The Ruby Rose and the Big Little Angels 3 Blog

Here at the Bridge the weather is always 70 degrees and clear.  But on the mortal side of the River weather can become violent instantly.  The south coast of our country has been under a hurricane threat the last couple of weeks.  But one family has endured their own devastating hurricane:  Hurricane Jax. When our friend Cooper arrived at the Bridge he began looking for a dog to join his pack.  The problem was that Cooper’s the perfect dog.  How do you replace the perfect dog?  Cooper answer was with imperfection:  A dog named Jax. He let his Mom know that Jax needed a good home.  He went into Jax’s dreams and told him everything he needed to do to get his Mom to open her house to him.  Then he went to Tommy Tunes’ house, got some popcorn, put the TV on his Mom’s channel, rubbed his paws together and said “Oh boy this is going to be fun.” When his Mom brought Jax home Chipper and Romeo took one look at him and asked his Mom to bring him back.  But she told th

A dog’s sworn duty is to take care of their parents:  To be their loyal companion no matter what they do.  But what is a dog to do when that parent is evil? This week when Maya arrived at the Bridge many German Shepherd angels arrived to welcome their sister.  As they were departing I saw a German Shepherd who was well known on both sides of the Bridge.   I slowly approached her.  “Excuse me Blondi?” I said in a tiny voice. The large German Shepherd stopped and look down at me.  She smiled and asked what she could do for me. “I know we dogs are supposed to be devoted to our parents but did you find that hard to do when your Dad was the most evil man in the world?” Blondi sighed.  “It is hard,’ she said.  “He was good to me, up until the time he fed me a cyanide tablet to make sure it worked before he took it himself.  But I took it.  He was my Dad.  We all do what our Dad wants us to do.” “But your Dad was an evil man.  He started a World War.  He murdered millions of pe

I like to read about my friends’ adventures.  You all do many exciting things.  Trips, competitions, long hikes through the woods, they all sound wonderful.  You know what I find wonderful?  Human touch I am addicted to it.  When Mommy is working in the kitchen I don’t need to be underfoot I need to be on foot.    I sit on her foot and she has to shake it to get me off.  When we are in bed I snuggle against her and if she gets up to go to the bathroom I switch to Daddy.  Sometimes I lay across the bed so I can get touched on both ends. I am what is called a velcro dog.  I need to be attached to a human always.  The only exception are walks, where I can still brush against my humans when I need to; eating, which I get done as quickly as possible; and when I get my treat Kong which is my second addiction.  When Mommy showers I curl up on her clothes.  It isn’t Mom but it’s close. When separation is imminent I do everything I can to prevent it.   If both my parents are leaving I

We have been very fortunate the last few weeks.  None of our good friends have passed to the Bridge.  It seems like we either have waves of dogs climbing the steps or none.  We prefer none and we were on a none stretch recently.  But that ended with the arrival of sweet Maya. Maya is a beloved German Shepherd Dog.  All us dogs accept that parents bond with their German Shepherds for life.  Once humans own a GSD they rarely get another breed.  I am not sure why.  They are lovely dogs but all dogs are lovely.  But I do admire them for inspiring such loyalty in their humans. And they inspire loyalty in one another too.  When a GSD crosses the Bridge and rises to our home German Shepherds from all around come to salute them.  Before Maya rose up to my area to be sworn in thousands of her breed poured over the hills to wait. Maya arrived as sweet and polite as any dog could be.  She lifted a paw to be sworn in.  When that task was completed she patted me on the head, then pulled

When I was living on the mortal side of the River I loved going on car rides.  I had my own chair.   It sat high in the back seat.  I could look out the windows and see everything.  What I really wanted to do was drive.  But dogs don’t drive. At least on the mortal side.  Here on the immortal side everything is possible.  So I signed up to drive in the annual Cooper 500 at the big oval track bordering the River. My car is a red ’69 Chevy with a 396 Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor.  I have no idea what that means but it sounds cool.  And fast.  It had to be modified some.  My legs are only two inches long so my mechanics attached the pedals to levers so I could reach them with my four paws.  This meant I had to steer with my nose but that’s OK.  I have a very flexible nose. Plus I get to wear one of those cool suits with my sponsor’s name on it.  I am sponsored by STP because I am tiny and that is the only name that will fit on my suit.  I drive the Small Tails blog car s

Mommy says I am an excitable dog.  I don’t know what she means.  I think I am very calm, cool and what was that?  Did you hear that?  Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark.   Whatever it was is gone.  Might have been a sasquatch. Today we got a walk in the morning but it was hot.  I was panting like an unspade dog in a puppy strip joint.  I figured we would spend the rest of the day hanging out with the ac blowing on us and watching TV. But Mommy has been working on refurbishing the porch and she wanted it done today.  My parents began to put down a new carpet.  There was a lot of cutting with sharp objects, measuring, then doing it all over again.  Meanwhile, because of the sharp objects, River and I weren’t allowed on the porch, so we helped by standing on our back legs looking through the storm door window and barking.  And barking.  And barking.  We barked them on so much their they begged us to stop barking because we were giving them too much confidence.   Then they pulled out

I look across the River of Life and I see many dark clouds hovering over my friends’ lives.  Clouds of despair.  Clouds of sorrow. Over Enzo’s home in Colorado the clouds roll in then roll out only to be followed by darker clouds.  This year his wondrous gift of a Mom has lost her daughter, then she broke her leg, and recently lost her mother.  How much pain can one family endure? Humans watch those big glass screens in their houses, or travel to theaters while we are left alone, to watch stories of despair, perhaps to try to connect them to their own lives, or to see those who have suffered worse. We don’t watch fiction much here, even though Wells and Hitchcock continue to make movies, and Twain and Shakespeare continue to write, and Tupac really does have a new CD dropping Tuesday.  With the threat of mortality no longer in question art loses it’s edge.  We watch reality.  Real reality not scripted reality.  There is nothing scarier than real reality. There are so many storie

A few weeks ago I wrote about my Gotcha Day.  Now I want to tell you about my first walk. I was two pounds and my neck was less than three inches round.  Mommy had this tiny little harness for me, I think she stole it off a ferret. We lived across the street from the State Mental Hospital which was a beautiful place to walk with both paved and mulched walkways, many beautiful tall trees, several benches and the occasional homicidal maniac mistakenly given a day pass due to bureaucratic overload. My sister Blake loved walking there.  She chased squirrels, she got her head scratched by incarcerated patients, she ate geese poop.  I learned to do two of those things.  The geese poop wasn’t for me. When Blake went for her first walk with my parents she wasn’t much bigger than I was on my first day.  Mommy put her collar on and they walked outside together.  Blake walked to the end of the driveway, her tail held high, nose in the air, as proud as anything you have ever seen  When

I am River Song the Magnificent.  No crate or cage can hold me.   On Saturday my parents went shopping.  They placed Pocket and me in our separate crates.  Pocket accepted her loss of freedom but I never will.   For weeks I had been slowly working on my escape like a Mexican Drug Lord.  But instead of digging down I went up.  My crate has doors at the top and on the side.  Most dogs would try to get out through the side door but not me.  I go straight to the top. On my last visit to the vet not only did I get a case of limes but I was told I needed to lose a pound.  My beloved cheese filled Kong became a less beloved carrot filled Kong.  But with a slight amount of weight loss I found that I was more nimble and I had regained strength in my back legs Plus I was blessed with the head like a battering ram.  On Saturday I put it to good use.  I stood on my now powerful back legs and I put my head against the door at the top and I lifted, pushed and rammed.  Slowly the hooks beg

I know I should be recognizing Zippy for the wonderful bravery he showed but I am afraid I am going to have to criticize him as well.  Zippy is a little Yorkie just like I am.  He too is an adorable little lap dog.  But this week Zippy broke a very important rule.  He showed how powerful we really are when we have to be Zippy as with his Dad, Eric Waters, on vacation in Asheville North Carolina this week.  Together they went for a nice walk through the woods.   Mr. Waters saw something in the distance.  At first Mr Waters thought he was looking at a bear but then he looked down at Zippy who was very excited. Suddenly Zippy got a burst of super Yorkie power.   He pulled on the leash with his five pounds of weight and snapped his collar.  He began to run at the bear who turned towards the little dog.  That is when Mr. Waters realized it was no bear.  As he reported to WTVD what he saw was a Sasquatch.  And his little Yorkie was chasing it.  Chasing high into the hills before Zippy r

Often we have humans wander over from their side of the Immortal world.  They enjoyed hunting on the Mortal side and were hoping to do it again.  The animals who live in the hills usually accomodate.  The hunters hunt, the animals hide, and then the hunter shoots.  But here there are no bullets.  The animals will fall down, then get up and run to the hunter and then they hug and go out for a nice dinner of non killed food. But there are some humans who are less interested in hunting and more interested in killing.  I met one such man this week.  He came to our side with a huge gun and said he was going up the mountain to hunt and would bring what he killed back to his cloud.  I noticed he did not have a dog and I asked if I could go with him. He told me that I was not a hunting dog but I convinced him that here at the Bridge we are all hunting dogs so he took me along.  We climbed the mountain together and we saw a beautiful rhino.  The man told me he had always dreamed about kill

Bed is my favorite spot.  I know when I am in bed, snuggled with Mom and Dad, under the covers, that nothing can hurt me.  This morning that theory was tested. Just after dawn the thunder began. Now it usually doesn’t bother me but this thunder kept getting louder, then the wind howled, the rain pounded, and lightning cracked above. I snuggled in closer to Mom and Pocket did the two things she does when she is scared:  Tremble and sit on Daddy’ head.  I don’t know why she sits on his head when she is scared.  It seems to me that higher ground is not something I would seek in a lightening storm. Mommy gently stroked me equally scared of the thunder.  I don’t know how it is with weather people in other states but in Massachusetts they act with the calmness of a cruise director on the Titanic.  As soon as a storm has the slightest potential to create a tornado the New England meteorologists begin instructing people to get into their basements to stay safe and when the danger has pa

It was a bright, sunny afternoon when I got a special summons.  The only information I received was that a very loved animal would be crossing over the Bridge to the Immortal side.  I didn’t know what kind of pet it was, if it was a friend of mine or not, or if I knew the owner. Word had spread quickly about our celebrated new angel and many animals gather around.  I peered over the edge of Enzo’s moving stairs and saw a shadow then heard a mighty roar.  Then I saw him. He was a huge lion a million times larger than me!  I was going to warn my friends but they too had peered down Enzo’s stairs and saw the lion and they were already running for the hills.  I had the same instinct but I reminded myself that I was a judge who had a duty to swear in new anges and since I was already immortal the chances of being eaten were slim.  I looked down as the huge beast came closer to me. Maybe being eaten wasn’t impossible.  It reached the top of Enzo’s stairs and put out a paw that was b