The Ruby Rose and the Big Little Angels 3 Blog

I dreamed a dream last night.   We were all young and again. We had just discovered social media.  It was like finding a vast field of fresh snow ready for us to put our paws in it and leave our marks.   And we did, a generation of dogs creating their own world, celebrating walks and treats, suffering when friends became sick or needed operations.  We were dogs We were finally being heard. And we ruled the world. Some dogs became silent as their parents drifted towards Facebook, and some others expanded on the idea, creating well-read and influential blogs.  The golden age of dog blogging may have passed, as so many of those original writers passed to the Bridge, but the blogs themselves remain as long as the Internet keeps us all connected. I woke up with Felix, coauthor of the award-winning Kol’s Notes next to me.  We had not knocked paws. It was just a friendly snuggle with a scared, lonely dog who became overwhelmed when he faced the prospect of living in the immortal world

Humans love two types of stories, one about someone who pulls themselves out of squalor to become successful, and the other about dogs.    This tale, about a dog who rises above a hopeless early life to become a hero, should be a popular one. Dallas is a pit bull which was born in Canada and taught only one thing:  How to kill.   From puppyhood, he was part of a dog fighting ring.  He doesn't talk about his past, but he must have been quite accomplished at vicious combat because he is still alive. When Dallas was found, one of 30 dogs seized from a pit bull farm he, and the other dogs, were chained to the ground.   Some were wearing muzzles.     On the site were training sticks, schedules, steroids, and suture kits.  Every dog showed scars from fighting.   Five people were charged with animal cruelty and weapons violations.   Rob Scheinberg, co-founder of Dog Tails Rescue in Ontario, vowed to save as many of the dogs as he could.  Twenty-one of the dogs were given a

I enjoy having two parents.  With a duo, there is less waiting for a warm lap.   I am not sure why humans need to live with another person.  Sure, they want children, but kids are a bother, and some of them, when they grow older,  move away, burn the bridge from their lives to their parents front door and never cross back. Pets are a big improvement over children.   There aren’t months of diaper changes, messy cleanups, or walking lessons.  I do understand that, despite their many faults, babies do fill some need in their parents’ lives, which is the only reason that, at birth, they are not sent to a facility in Colorado to be raised until they become productive members of society.  But humans still go to extraordinary lengths to find a person to cohabitate with, even if the result isn’t children. This behavior puzzles me. What a waste of energy.  Who needs another human when you can have a pet? A dog never falls out of love with you.  You could leave us on the interstate du

Today, when Pocket and I went to get the mail, only to find out that we had none (sigh), we saw a handwritten note taped to the community board. "Last Cat: If found return to Unit 20." I thought of Boots and his adventures and wondered if the cat had jumped on my windowsill and copied my download codes. Then I studied the note carefully. "Lost Cat." Could they have been any vaguer? Perhaps: "Missing Mammal" or "Misplaced Carbon Based Unit." Could they post a picture of the kitty? Or at least a description? Pocket doesn't scrutinize events the way I do. She just wanted to find the kitty and reunite it with its Mom. "But Pocket, we don't know which kitty it is!" I pleaded. But you can't talk to a dog with a diaper on her butt, and she was off. A few minutes later she returned with a baby chipmunk. "That's not a cat," I said folding my paws across my chest. "Vit vight vee," Pocket s

All I ask for when I get home from work is 30 minutes to enjoy a beer and check Instagram.    Is that too  much to ask?

I, Pocket, have been recovering from a nasty allergic reaction to ragweed.  This is the first time I have had an allergic reaction.  Are you allergic to anything or ever been diagnosed with an allergy? River Song:  I have had yeast in my ears twice and a foot infection which I licked raw.  They were all environmental allergies. 

My Blogville friends, Lily and Muffin, are perfect examples of heart dogs.  They are their parent's children, best friends, nurses (helping their mom recover from several life-threatening surgeries) and constant companions.  Muffin has bravely battled congestive heart failure for more than a year. Last December, while their parents were nervously waiting at the vets as Muffin was being treated for breathing issues, Lily went into respiratory distress and slipped away to the Bridge with little warning, ripping away half their parents’ hearts. Lily has worn a half-heart charm on her collar since she arrived at the Bridge.   Muffin has the other half. Lily worked very hard to make sure Muffin was with her parents for every available heartbeat, but this week Muffin succumbed to CHF and joined her sister at the Bridge.   Of course, losing the two dogs who they shared their lives with for more than a dozen years devastated their parents.  They are now dogless, in a house full of

The second a dog enters their home for the first time they are part of the family forever, even if it is for a short time.  For Sake, it was only a few hours. I don’t know much about the first twelve years of Sake’s life, only that she was betrayed.  When she should have been home, living out her senior years in comfort, she was in a kill shelter in California having been abandoned by her family. Sake knew something that none of the people caring for her realized.  Sake’s heartbeats were ending. She was due to pass to the Bridge with no family.  We would treat her like a queen because we knew she would never have that magical moment when she was reunited with her people. Carol Overland, who lived two time zones away from Sake, in Red Wing Minnesota, saw the pup’s profile on the Internet and decided she would not let Sake spend the rest of her short in a kill shelter.  She would give Sake a home. Momma Carol drove approximately 2,000 miles to get Sake, and the same amount

I  have been going to the vet so often they should give me a punch card, so I get a free examination every tenth visit. Four weeks ago I had my anal glands expressed.  Starting that night, and continuing onward, I became obsessed with licking my butt.  I don’t do it often, but when I do, it takes a nuclear explosion to make me stop. I was not showing any other symptoms of anal gland problems.  No scooting, no discharge, no bad smell, just licking. My parents have had dogs who damaged themselves by licking a problem area. Mommy needed to discourage my self-grooming.  A cone was discussed, but I would be miserable wearing the funnel of shame, and they were worried it would have an adverse effect on my trachea. I have, from time to time, in certain high-stress situations, like storms, guests and playtime, suffered from excitable pee syndrome.  Because of this, my parents have always kept a pair of diapers nearby. I didn’t mind wearing them. If I did pee the diapers kept me from g

I am the one who rode all through the night and General Bulldog falls asleep

Have you ever, by accident, or even on purpose, nip a human? Pocket:  Nope, never. River Song  Yep, twice.  Both times Pocket and I were fighting.  I gave Mommy a small nip and bit Daddy hard right on the fingernail which made his finger swell and was quite painful.  Ooops.   

We stand up to cancer!  We fight it, we raise money to research it, sometimes we even wrestle it to a draw.  But in the end, it either wins or something else takes us, before cancer can finish the job. The list of angels whose mortal life ended because of cancer would fill 1,000,000 blogs.  This week another cancer warrior, Fallon, joined us. Fallon battled the cancer demon with such ferocity that I thought she would escape its evil grasp.  She surrendered her front leg to the cause and continued onward with her life like a tick had been removed, not a limb.  Every soul who knew Fallon rooted for her with all their spirit. Sadly, we are only given so many heartbeats, and those can be robbed from us.  Nothing steals heartbeats like cancer. A little less than a year ago, at age 11, Fallon was diagnosed with osteosarcoma and given a devastating prognosis.  Her parents had two options: Amputation or Rainbow Bridge. Fallon was in pain from the tumor, but she was courageous and enth

September 11 is an emotional day for everyone, in both the mortal and immortal worlds.  I was still a pup, two months past my first birthday, on that terrible day. My parents were working.  Blake and I were asleep in our bedroom, oblivious to what was happening 200 miles to the south. When our parents got home, we knew something terrible had occurred. Our parents took us to the state mental hospital across the street from our condo.  It was a beautiful day, the sky a vivid blue. Blake and I began our walk, scampering over the green grass, and we both turned to give our parents broad smiles, and for just a few seconds, everything was okay. Every year, at Rainbow Bridge, we hold a remembrance ceremony to mark that horrible day.  There are several speakers, some who became eternal angels that day, some who were already here, and explained how the immortal world shook as it expanded to welcome so many new souls, and some who worked Ground Zero looking in vain for any surviving humans

I, River Song, am ready to make a significant announcement.  Before the end of the year my creation, WAGZ, the first app just for dogs, will be on the market and soon change your life.   WAGZ is an interactive app where dogs can both post information and read the same.  It is going to change the way we dogs do everything. Do you get tired of walking with your nose to the ground looking for the scent of a friend’s pee-mail?  With WAGZ your days of time-consuming sniffing are over. All you have to do is download the app at a cost of just a few kibble,  take your phone with you on walks, or, if your parents belong to the close-minded few who don’t believe dogs should have cell phones, download the app on their phone, then, when you have something to report, just bark what you want to be posted and the app will recognize your voice.  WAGZ will post your message on the network. Per example:  I urinate then bark “I have just peed an important update by the big rock at 156 Natick Dri

Brutus, enjoy your time in the bed with Summer, but, when I tell her I saw you sniffing Penelope's but I will be the one in the bed and you will be stuck on this stinking towel.

Do your parents ever leave you for overnight or longer and where do you stay?  If your parents don't leave you do they have an emergency plan if they have to leave you? Pocket:  Our Mommy has not left us in years.  If they have to we would go to her daughter's Kim's house.  I haven't stayed there since I was a puppy and ma not looking forward to having to do it again so we are hoping there are no emergencies. 

I dread whenever a friend crosses Rainbow Bridge.  I know their humans are going to be heartbroken and lost.  A dog is constant. We are always home. We want to be by your side.  Our parents pour so much of their love into us and receive an equal amount in return the when we pass the poor dears are left with an excess amount of love to give, and an infinitesimal amount in return. My dread is tripled when a pup bounds across the Bridge, climbs the stairs to Hobo’s bluff, greets me with a hearty hello, tells me how great it is to see me again, and I stand there with a befuddled look on my face.  That happened this week when Mia, a lovely chocolate lab, crossed from the mortal world. She kissed me and said she was happy to finally meet me for real.  I smiled at her, looked down at the paperwork, saw it said Mia and tried to think of a Mia I knew.   “Don’t you remember me?” she asked.   I made a noise like I was losing at tug of war.      “From Doggyspace.   You remember Jack, Mia

I have received permission, because my readers are the most loving pet parents in the world, and, it has been noted, by some very important souls here at the Bridge, that many of them are grieving a lost pet, to let them know that a new way has been discovered for them to see their angels after they go to the Bridge. All parents have to do to see their angels is to activate their imaginary eye. Humans are born with an imaginary eye.  When they are infants and toddlers, they use it frequently.  They can see invisible friends, unicorns, and anything else they can create.  Young children are regularly telling their parents not to sit in a spot because their friend is there.  Their parents humor them because their imaginary eye has been extinguished. This process begins when children go to school.  That is where students are introduced to facts. During this process, they learn the difference between fact and fiction.  Fact is real. Fiction is not. The imaginary eye, which the body u

Somehow, I have reached my eleventh birthday.  Through bad teeth, irritable bowels, food allergies, impacted anal glands, luxating patellas, collapsing tracheas, skipped meals, ghastly poops, and general malaise I have officially begun my twelfth trip around the sun. When I was young and went through several sick periods, my parents did not expect me to see this day.  When Foley left unexpectedly, they became slightly obsessive about my health, because they did not want to go through the heartbreak again, and they love me. I know, at 11, no longer a pup but not quite a senior, that I have more yesterdays than tomorrows, and that is fine.  I scared my parents when it took me just short of two weeks to recover from having a giant’s finger poking around in my rectum. Two days after I was violated my irritable bowel, angry over my treatment, flared up, leaving me finicky about food, and uncomfortable, for 24 hours as my tummy rolled like the Bering Sea.   I also expelled a poop th

Everyone get out of my way.  I am late for work.   Oh no!  I'm behind a school bus!  I hate when summer ends and the kids go back to school.

Do your parents work?  If they do, what do they do, and if not, what did they do before they retired? Pocket:  My Dad was a public housing manager until he retired five years ago.  Daddy know works part times doing in-store sales for Blue Buffalo which means free food!  Mommy retired from being a teacher's assistant in 2011 and is now a full-time dog mom which is good because we need one.  

A dog’s life is always too short, but a dog and their parents should have at least ten years together.  Anything less is tragic. This week my friend Jake came to Rainbow Bridge after just under six years with his parents.  That’s barely a blink of an eye. But Jake made an impression that will never be forgotten. It was shortly after Amber, who was known for the famous goggles w\she wore while riding with her dad went to the Bridge that Jake joined Momma Carola’s household.  Amber had been a quiet, well-behaved dog. Jake would be a challenge. It had taken a while between Amber’s passing and Jakie’s arrival.  There was a new job, and a new house, before Amber’s parents were ready to adopt a pup.  Angel Morgan and Jackson’s Momma Jane was fostering Jake, who seemed perfect. Once they were situated Amber’s parents adopted Jake. On Jake’s first walk with his new parents, he went into their friend’s house and promptly pooped.   That was a sign of things to come.  Next came a beni