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