The Ruby Rose and the Big Little Angels 3 Blog

Today the most interesting thing happened.  After we got out of bed our harnesses were put on, our leashes were attached to them, our Daddy took the handle of the leash in his hand, and me, Pocket, Mommy and Daddy went outside and Mommy told us we were going on a “walk.” I vaguely remember a walk from four months ago.  I was pretty sure it happened outside, there were great smells, wonderful people, and I could poop and pee freely.  But it had been months earlier, before winter came with the hundreds of Pockets of snow, the nasty wind, and slippery ice, so I couldn’t be sure. We started and slowly it all came back to me.  The smell of the ground was amazing.  So many messages from friends who had trekked out before us.   Pocket and I made sure we left lots of messages explaining our absence and saying we were back.   I swear you can communicate more with one pee than a thousand words. And I remembered the daily struggle, me pulling as hard as my little legs could pull, and Da

    When it comes to the health of us precious babies there is no illness or medical procedure that is small.  This week when Lily’s, everyone’s sister and best friend, who I had been jealous of because she had kept her ovaries while mine were discarded like an empty treat package, had those very same ovaries turn on her, causing medical issues, and the ovaries needed to be removed.  I was upset first because I hate when my friends have surgery and second I am now a teenager and like any teenager I get mad when Mom is right. Things change very quickly here.  All us pup angels were lying on the grass, soaking up the sun, when our prayer phones started chirping, and we were inundated with prayers for Lily.  We all took off, flying the prayers up the mountain, while frantically trying to read the reason for the prayers.   She has to get her lady parts out.  It could be worse:  But truthfully the thought of Lily having any surgery scared the fluff right out of me. Lily isn’t the p

Dear Aunt Foley:  My name is Chloe.  Angel Aran has selected me to move into his home, help his parents heal, and be their loyal dog.  I understand as part of this I will have to share my adventures on social networking.  What is required of me to be a good social networking dog? Chloe Dear Chloe:  Being a social networking dog is a very big responsibility.  Basically we need to know every single thing you do every minute of the day.  Every pee, poop, bath, and walk we need to know about.  There is no detail too small. And if you sneeze, throw up, or have a bad poop we need to know right away.  Then we all gather together to pray that  you get better.  We shake our paws at the vet who sticks things up your butt and prods you.  We try to guide you to do better the first day you nearly run off.  We defend you when you rip apart on of your parent’s prized possessions because we know you would do the same for us And pictures.  We need pictures.  Pictures of every moment of you

I know I have weird sisters.  I had one and recruited a weirder one.  But here is the strangest part of my surviving pack members.  Even though they are not twins, nor from the same litter, they share one bladder. River almost never pees.  She gets up in the morning and goes outside, sniffs the ground, sniffs the air, looks around, sits down, chews her paw, rolls on her back, looks at the sun, and then Daddy yells at her to pee.  River tells him she has performance anxiety and can’t pee under pressure.  Five or ten minutes later she squirts out a bit.  If it is raining and she is left to go on her pee pads inside she can take up to an hour to pee. Pocket wakes up and is brought outside to pee first.  She comes back in and River goes out.  Then Pocket goes back out and pees.  She comes in, Mommy showers, Daddy plays ball with Pocket, and Pocket gets excited and pees, sometimes on the pad, and sometimes not on the pad.  Then Daddy showers, and when he is done he takes Pocket out and

Some long time readers may have heard me tell tale of Daddy’s Aunt Bev.  When Mommy and Daddy were first married Daddy wanted a dog.  Mommy was reluctant.  One Saturday afternoon Mommy mentioned she might like a small dog.  Daddy knew his Aunt Bev had small dogs her whole life, and knew Mommy respected Aunt Bev’s opinion a great deal, so he hurried Mommy over to the house Aunt Bev shared with Uncle Bob.  Aunt Bev explained to Mom how wonderful a little dog could be, and that they were virtually no work.  Yes, she lied.  But she did so because she knew her nephew wanted a dog and that Mommy would be a great dog lover, and she was right.Aunt Bev and Uncle Bob    no longer had a dog.  They were at an age when they knew the dog would outlive them, and they were right.  But we will always owe our lives and happiness to Aunt Bev and Uncle Bob and they have a special spot here on the immortal side of the River of Life. Angel Ladybug, and our newest angel Max have parents who remind me of

Dear Aunt Foley: (This question was first asked on Slate.com’s Dear Prudence blog.  It is paraphrased.)  I am a human with a question.  My sweet, innocent, kids, well-adjusted 13 year old attended a sleepover with his friends  All the boys there, including my son, covered their nipples in peanut butter and had the family dog lick it off.  I told my son not to do that even if the dog loved the peanut butter.  Do you think this is something I should discourage or am I overreacting? - Concerned Mom Dear Concerned Mom:  Should you be concerned?  Only if you don’t want your kid to be a freak.   Kids letting dogs lick peanut butter of their nipples?  Let me warn you, this is a gateway licking.  And the end of the road is bacon in the anus no matter how you cut it. Now don’t go blaming us dogs either.  Sure the dog licked the peanut butter off the  nipples but believe me, we have licked worse off of much worse.  Peanut butter off the nipples is nothing.  (Note:  Dog food connoisseurs r

Rainbow Bridge is getting filled with my friends.   For every one of them there are broken hearts on the other side of the River.  We carry the weight of those broken hearts with our every step.  We have to find a way to shed that weight for both our parents and ourselves.  Nothing cures a broken heart, and helps us lose that weight, like love.  Nothing cures a broken heart like a new pet. Recently two of my closest friends passed over the River of Life.  Otis Campbell and Brody were beloved dogs, by their parents and many friends.    They were both the only  dogs in the house.  Their parents were left with the overbearing silence of a missing heartbeat.  From the day they arrived Otis and Brody knew they had to replace the absent heartbeat   Brody, who is forever watching over his family, wasted little time in accomplishing this feat.  He slipped into the dreams of the woman who helped rescue him and told her that his special Mom needed another dog very quickly.  She had just su

Dear Aunt Foley:  I recently read that dogs sided with humans to help kill off the Neanderthals.  Is there any truth to this? – Wylie Hudson.  Dear Wylie:  Typical humans:  Blame us for killing off the Neanderthals!  Why not?  We get blamed for everything else.  Do you know why the Neanderthals were killed off?  They were freaking Neanderthals! OK.  There is a back story.  According to recent “studies” humans domesticated wolves so they became more like dogs, loyal to their humans.  The dogs helped the humans hunt so they did not starve to death.  The Neanderthals did not domesticate wolves, did not have help hunting, and starved. And why?  Again, they were Neanderthals.  Hey look us dogs tried to play it down the middle.  We offered our services to the Neanderthals.  We handed them a stick and asked them to throw it for us to fetch.  They hit themselves in the head with it.  We caught a wild boar, ripped it’s leg off and presented it to them to eat.  They hit them

There is something under the house and I don’t like it.  Sunday night I caught the whiff of something rotten, then my super sensitive hearing picked up the sound of something scratching.  I immediately ran over to a floor vent in the kitchen.  I stuck my nose down there and picked up the scent of vermin.  I barked to alert my family that we had an intruder under the house. I did not get the warranted response of concern and action.  What I got was to be told to sit down and be quiet.  “But people!  There is a vermin under the house!” Mommy continued to ignore me but Daddy became intrigued.  He joined me in the kitchen.  He removed the grate, bent down and sniffed.  Oh Daddy!  You need a super sensitive nose to smell anything.  Then he put his ear near the grate.  I was so afraid that the vermin would spring up and bite him and Daddy would have a mouse earring for the rest of his life.  But luckily the vermin had a better sniffer than Daddy. Daddy went back to his

                As I am greeting new arrivals at the Bridge I expect a few of their friends to arrive but when Aran crossed the River of Life there were dozens of pups waiting.   Aran, who I last wrote about when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, had beaten the odds.  The brain tumor did not grow.  Aran thrived for several months.  So many months that I stopped expecting her arrival.                 Aran even found love.  She became engaged to Wylie, who, like Aran, who was saved from the wild streets of Philadelphia, was a rescue dog.  When she was planning her wedding she began to slow down, began to lose her balance, and seemed confused.  She lost sight in one eye.  Both Aran and her Mom knew the worst was occurring.  The tumor was growing.                 Wylie and Aran were quickly married and went on a lovely honeymoon in the Bahamas.   Wylie had a wheelchair and he pushed Aran wherever she wished.  For a week she was a Princess, the type that a girl off the

                Dear Aunt Foley:  There is a possum outside our window.  Why is a possum coming to our house and what should we do about it?  - Boris K and Minnie.                 Dear Boris K and Minnie:  Oh you don’t want to mess with those possums.  They are vicious little creatures.  Forget everything that Big Vermin has told you about animals.  It is all lies.   In truth there are only rats and squirrels and everything has evolved from them and these possums are just big mean rats who like to play dead and when you go to eat them they eat you.   Please keep away from the possums at all costs.                 Dear Aunt Foley:  We live up in the mountains and the Tanner Brigade is down in the valley.  Mom and I have to climb down the mountain to visit and then climb back up.  Can you install an elevator? – Enzo                 Dear Enzo:  I can do better than that.  I am going to visit you in your dreams and give you the codes I used to put into the computer to uplo

            Unlike Foley, who, when compared with Kanye West, would be called the one with the inflated sense of self-worth, I am a private dog, but when our book sold dozens of copies, and was briefly included in Amazon’s top million books, one of us had to go on a publicity tour, and, since Foley is currently booked on the main stage at Otis Campbell’s ice cream shop for eternity, that task fell into my small lap.  I would like to include some of the highlights:             Good Morning America:  Way too early in the morning America.  I spent the entire interview cuddled on George Stephanopoulos’s lap.             The Today Show:  My book agent thought another morning shows was a bad idea so he booked me for the last segment with Kathie Lee.  Things started poorly when I thought Hoda was her dog and went downhill when I drank their wine and puked on Hoda.              Live with Kelly and Michael:   No one told me there was going to be a giant.  I am freaked out by giants.  I t

             It has been a long difficult winter for all of us, but no one has had it harder, or faced longer days, than our friends the Min Pin Gang and their sister Mouse.             It began with her parents going their separate ways, the Gang getting divided, and her sister Crickette Anne joined me at the Bridge.   Mouse’s Mom moved in with her sister, and her fellow pup Scooter.  As soon as they settled in her Mom began to notice that Mouse was not feeling well.             Mouse’s tests came back showing acidities and crystals in her urine.  Also her liver enzymes were elevated.  Scooter’s thyroid readings were very low but Scooter’s road to recovery was a lot smoother than Mouse’s would be.  Mouse’s Mom talked to the vet they saw before they moved and she told Mouse’s Mom that both pups should have fasted before their blood tests which meant they had to be tested again, and the expenses would grow.             Mouse also developed a terrible case of reverse sneezing.  I