly after I published the blog I was still licking my paw.  Mommy told me I would hurt it again if I persisted.  I scoffed.  What does she know? The next morning I was lame again, unable to put any wright on my right paw.  Mommy told me I had done it to myself with excessive licking.  I disagreed.  The injury had nothing to do with my licking, the wound was caused by one of the following. Pocket licking my feet while I was sleeping because my paws are delicious. Our house is built over an Indian Dog Burial Ground and the spirits of the dogs attack my paw at night. Robbers broke into the house while Mommy and Daddy slept and I fought them off with my paw. I am the first dog to have a Stigmata.  

see rescued beagles here

There is a joke by the human comedian Bill Cosby. I am not a big fan of human humor, Fozzy Bear is more my style, but I thought he raised a good point. He talked about, as the father of a male athlete, you get up early, take him to practice, take him to games, pay for the uniforms, pay for the equipment, work with him in the yard, take him to colleges, and, when they score a touchdown, and get on TV, they look in the camera and say "Hi Mom." I think, as dogs, we are guilty of that too. Those of us who have Daddies, while we love them, we really are Mama’s dogs. If Mommy is gone we might be sitting with him, or playing with him, but when Mommy appears, boom, we’re gone. This week I learned that my very good friends, Moose, Sydney and Buddy, have a Daddy who had become quite ill. And it’s one of those illnesses which they haven’t found a cure for yet. And it’s one of those illnesses that keeps getting worse. I don’t like to think about those illnesses. And Sydne

I, Pocket Dog, have a very important proclamation. As many of you know. in my four years of existence, I have been inflicted with excitable urination syndrome, depressed urination syndrome, comfortable urination syndrome, I don’t feel like getting out of the chair urination syndrome, ah the hell with it I am just going to pee on the floor urination syndrome. For a young dog I was afflicted with lots of syndromes. I am often asked how did I cope with all these syndromes. Surprisingly well. There were some positive side effects. I didn’t have to go outside in the rain, or the snow, or the cold, or the warm, or the sun. The bad side effect was that Mommies don’t like it when you pee on their rug (but Manny’s Rug Cleaning and Pig Butchering sure does) and I had to wear pants. Some called these pants diapers. I don’t like to refer to them as diapers, Diapers are something you wear under your pants, unless your Batman or Robin, and those two have a whole other thing going on.

It seemed like, for a good long while, it was another Pup of the Week, another very sick pup. But this week it’s another Pup of the Week, another pup happily ensconced in their forever home. Last week it was Wishbone. This week it’s Tiger. Tiger’s life started out like a morning nightmare. Thankfully the rest of his life will be filled with sweet dreams. He began his life locked inside, no feeling of sun on his fur, no smells of nature drifting into he wet nose, no tongue tasting everything that looks interesting. Because, as he said in his first blog on The Brigade, he had hit the jackpot. He got fostered by Sierra’s and Nase’s Mom. Jackpot indeed. From a cold hard surface Tiger got a fluffy pillow in his crate. Food came at a regular time each day. Water was always available. And the food was so tasty. Like nothing he had eaten before. When he had become fostered he was too thin but with all the good food that problem was quickly righted. And it took Tiger no

Oh nobody knows the trouble I have seen this week. On Monday I got a cut, due to totally irresponsible walking by my Daddy. My less than attentive parents didn’t notice the hitch in my gait until I jumped off Mommy’s recliner on to the hardwood floor and while my back legs and left front foot moved in my normal, graceful trot, my right leg Yamaguchid all over the floor. Pocket noticed. We usually attack one another when one of us is lame but she just laughed thinking I was doing an imitation of the previous Monday’s Nancy Grace dance elimination dance. I hobbled for a drink of water. No one noticed. I swear I could spontaneously catch fire one day and my two slack jawed parents wouldn’t turn away from the bad dancing they are enthralled with on the television. Finally Daddy noticed and he helped me into the recliner. He tried to check my paw but screw him! He couldn’t bring the water dish to me he doesn’t get to play with my toes. Truth is my pads really hurt. Daddy took

Lately there has been lots of blogs about zombies. Kolchak’s and Felix’s Mom even took place in something called the zombie apocalypse over the weekend. People took scary pictures of themselves with zombie gore on them and posted it on line. I didn’t like this at all. I don’t want my parents to be zombies. I like them just the way they are. But if you must know here are my top ten reasons for not wanting my parents to be zombies. 10. Zombies are terrible walkers. They don’t hold on to the leash. They don’t walk in a straight line so they are always tripping over you. They never remember the way home. No matter how much you tug they only stumble the way they want to go. 9. They don’t pick up your Vick. If they do they taste in then throw it down in anger. 8. If you see a human and bark at them, then walk over to them wagging your tail to get petted, they eat them. 7. If you chase a squirrel day after day, and finally catch them, your zombie parent eats them too.

Like Harry Potter Wishbone is the dog who lived. I first met Wishbone shortly after he was saved for the first time. He was a coon hound who wasn’t good at hunting. His owner thought a dog that won’t hunt ain’t worth the expense and planned to have him killed. But in came the force of nature known as Paula Malatestsa and she saved Wishbone from certain death. But Wishbone, having narrowly escaped the Bridge, was a very skittish dog. When he got his first chance he bolted out the gate and into the wilds of North Carolina where dogs are nothing but property and they put dogs down if they stray on to the road. Miss Paula was distraught. She looked everywhere but there was no sign of Wishbone. On Sunday she went to church to pray for her boy. When she came out of church she looked down a hill and saw Wishbone. Decked out in her Sunday best she went running down the hill to save her boy. Wishbone saw her, running, then tripping, then rolling, down the hill, and said “well

I have come before you today to do what I seldom do with a human unless I have licked a fair amount of their skin, and that is to praise them. The human I have come before you to praise is Peggy Frezon She was one of the brilliant minds behind K9 Kamp that gave me plenty of laughs, watching Pocket Dog and Daddy tripping over one another. Now she has a new a venture. A book. Yes, the things Daddy reads while he is sitting on the giant water bowl making vicks in good drinking water. Her new book is called Dieting With My Dog . She has her work published in Guideposts Magazine , V and written for the Chicken Soup for the Soul books . But this is her first actual book and I must tell you, for a book written by a human it isn’t bad. The bipeds are buying it up like hotcakes (and then getting upset when they find out hotcakes isn’t good for their diet.) It has sold out on Amazon.com. Query for the humans: How does a book store run out of books when there is no actual store?

*Sound of audience murmuring and then a band beings to play the Foley Monster theme song* Pocket: It’s the Pawnight Show starring Foley Monster. With Hobo Hudson and the all mutt Orchestra featuring Hattie Mae on vocals. Foley’s guest star tonight is national disgrace Kris Humphires. I’m your announcer Pocket Dog. And now heeeeeerrrreee’s Foley. *The audience begins applauding as Foley comes out bowing* Foley: Welcome. Wow. Snow one day then hot weather the next. I don’t know which of my fur to wear. *Audience howls.* Foley: My sister Pocket likes to bury her bones in the yard. I asked her way why and she says because you can’t bury it in a tree. *Audience howls.* Foley: Later tonight I am going on a trip to my favorite city. I am going to New Yorkie. *Audience growls.* Foley: Ladies and gentlemen Hobo Hudson and his all mutt orchestra. *Hobo and the band play Hound Dog while Foley walks over to her desk. She jumps up, circles three times, scratches the top of

How is it possible we have been doing this as long as we have and Clementine and the Girls have never been our Pups of the Week? (Unless theu have been, I asked Pocket to check our records this morning but she spent all morning chasing balls). We better be right. After last week when we named the wrong pup Pup of the Week Mommy told us no more Saturday night Foletinis if we made another Pup of the Week mistake and we can’t live wtthout our Saturday night Foleytinis. So today we honor Clementine and the Girls, hosts of the fine show So You Think You Can Bark. Wait! I have been handled a note from Pocket Dog. Oh man, we are so going to lose our Foleytini Saturday nights. Clemetine and the Girls do not host that show. They are, though, very worthy pup of the week candidates. There are three main reasons that we have named Clementine and the Girls our pups of the week. First is that they do a wonderful job updating us on our friends Saffron and Sage. Since Saffron and S

I have quite the set of balls. I have friends send me balls, Mom buys me balls, there were balls here when I got here. I play with my balls. All sorts of different ones. But I usually have one ball that I play with above all others. I call it my yellow ball. Because it is yellow. And mine. Last week Daddy was sitting in the glider. Grampy was over, he was sitting in the recliner. Mommy was in the kitchen talkin’ ‘bout the government. I brought my favorite yellow ball over to Daddy and dropped it at his feet. He threw the ball while talking with Grampy. I kept running it down and bringing it back. Over and over. Then Daddy threw it. It skipped down the hall and I lost track of it. I came to the closed front bedroom door. The ball wasn’t there. I walked into the adjacent laundry room. You know what? No ball there. I went into the front bathroom. No ball there. Then I frantically looked around the kitchen. Still I was ball less. Completely without ball. Momm

Our friend Cooper needs our prayers.  He has a condition that causes his bone marrow to make too many red blood cells which can cause seizures, hemorrhages, blood clots to to the brain, tumors and death. On Wednesday the vet told his Mom that his HCT level rose five points in two days which was very scary.  Also she could not get the medicine he needed because it was not available yet.  He told her to watch Cooper to make sure he was not showing any signs of needing a blood draw but never told her what those signs were.  His poor Mom didn’t know what to do or which way to turn. On Thursday Cooper and his Mom spent six hours at the vets.  They took his blood which doesn’t seem nice and didn’t replace it with fluids for a long time leaving our friend a little loopy and tired.  He has to go back a week from Monday for a CBC.  While there they had to suffer through what always happens when you spend too long at the vet, they came in contact with someone who was putting down their pe

The last time our Pup of the Week, Scooter, was so honored, it was in September 2010. It was a dark days for us dogs. We had recently lost some of our friends to the Bridge and when Scooter’s groomer spotted red marks on his mouth and tummy the vet put forth two courses of action: One, he would be fine, the other would be another pup lost to the bridge. The diagnosis was IMHA. He needed a transfusion and lots of expensive treatments. But Scooter is a champ and he pulled through, fighting off long odds, helped by his Mom’s love. Thirteen months later (an unlucky number) in the six days before the dead walk the Earth (also unlucky) Scooter got some unlucky news. He has a condition that causes his bone marrow to make too many red blood cells which can cause seizures, hemorrhages, blood clots to to the brain, tumors and death. Even sadder, Cooper was about to come off the medication for IMHA. After a year of fighting off one illness and beating it, and maxing out his Mom’s cre