The Ruby Rose and the Big Little Angels 3 Blog

We are being spied upon my friends and those doing the spying are the ones closest to us, our parents. Yup, thanks to Motorola Big Brother has turned into Big Mommy and Daddy and our privacy has been invaded more rudely than a small Ukrainian village. Motorola is selling at Pet Smarts and other stores Pet Monitors.  At first I thought they were really big monitors where we could watch our kitty porn but no, we aren’t watching the monitors, the monitors are watching us.   They are placed around the house, and when we cross in front of the camera it picks up our image and sends it to a computer where our untrusting parents are watching (which, arguably is more exciting than whatever work they are supposed to do instead of watching us.)   This infringes on our most basic rights:  To do whatever we want when our parents leave us.  It s our way of punishing them for leaving.   Then, when they return home, we sit amongst our living room of ruins, with a confused expression on our face

I know Mother’s Day is not for a few week but we should be celebrating our Moms every week, and I am going to do it today, especially for those Mom’s who are struggling right now.   There are some, like my Mom, who struggle with pain every day.  Besides the pain from her worn artificial knees and bad neck her vertebrae is compressing giving her back pain.  She is also getting smaller.  Don’t tell Daddy.  He thinks he is getting taller (and larger.)  When it comes to humans men are much sillier. When something is wrong with us our Moms go on the Humanbook and spill every little embarrassing detail of our illnesses.  Us dogs do a much better job of protecting our Mom’s privacy, and sometimes all we write is that our Mom needs prayers.  Pups don’t ask questions, we just pray. This week, at the Bridge Cathedral on Tanner Brigade, Benjamin, Butkus, Barry and Pepper asked for prayers for their Mom,   We don’t know why, but we pray very hard that she is OK, for her, and for Benji

Dear Aunt Foley:  We are puppies barely a few months old.  Why do we need baths?  How dirty could we have gotten in a matter of weeks? - Huck and Elvis Dear Huck and Elvis:  First of all, it is always good when pups write in.  It keeps the column fresh.  I know you weren’t with us when I was on that mortal side of the Bridge but you should know I was kind of a big deal.  Now on to your question. There are two schools of thought on this.  The first one is that we are dogs.  We are descended from wolves, we are meant to be outside, and anyone outside gets dirty.  We should be able to bathe on our own schedule and where we want:  Ponds, swamps, big puddles, whatever comes in handy.   But humans always think they know better than nature and insist on doing things their own way, bathing us to make us smell something other than our natural smell, which is God awful stank.  Humans do care for us, feed us, pick up our poo, and love us, so letting them bathe us now and th

Finally my minions have melted the ice rink, most of the water has run off, and we even have some grass shoots coming up.  I do apologize for the long winter (and especially to Enzo. There is still lots of snow on Enzo mountain due to a leaky ice machine.  It was my first winter at the Bridge and I learned a late season hockey tournament was a bad idea.  I am going to make up for it with lots of heat lamps to help my garden grow here.  Lots and lots of heat lamps Not only do I have to worry about the gardens I am planting up here (I am going to be doing lots of watering once I have planted my seeds so those of you who live along coastal areas or waterways I am issuing a flash flood warning until the beginning of June.  If this had been an actual emergency I would have appeared in your dreams and barked:  “Head for the hills!) But  the Bridge garden is not the only one that I am concerned with.  I have to start planning my earthly gardens for the spring.  I have v

It has been a terribly long winter for everyone on the mortal side of the Bridge.  On this Easter Sunday hopefully a hint of spring has appeared in all your yards but there is one pup who is stuck in the land of eternal winter.  His name is Enzo and he lives on Enzo Mountain in Colorado where all it ever does is snow. Here at the Bridge we have heard Enzo’s prayers and we have lobbied to help him.  But we were told Enzo’s Mountain needs to be thawed slowly.  If we do it too quickly it will send water rushing down the hills toward the little village of Pompei Colorado, and we don’t want history repeating. We must give credit to Enzo and his family.  A similar fate struck Walton’s Mountain in the 40’s   All that’s left is the diary of their eldest son John Boy.  The last entry reads:  “We finished off the last of Grandpa last night.  We pulled Pa out of the freezer and will start in one him tomorrow.  We hope to make stock out of Jim Bob for the summer.  I just burp

Dear Aunt Foley:  Last week I read “Ask Aunt Foley” and you answered why us dogs are not considered tax deductions and why this is wrong.  I decided to see if there were any documents in my Daddy’s desk that would support him claiming us as deduction.  After it was done the room looked like this: Daddy was quite upset.  Did I do the wrong thing?  - Jasper Dear Jasper:  Of course you did the right thing in looking for receipts.  Any time you can facilitate more kibble being brought in the house it is a good thing.  But, as the former top dog attorney in the country I must admonish you for what you did wrong.  Barking about it. Again, totally support the searching for receipts, but, when your Daddy came home, you should have been sniffing around, not even looking at your Dad, intently sniffing, even when he is yelling at you.  After he is tired of listening to himself yell he might notice you sniffing.  At that moment you look at the door and whine, then run to the front door, then

Sniffing around the house I have found lots of Yorkie things:  Writing paper, calendars, statues, bottle covers, pens, mugs, checkbook covers, just about everything.  I understood when I arrived here that there would be lots of Yorkie things but now that this is a half Griffon household I want to know where the Griffon stuff is. I have been told that Mommy has sought such items but hasn’t been able to find any.  What is the meaning of this?  Look at me!  I am freaking adorable!  My entire breed is.  Why aren’t there Griffon themed items?  I am being discriminated against by the big anti-cute movement. Part of the problem is that we don’t have big litters.  I only produced two myself.  So there are not a lot of us Griffons running around, not like Labs that have 20 or 30 pups a pop , or so I have heard.  We are a rare commodity, like diamonds.  but we are also a Mom’s best friend. But I think us Griffons should be as represented as other breeds so I need your parents because they

This week the Internet was rocked with news that shook the country and roiled the oceans.   Hattie Mae announced her retirement from social life.  She is stepping aside to spend more time with her Mom and Dad, her handmaiden Jackie Lynn (sorry Jackie, it’s true) and her husband Leo (who will still post but is under orders from his wife not to speak of her.). Hattie has spent the last few years on the small, private, Tanner Brigade site.  But before that she was the single most influential dogs on social media.  A trailblazer in a summer dress and yellow sun hat.  The web designers and investors may have created Doggyspace but it was Hattie Mae who showed us how to use it. Under her bewitching touch we all learned how to get our secretaries to both take, and post, pictures of us in the most adorable clothes.  She taught us how to take our everyday life and spin it into entertaining and often moving stories.  Hattie Mae was the first to be able to convey a dog

I am not sure what’s been going on around here lately but I know it’s not good.  One morning while we were all cuddled in bed Daddy’s phone made that funny noise, not the one that rings but that other weirder one where he has to read, not talk.  It took him a few seconds for his eyes to adjust and then he said  “Oh Christ he fell again.”  I wasn’t sure who he was.  The last “he” who fell down and bothered Daddy was Will Middlebrooks but I don’t think it was him. Daddy was gone for a long time that day, and when he came home he was quiet.  Later that night his phone rang.  I watched him and the aura that surrounded him and I saw everything ease.  I put my head down and no longer worried. The next day, Daddy must have done something before grocery shopping because he was between aggravated and nervous with a touch of weariness when he got home.  When Daddy came home from work on Thursday besides the stank of strange dog on his clothes, the aura and demeanor had become quieter, more