The Ruby Rose and the Big Little Angels 3 Blog

One of the worst things that can ever befall a dog happened to me this past week. I was put on a diet! My parents have been commenting about my weight a lot recently. I considered this behavior to be rather gauche.  You do not comment on a lady's weight. Thankfully, I am a forgiving sort. Last week I went to my trusted groomer.  She is the one who traveled to Florida and brought me to Massachusetts to live with my forever family.  She is the mom to my paramour, a studly young Griffon who I was once bred with which we an ill-fated attempt to pass my beauty onto a further generation. While one groomer carried Pocket to the waiting area, my groomer came out, especially to see me.  "Hi there, chunky," she said with a smile.   I looked around to see who she was addressing, but no one else was there.  When she picked me up, she made and overly exaggerated grunting noise as if my burden was too much to bear. I was crushed. I also understood why this woman groomed dog

Our Daddy picked up two bags of food to deliver to the shelter.  We don't have a lot of toys, and Mommy doesn't keep much more than what she uses.  If we do get more toys we will donate some old ones. 

Excuse Ewe

In honor of Tony Soprano, we have a question about waste disposal. What happens to your poo after you go. Is it bagged right away? Is it cleaned up every day or week? Do your parents let God take care of it?  If you go on walks is there a place where you can go freely? Or is there something else

There are many reasons to have a pack full of young dogs.  A parent has the privilege of witnessing them growing up together and watching them form an unbreakable bond that only souls who experience life stages together can do.  When they are young and delighting their parents by romping across the green grass together, it is easy for humans to convince themselves that this is how it will be forever. It is a thrill to see pups age, learn things, and become adults as a pack.  Sadly, they become seniors together, too, and that inevitably leads to massive heartache for their parents.  The Portuguese Water Dog blog has been delighting readers for years.  We love getting updates about this awesome pack. As they age, we experienced them growing old together and tried to ignore the signs of diminishing heartbeats.  In February, Fudge was the first to make that final trip to the Bridge.  In June, Sebastian and Noah joined him. Then, this week, Tess tragically became the fourth member of

Within the first month of being at Rainbow Bridge, an angel has to go to the Prayer Clearing House.  This is where all unanswered prayers are stored. A new angel enters the database and clears out all their prayers, so another angel assigned to cold case prayers (those that have not been answered for five years) does not work on a current angel's prayers.  Working on cold case prayers is monotonous and unfulfilling. But, occasionally, it is gratifying for the one saying the prayers and the angels hearing them.    When I was recently assigned to the cold prayers unit, I found some from 2007.  A woman was praying for a dog who had snuck out of her house when her oldest son was leaving for school.  The pup did not come home. She prayed for him constantly every day for a year and kept him in her nightly prayers since then.  I figured the dog was here at the Bridge, but there was no record of him. I opened the prayers from the dog's database and began to search.  I didn’t expect

On Wednesday, River and I undertook our favorite endeavor, going to the groomers. My parents have been taking their dogs to the same groomer for 23 years since that magical moment occurred in May 1996, when Mommy finally relented and agreed to get a dog. Daddy's Aunt Bev was the catalyst for my parents getting a dog. Mommy had mentioned offhand that she wouldn't mind a small fluffy dog. Daddy remembered Aunt Bev recently had a Lasha. He rushed mommy to her house, and Aunt Bev convinced mom to get a dog. Fortuitously, there were Shih Tzu puppies listed in the Globe the next morning. Mommy was skeptical about going to see them, but when they did, Blake ran up, put her paws on Mommy, and looked at her with deep brown eyes. Mommy was in love.  That love for dogs continued for a quarter of a century. Once they had Blake, they had to figure out how to care for her.  Mommy had a lot of dog questions, including where to go for grooming.  Aunt Bev suggested a business, in Middle

"Hold on Matilda, let a man handle this."

Besides your parents who do you love the most?  

One aspect of my personality that has changed since my arrival at the Bridge is my attitude towards cats.  When I was on the mortal side, I truly did loathe them. Looking back, I can now say part of my kitty resentment was jealousy.  I would sit in my house, staring out the window and see kitties running about freely on the grass. I wasn't allowed to do this; why were they?  I was told it was illegal for dogs to be off-leash.  I believed that this was due to the big kitty lobby that influences politicians.  They reasoned that dogs are more likely to do damage to people and property than cats.  After seeing the havoc, feral cats caused at my parents' house when they disconnected the duct from the AC to the house and turned our crawl space into a kitty version of The Deuce I could not have disagreed more.   Mommy told me the biggest reason I wasn't allowed to be outside like cats are that I would get hurt.  I knew the same was true of cats, but in my opinion, it was goo

Everyone knows that there are innumerable reasons for a person to own a dog, but scientists have discovered a new one: Living with a dog will extend your lifespan. No one ever asked me, but I could have told researchers that a long time ago.  We give our parents a part of our hearts, and our hearts are forever young.    I read about this research last week.  Scientists have been studying dogs and their owners for 70 years.  Did someone pay them for this research, which would encompass a human’s entire professional life span and more?  Sweet work if you can get it. They discovered that owning a dog reduces the risk of death by 24%.  A lot of this comes from people who fall down wells. Ninety-nine percent of dog owners who fall down a well survive. That number drops to two percent for non-dog owners.  The numbers are astonishingly the same for humans who run into trouble at the old mill. There are also dogs who saved the family from rabid animals, bears, vicious vamping dogs, roc

I had a bad feeling, way back in June, when the temperature was warm, the gardens were in bloom, spreading their beauty and sweet smells throughout our modest yard, and the daylight was everlasting.  I noticed the sun was setting earlier. I hoped it was meaningless, but the days continued to get shorter, which meant our beautiful gardens were in peril.  I do love our gardens, especially the awesome smells.  I like to bury my nose down to the roots where the really good scents are captured. I love sitting in the buggy on Mondays and watching my parents turn patches of dirt into beauty. I did not want the beautiful summer to end. I knew I couldn't stop it, but my sister angel Judge Foley Monster can do anything.  She entered my dreams and told me while she appreciated my faith in her, not even a Yorkie angel judge can keep the Earth from spinning around the sun.   Disappointing. Then Foley presented me with an offer I couldn't refuse.  She told me she would come into my d

I am the dog of the knights that go ni

MONDAY QUESTION   How many vets have you had in your life?   Pocket: I began with the one in Raynham, but he retired, and we didn't like his replacement. Then I went to the one in Dighton, who was nice, but only saw patients four mornings a week. I am now at one in Taunton and so far I very pleased with her. River has been to Raynham and Taunton

When there is a natural disaster like a hurricane, we angels get overwhelmed with prayers.  Sadly, we can't help everyone. The prayers arrive as relentlessly as the rain thundering down from the sky  We lose contact with the soul desperately seeking assistance, and a few minutes later, they are standing behind us newly arrived at the Bridge.   No one is upset about our failure. There isn't time. Now that they are angels, they try to answer another soul's prayers as we did theirs.  Every angel worked around the clock during Hurricane Dorian.  I received the prayers of a dog who desperately needed saving.  He had hidden under an air conditioner in his living room when the storm hit.  The shabbily built structure could not stand up to the terrible winds. The house collapsed around the poor dog.  He was barking that he had survived. The air conditioner stopped the debris from landing on him. Sadly, there was an entire house on top of him.  He was impossible to see or hear.

Sadly, I have received hundreds of prayer requests from dogs because they, either accidentally, or on purpose, have been shot.  This week I got a request I never expected.  "Please help me!" The short prayer began. "I shot a human!" Often, especially if the soul sending the prayers is in distress, the prayer is garbled.  I thought that must be the case with this strange request.   Before I departed to check on the desperate dog, I got a human request originating not far from the original prayer: "Please help me, a dog has shot me!" My curiosity piqued, I put on my long-distance wings and flew down to End Oklahoma.  I found a woman being attended to by EMTs.  She had a bullet hole in her side. Inside the truck, where she had just been a passenger, was a 78-year-old man and a yellow lab.  Both looked very concerned. I made myself appear to the dog. The human couldn't see me because their cynicism has long closed them off to magic.  I was able

There is no greater catastrophe for humans at the beginning of the 21st century than to be disconnected from the Internet.  They become like lost little puppies taking refuge from a storm in an abandoned shed. They know important things are happening out there, and their friends need them, but they have no way of contacting anyone.  They sit and tremble until the problem is solved.  Daddy received an email last week from our Internet provider saying that we needed to upgrade our modem.  A modem is a device created by dog scientists who were angry that they were not getting quality lap time when their moms were on the Internet. The modem allows our parents to be online while we are on a lap.  It began as a luxury but quickly became essential. People have to be able to access the Internet all the time like it is air.  When Daddy got the email, Mommy and I exchanged nervous glances.  Daddy learned how to fix things from his dad, who never met a tool or instructions he could not blam

"What are you pulling me over for? I wasn't doing anything wrong! This is breed profiling!  

Do you follow Mom and Dad wherever they go? Pocket: Sometimes, but I like to sit on my own too.  I let them come to me.   River Song: Always.  I never leg Mommy out of my sight.  She hates when I stare at her while she is pooping.  She claims I give her performance anxiety.  

Traditionally, angels have been depicted in all-white garments. They may have different colored faces, but they are always wearing white robes. It probably had to do with the influence the white robe lobbyists had in biblical times. Truthfully, angels wear the same comfortable clothes we wore on the mortal side. There is no angel uniform, even on the most important occasions. But this week, I met a true angel in all white.   Coincidentally her name is Angel. She is a cute little white bulldog.  I enjoyed visiting her and her pack, including her brother Prince who is as dark as she is white, on dream dates. I enjoyed their stubby legs, their snorting breaths, and how they would play with sister Gabriella's big ball, trying to use their short legs to mount it.  Mama Jeanne has enjoyed watching pups play for her entire life. She always has a pack of fun-loving dogs that keep her smiling. Sadly large packs lead to heartbreak when inevitably the members make their journey to the o

Did you read that the guy who bred the first labradoodle says he created a monster?  I don’t think he created a monster. Everyone who has ever met a Labradoodle knows they are adorable and caring dogs.  If there was a monster created by this equation, it was the guy who saw a Gen-challenged dog and decided to create his own master race of mutts. Let me tell you what the scuttlebutt is about this guy.   He was a breeder, and he got an order from a family that wanted a poodle and a labrador. He got careless and forgot to check who was in whose bed the night of the breeding.  A few weeks later, the female gave birth to half poodle/half labrador. An honest man would have admitted his mistake and returned the deposit. But this guy never met a deposit he wanted to refund.  He took the two dogs out of the birthing room, walked outside, held them like he was Mufasa, and announced that he had created the “poobra!’   The other dogs groaned.  “Okay, I created the Labrapoo."  There were

The local pet store is much more than another shop.  The pet store welcomes we furry creatures inside, and the staff always gives us attention. There are treats at the register and more pee-mail then at a busy dog park.  Our favorite pet store closed this week. It is where we got our food, treats, and occasional toys. Pocket and I didn't spend much time in the store. We bark when we see another dog.  Mommy doesn't want us to be the loud little dogs at the pet store, which everyone smiles at and despises. I did spend a lot of time in another store when I first came to live with my family.  I got private training lessons! My parents had not taken a dog to school in years. While they found the instructor to be very friendly, they did not think the course was intensive. A few weeks later, they discovered the trainer had no training experience.  She was a groomer, thus explaining why I only was taught how to sit. Yes, my parents should have asked for their money back, bu

"Excuse me!  Can you spare a square?