Bailey is our August 26, 2018 Pup of the Week

I hate when two friends come to the Bridge during the same week.  I prefer to write about one angel a week. A Pup of the Week blog is one of a dog’s last big shout-outs on social media, and each dog should be the star of their own blog.  Bailey, whose pack is celebrated on the Portuguese Water Blog arrived at the Bridge ten days ago but, since poor Sully arrived first, I wrote about him last week. Thankfully we did not have any friends’ passing over this week so I can give Bailey the tribute she deserves.

I first saw Bailey’s silhouette as the big, black dog quickly crossed the Bridge while giving the water a wary look.  She ran up the stairs. Cancer, in the form of a large mass in her chest that had attacked Bailey’s body and kept her in pain her later years was gone  She kept running faster, enjoying her newfound body until she stopped on the landing in front of me.

“Welcome Bailey,” I said. “I couldn’t help but admire your running.  Were you anxious to come here?”

“No,” Bailey replied.  “I hate the water.”

“Isn’t it odd to be a water dog and not like the water?”

“No more off than to be a Yorkshire Terrier and not like pudding,” Bailey said.  I knew I was going to like her immediately.

Bailey never knew a mom but her mom.  She was the first person to hold Bailey when she entered the world, the fifth of her litter.  She was a social climber from the first. She was trying to crawl out of the birth litter box before her eyes opened, at four weeks she was climbing a three-foot enclosure, at six months a ladder to see what was beyond the yard.

She was the runt of the litter, and her sisters bullied her a bit, but she still loved them fiercely.  She adored her stuffies too and first thing in the morning she would choose one to accompany her wherever she went.

Two of Bailey’s siblings who had gone to the Bridge before she did pushed a box towards her.  Bailey ran over and gave them a big hug she reserved for her parents. She opened the box and found three of her favorite toys, her best friend, the Big Red Monkey, and two others, Chris Moose and Rottie Pup. 

Bailey was thrilled to have her babies back. She asked me how that was possible and I told her they existed at her house too. At Rainbow Bridge, you can take it with you and leave it behind simultaneously.

Bailey turned to me.  “I have to thank my parents, for everything they did for me.  They helped me come into the world when I was a sightless little pup, and they aided me out when I was an old suffering dog.  There is nothing I had that I do not owe to them including mortal and immortal life. I must thank them.”

Bailey’s angel family and I assured her that her parents knew how thankful she was every time she looked up at them with love in her deep brown eyes, and now she could visit them in their dreams to keep assuring them.  They may not remember the visits in their head but they would in their hearts. I told her she was now part of a big pack of Portuguese Water Dog Angels who would watch over their parents and pack.

The WaterDogs had a huge villa built on the edge of our space.  Bailey picked up his three toys in his mouth and ran after her siblings to start her life as an angel.

And she promises to spend every day to make her parents know how thankful she is for the beautiful beginning of her mortal life and a peaceful end to it.