The Ruby Rose and the Big Little Angels 3 Blog

I am often asked what us dogs’ biggest failing is, and sadly I know the answer, we trust humans too much. Often this is a wonderful trusting relationship that lasts our lifetime.  But occasionally we put our trust in the wrong person and when we do the results can be horrific, at least for us.  When our parents put their trust in these same bad humans their cries of sorrow can be heard across the river. This is what happened at Green Acre Dog Boarding in Gilbert Arizona.  They advertised themselves as having facilities for a dozen dogs who would have plenty of room to play inside and out with individual attention from the staff.  Parents, looking for a loving doggy daycare, left their dogs at the facility last weekend. Something went terribly wrong that day. By it’s end 20 dogs, who had been left at Green Acre Dog Boarding earlier in the day, stood on the steps of the Bridge, waiting to be sworn into the immortal life.   They all told the same sad story.    They were brought int

Dear Aunt Foley:  Last winter you made it very cold with your ice hockey tournament.  Please tell me you don’t have any activities planned to make it hotter here this summer::  Bella Dear Bella: I don’t want you to worry my friend, I learned my lesson this winter and know that my actions can affect those left behind on the mortal side of the river.  So I will not be doing anything that makes it hotter for you.   Unless you live in the pacific southwest where we have already started our weenie roasts.  You can’t blame us. You know us dogs love weenies.  But we are only going to be holding it through mid-October. Then there are the silent fireworks.  We love a good fireworks display at night.  Its so pretty.  Our launching pad is somewhere over the western plains, so it might get a bit hot there for a few months. And there is no better place to watch a firework display than in a hot tub,  It takes a lot of machinery to keep the hot tub going and we placed the pumps over the sout

What do you mean did I eat the plant?  Why would you think that?  Why am I sitting in the bay window?   Looking for the bay

In June I “celebrated” my one year anniversary at Rainbow Bridge.   Honestly it was quite disappointing.  Turns out the first year anniversary is paper and I was given a box of pee pads.   I don’t even pee!  Not that anniversary gifts will improve much.  Between 25 and  50 year anniversary gifts are good but after that things go downhill.  By the time of my 357th anniversary I will be receiving two dozen goats.  Like I have a place to keep two dozen goats. While the Bridge is a wonderful place, from the River of Life where we can look in our loved ones, to the beautiful mountains overlooking the animals’ sections of the Bridge, to the grand mansions in the valley where the humans live, it is also a bittersweet place. Everyone here misses someone.  There is so much to do that we don’t have much time to think about the loved ones we have left behind.  But occasionally these feelings do arise and when they do, the other angels can sense it, and we gather to share memories and

One of the most valued traits most appreciated in pups is patience.  When I lived on the mortal side of the River I was known for my patience.  I never barked for food,or  to go out, or when I wanted to play.  I would just sit quietly and wait for my parents to finish what they were doing then be grateful when they gave me attention.  If my Mom remembers differently just remember that studies done by the mice scientific institute at the Bridge show that humans lose 15% of their memory each year so she is wrong. I mention patience because for the last three weeks I have wanted to use my Sunday blog to recognize my friend Sandy but with the crossing over of Brooklyn and Susie and Nathan’s urgent need of a home Sandy had to wait.  Now that Nathan is settling into his new home it is time to tip my tail to Sandy. Our friend Sandy has always been a very active chap.  His favorite activity is chasing squirrels, although any vermin, or even his siblings if its a low vermin day, will

Dear Aunt Foley:  Last week was supposed to be my week.  Daddy was on vacation and I was promised long walks, a trip to the Peddler’s Village, and maybe a hamburger.  Well it rained on my vacation week.  On Saturday Mommy and Daddy went out of the house and when they came home they tried to act all casual but I could smell the stank of other dogs on them.  They had cheated on me.  Should I forgive them?  Leo Dear Leo:  I know exactly what you are talking about.  You are sitting at home nervously waiting for your parents to return.  You hear their car, the shutting of doors, the key in the lock, the door opening, then you see them, you run to them,  greet them with all the love in your heart, and then you get hit with the stench of another dog.  It is stunning, and you don’t know how to react. I believe part of what makes us so angry is how casual our parents are about it.  They know they cheated.  Couldn’t they give us the respect of trying to cover it up?  Would it kill them to

This is copied from our friend's Romeo's Page on DS:   Nathan will be fostered by Charlot' s Mom, Barbara. Charlot is Slater's sister!!!! We are hoping she will be a "foster failure" and end up keeping him! BOL Wishbone' s Mom, Tiffany has been working since November to find a home for Nathan, so PAWS up to Tiffany! We are so happy that Nathan is safe!

Usually I do my Sunday blog about a dog who has recently joined me at the Bridge, or is in need of prayers to keep them from our gates.  This week’s pup Nathan is healthy, but unless he gets a last second miracle he could be joining me at the Bridge very soon.  This is Nathan’s story Nathan was rescued, as were so many dogs before him, by my friend Wishbone’s savior (and first real Mom) Paula Malatesta.  Numerous pups, and their owners, owe Paula for the love they share.  But now Paula is in ill health, having suffered the latest of several heart attacks, and no one can assure how many days this wonderful woman who devoted her life to saving us souls who commit our lives to humans, has left on the mortal side of the River of Life and before she passes over she has one final mission:  To save Nathan. Nathan is a treewalker coonhound from North Carolina who is either five or six years of age and weighs in the vicinity of 80 pounds.  He is neutered and up to date on his shots.  He is

As many of you know my Mommy loves to work in the garden, and it is my duty to make sure that she doesn’t over-do it and hurt herself.  When I was on the mortal side of the Bridge I would do this by panting a lot in the stroller so my Mommy would quit because I was overheated.  But my sisters are of no use in this situation.  They just peacefully sit in the stroller until I knock it over Usually I watch over Mommy and when she overworks I send a bird to poop on her, or send an unexpected rain storm, or flip my sisters’ buggy, and she stops working.  But I have been working very hard at the Bridge lately and decided to spend Memorial Day at the Beach.  Unfortunately this coincided with Mom’s gardening day. I needed someone to watch over her so I called in my squirrel minions.  I told them if Mommy worked over two hours then make it rain.  They squeaked and squirted yes and I grabbed my towel and went to the beach. When I got back four hours later I checked in the River of Life.  

Dear Aunt Foley:  My Mommy spent the entire winter trapped with me on snowy, frozen Enzo Mountain.  Despite the cold I enjoyed it very much.  Then spring came and Mommy got a job riding in the front end of Thomas the Tank Engine.  I know she is getting paid for it, but I can’t imagine why (humans.)  Anyway, while I am happy she is bringing home fresh kibble I do miss her.  Am I being selfish? - Enzo Enzo:  This is one of the most difficult quandaries in a dog’s life.  We want our parents home all the time but if they are home all the time then they won’t have any money and, if they don’t have any money, we won’t have a home to be in, unless they are retired, which is wonderful, but sometimes they have been retired so long they can’t do long walks and play at the dog park, or they are rich, and when they are rich they always seem to be jetting off here and there, and if we do go along we seem to be more fashion accessory than friend. So you do have to let your Mom go to work becaus

A scientist with way too much time on his hands, obviously obsessed with dogs’ noses and peoples’ crotches, discovered, by what I hope was a freak accident, that dogs can detect prostate cancer in men by sniffing their pee.  The breakthrough was thought to be a great advancement for man, but really it is a great advancement for dogs. Now, when we see a strange man, and we jump up and shove our face in his crotch, and are told to get down, we can turn around, look at our parent, and say “dammit, this isn’t fun, this is a medical examination.” If, after an examination we grab on to the man’s cuff and don’t let go it isn’t a sign of aggressiveness but a sign that something might be seriously wrong and the stranger should see a doctor immediately. I hope that the scientists with nothing better to do can help us detect some butt cancer too, and maybe some lady part cancer too.  Oh to be able to shove our noses where ever we want in the name of medicine. I advise all humans wear

I realize this is going to be hard for many of you to believe but there was a time when I wasn’t the world renowned celebrity blogger that I am now.  In 2007, when I joined DS, I wasn’t sure what I should do.  Be funny?  Be sympathetic?  And how much of my own life do I share? I decided to take a look around the place and found Moses’ blogs.  They were mostly written by his Mom.  He had recently become terminally ill.  She did not write as much as she opened an emotional spigot and let it flow.  She vividly described everything she went through:  The shock, the pain, the horror, the emptiness, the grief, the sorrow, the loneliness.  Joan Didion and Christopher Buckley may have written bestsellers about grief and loss but no one wrote about it with more honesty than Moses’ Mom. The first lesson I learned from DS, and I have carried it every day, is that Moses is love. And the second lesson I learned is how to blog.  There is no moment that is private, as long as it is based o

Dear Aunt Foley:  Why did God take away my best friend Ruger and leave me with the annoyance called Maxx, who whines all the time and refuses to play with me? Cocoa Puff Dear Cocoa:  This is one of the most difficult questions to answer.  Why does God take our best friends?   First, keep in mind that God does not take anyone.  We are all born with a specific number of heartbeats, some of us have numbers that are high, and others, like Ruger have numbers that are way too low. So God didn’t take away your best friend, Ruger just ran out of time on the mortal side of the River of Life, and he is here, with me, and Tanner, on the immortal side, where Tanner serves as Mayor and Ruger as his assistant, albeit one who can’t help but to get into trouble.. I wish you and Maxx got along better.  I wasn’t much of a player with other dogs when I lived on the mortal side.  I would spend most of my time sitting on Mom’s lap and snapping at any other dog, including Pocket, who tried t

This is about the way posts are time stamped on the site Doggyspace.  If you are not on Doggyspace you may find this a wee bit confusing. Having been part of social networking for almost a year I have taken it upon myself to delve into one of the deepest mysteries of social media:  Doggyspace time. What is Doggyspace time?  It’s the time listed above our posts that designates when we made them.  Sometimes they say an hour ago, or 8 hours ago, and sometimes, and here is where the mystery lies, it says 4 hours from now. Take for example my birthday wish to my good friend Marshmellow.  I posted a comment on his page wishing him a happy birthday.  I then went back to the main page and clicked Marshmellow’s page again and found out I made the comment four hour ago.  I know DS is slow but four hours to make two clicks?  Time flies while you are waiting for a download. But that is only part of the problem.  Sometimes I wish someone a happy birthday and see that Pocket has w

All of us dogs hate pains in the butt, for me it was Pocket, but our very good friend Maggie had a serious pain in the butt this week, and it might lead to an operation. When Maggie’s Mom took her outside to do her business on Thursday her Mom saw that Maggie was bleeding from her behind.  Her Mom was surprised.  Maggie hates to cause problems for anyone, and even though she was in pain, she never made a sound. Her Mom became immediately concerned and told Maggie that she was too brave and needed to tell her when she was feeling poorly, but Maggie lives with boys, and we all know how much boys complain, so she decided not to bother her Mom and to suffer. Maggie’s Mom took her to the vet. She was diagnosed with an abscess on her butt.  She was given two shots, put on three different medications and got her back quarters shaved against her wishes. I feel especially close to Maggie because I have been to her house.  It was before she arrived, her brother Pokey was there