The Ruby Rose and the Big Little Angels 3 Blog

    Have you ever heard of that Benjamin Button movie?  It’s about this Daddy who lives his life backwards.  Life on the Immortal side of the River can be like living life backwards, at least when it comes to mortal life.  We meet someone after their mortal lives ends, learn how they crossed the river, and slowly learn about their lives backwards.  The last story we hear is about their birth litter. I met Angel Simon at the beginning of the year.  He had spent 16 years on the mortal side, quite a long time, his latter years spent with his young Mom.  They had a very strong bond and both were having difficulty being without one another.  I sent Simon into his Mom’s dreams to tell her the right to people to reach out to over the Internet for comfort and I made sure Simon met the right pups to help him after they lost their Doggyspace home. Simon’s beloved Mom Emily was not his first Mom.  He lived with a family for nine years.  Then that family got a new dog.  Simon and the new

This is a picture of my garden.  I am very proud of it.  During the long, cold, snowy winter I would enter Mommy’s dreams and we would spend all night planning every plant and flower down to the final detail. But we were not prepared for two additions. The first can barely be seen.  It is a pink rose bush.  It is a shoot from Daddy’s grandfather’s rose bush. It is wrapped around the small black trellis at the bottom of the picture.   Daddy’s cousin Jan had been the caretaker of the family flower and we were honored to share caretaking duties although I was not sure I wanted the rose bush in my garden but Mommy assured me with a little luck we would soon have lovely pink roses to put a smile on the face of my blue lady. The second detail was my angel.  For two years after my passing my angel lit up my garden at night.  It spent the winter in the shed where it would be safe and unburied.  Early in the spring Daddy took it out of the shed and planted it at the edge

Six years ago, on May 9th to be exact, after being blocked from DS, and having lost all the blogs we wrote on that site, an angry and determined Foley Monster decided to start her own blog:  One where she could bark whatever was on her mind and fight for the rights of dogs everywhere.  She named it the Foley Monster and Pocket blog. I was touched that my sister included my name in the blog title.  I thought it was honorary until I learned she expected me to provide content.  For Foley writing was easy.  She could spin a tail, turn an everyday occurrence into an epic story and write loving tributes to our friends.  Foley took blogging very seriously. As for me I was more interested in a warm bed, some tasty kibble and a lap of kindness.  But when Foley told me to step up and blog I did it.  Making her angry is never a recommended option.   Over the years we started our Pup of the Week blog on Sunday, Wordless Wednesday, Ask Aunt Foley, on Fridays, and thanks to Kol

We think our parents would be used to it..  The vomiting, the unexplained sudden weight loss, the loss of appetite, and the inability to explain what is going on inside..  It happens to us dogs a lot.  But when it happens to one of our parents it is much scarier.  We are hindered by our inability to communicate.  Since humans have no such hindrances when no one knows what is wrong with them it is very troubling. It has been a week since Reese, Kole, and Angel Meika’s Uncle Rob, one of their two Dads, has shown such symptoms.  He lies tonight in a hospital in St. Louis, seven hours away from his family, with no answers, and the cause of much worry. Rob has been sick for some time but he has been managing his illness until last week.  In the past years he has spent many nights in the hospital and has had operations.   There is nothing scarier for a dog then when one of their parents is missing.  Since Rob found him abandoned on the street a year ago Kole has rarely strayed fr

During my first weeks of public life, after I first joined the late Doggyspace, I made many friends.  But one of the friends had already shed his mortal coil and gone to the Bridge.  I had never had a friend on the immortal side of the River but one night Fred popped into my dreams and showed me the paradise that awaited me when I crossed over. Fred arrived at the Bridge before dogs began social networking.  The crowds that now greet pups who cross the River were not there when Fred climbed the stairs.  Just  personal friends and family members.  But as soon as his Mom’s dogs, Junior and Luca, got online and made thousands of friends, whenever one of those pups crossed the River Fred was there to greet them. Before dogs began blogging learning how to adapt to life at the Bridge was an adjustment for new angels  but Fred began teaching them their duties as soon as they got their wings.  He not only taught them how to be angels for their pups and parents but he trained them on how

There are times in life a dog just needs to disappear:  When it is crate time, bath time, tooth brushing time, it’s disappearing time  We have, not including bathrooms and laundry, four rooms, two of which are blocked by closed doors, so places to hide are difficult to come by.  I have discovered a place but haven’t been able to get inside. When my parents come to get me I stand, put my head down, lift my stubby tail and walk in circles.  It took my parents a while to figure out that I was trying to disappear up my own butt hole. I have come close several times.  I can get my nose to it (this is easier when I am sitting down but I don’t have the momentum to get up there if I am sitting.)  But I am just not long enough to get inside my own butt. Someday I hope to do so and once I do my parents won’t be able to take me where I don’t want to be. and be safe. I told Pocket, who is not nearly as bendy as I am, about my plan. She reminded me that while I am quite clever I am also im

Oh the problems we angels have.  Last week we wrote about Willie feeling guilty over his Mom’s breaking her leg.  This week it was Brody who was afraid he made a mistake. Brody chose Finley to move into his house and take care of his family.  Everything was going perfectly.  Finley fit in with the family like a duck in water.  Mom Candice loved him.  The kids loved him.  Everything was going perfectly  And then one day last week  Mom Candice felt a hard lump on Finley. Hard lumps are never good.  Parents hope for a cyst but fear the worst.  Mom Candice made an appointment with her vet. Meanwhile Brody was as worried as Mom Candice.  He knew his Mom had been through too much:  More than most woman could handle and she could not take something happening to Finn.  “I checked everything,” a worried Brody said.  “How he was with kids, cats, Mom.  If he was gentle, sweet, loving.   They all came back as yes.  But lumps?  I didn’t check him for lumps.  Who check for lumps?” I ass

It has taken two years, a lot of hard work, several prototypes, the disciplining of many minions, and countless sleepless nights but the Foley Monster statue has finally been completed.  Here is the finished product. The statue was commissioned by my parents to go in my garden (where my ashes were to go but are still kept in the house) next to the lovely plant Hobo Hudson sent us.   There would be a ticket booth built outside the garden and for a small fee pups and humans could walk my garden and gaze at my statue. When the statue arrived it had a lot of this white packing stuff on it.  Some was stuck in the teeth.  More was on the fur.  Mommy picked it up.  Suddenly I was in the statue.  Mommy carried me to the kitchen sink and she softly washed me with a face cloth like she used to and then put me on the counter to dry.  When she did she rubbed my ears and talked to me. When she removed her hands I popped out again.  I realized I would be in the statue whenever Mommy put her

I am nervous by nature: I worry about my parents when they are gone; I worry about them when they cough or wince; I worry when there are loud noises, activity outside, and critters in my yard.  Now I have something new to be worried about.  I am in danger of being replaced by a robot.   An Australian researcher Jean-Loup Rault suggests that human’s insistence on over breeding is going to create too many people which won’t leave room for us dogs and we are going to be replaced by robotic dogs. Oh man, I don’t want to be replaced by a robot.  I have put in years of work to gain my Mom’s trust and somewhere in a laboratory is tin on wheels programed to know everything it took me years to learn.  And it doesn’t pee or poop either.  Oh it might leak some motor oil now and then but no where near as much as I leak. This report says that humans interact with robotic pets in the same way that they interact with real ones.  Oh my gosh:  Who would want a troubling little thing like me w

It is hard for those of you on the mortal side of the Bridge to understand how difficult it is to be an angel.  We watch over our parents the best we can but we can’t protect them from every bad thing that happens . This week Angel Willie learned that lesson in a very hard way. Willie spends a lot of time watching over his Mom.  But when she is with his mortal brothers he assumes she is in good paws and spends his time swimming in the river.   Willie stopped watching his Mom just as she was taking Roscoe and Jessie for a walk.  When he checked in on her a short while later he found her being loaded into an ambulance.  Her knee was heavily wrapped and she was in excruciating pain.  He couldn’t find out what had happened.  He could only enter his family’s minds while they were sleeping and everyone was too keyed up to sleep. Willie ran so fast to my cloud he burst through the door and knocked me out of my chair.  It took several barks before I could understand:  His Mom was hurt

My minions have been failing me lately.  My inbox is full but I am never presented with a question to answer and the minons are falling behind on my grooming needs.  So I have stopped them from poking into my inbox and have changed my Friday blog to reporting on what my friends here at Rainbow Bridge are doing. This week I checked on my old friend Fella.  He is the older brother of Hattie Mae and Jackie Lynn.  He came to the Bridge shortly after I did and was the first dog I swore in.  Waiting for him was his brother in law Sage and Sage’s Mom Jackie.  Together they opened the Bridge’s first worm farm. Fella spends a lot of time working on the work farm now.  He enjoys living with Sage but dodged question about living with Jackie, who he referred to as the “Mother in Law” with an eye roll.  I am not sure if his Bride Saffon has joined Fella at the Bridge.  If she did she did not come through my district.  When I asked Fella if Saffron was there he told me a

I had heard of Grumpy Cat but I hadn’t paid any her any mind.  I don’t pay attention to cats except for the ones who are my online friends.  There is one who comes in our yard.  I ignore it.  Foley visits me in my dreams and tells me I should bark at it and chase it away but who has the energy? Recently a friend sent me a link about Grumpy Cat.  I have a begrudging respect for Ms. Cat.. Anyone who can carry off Grumpy all the time is OK with me.  But the more I read about Ms. Grumpy the Grumpier I became until I turned into Very Grumpy Dog. This cat is freaking famous.  Books, TV, commercials, public appearances:  Millions of dollars in revenue, and for what, looking like this?     How can that be worth more than this?     How is this face not worth millions of dollars?   Big frown, disproving expression, cranky attitude.  I have it all.  What’s the difference?     I’ll tell you the difference.  First she is white.  We don’t like to talk about it but let’s face it white

    The sign in front of Enzo’ Garage said “Closed for family obligation.”  The doors and windows were locked but being an angel they proved little hindrance.  I slipped into the garage. There were cars waiting to fixed, a bulletin board with my friends’ names next to said cars, oily rags and scattered tools laid on the ground, evidence of a hasty departure.     The garage is usually filled with activity:  Dogs waiting for their rides to be fixed., gathered in groups, eating some of Tommy’s famous popcorn, enjoying beef pop, playing poker kibble.   Soon Enzo will take a break, sitting and delighting our friends with stories about living on Enzo Mountain where the snow piles up over the house and even the trees freeze solid.  If the sun is out and the snow still packed Enzo pulls out the hubcaps and the pups go sledding down the mountain.  This room where they wait, it is called Friendship, and no dog had a room built stronger friendships than Enzo.     There is a door at the