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Give me back my bone!

Monday Question

What do you use for flea and tick medication?

We were using Advantix II but the doctor suggested Bravecto so we switched to that.  Then my pawrents realized Bravecto doesn't work on fleas so we might go back to Advantix for our next treatment.

Pepper is our November 12, 2017 Pup of the Week

Life is easier on the immortal side of the Bridge.  I am blogging proof that there is another world where we will all be together forever.  On the mortal side, while people believe in an afterlife, doubts still creep into minds which makes our separation more painful.  

The hardest part of being a Rainbow Bridge angel is witnessing how humans suffer as our ranks grow.

This week our lifelong friend Pepper, after battling kidney disease for six months, had her kidneys shut down and needed her mom’s assistance to earn her wings.  Pepper was her Mom’s, Miss Cathy’s, heart dog, her baby,  her snuggle buddy, and her walking partner.  Letting Pepper pass to the immortal side was one of the hardest events Miss Cathy had to experience.

When Pepper arrived, she was met by her mom’s previous dogs, neighbor dogs, and dozens of online friends who had preceded her. Pepper had tears in her eyes, mourning the loss of her Mom, Liz, their family, and her sister JuJu, but she also was laughing, delighted to see those she had lost during her lifetime.

There was no delight at her former home.  Pepper no longer ran to the door to greet her mom, she didn’t stay underfoot when dinner was cooked, and JuJu wandered the house confused.  Every thought, every visual image, was a cold reminder that something was missing.  For a small dog, Pepper took up a lot of the house.

All senses feel the loss of a passing, but one of the most sensitive is hearing.  A house is filled with calming sounds:  "There is the sound of Pepper’s paws, everything is alright; there is the sound of Pepper’s barking, everything is alright; there is the sound of Pepper playing, everything is alright."  When those comforting sounds are gone nothing is alright.  The absence of sound drowns out all other noise.

My friends feel guilty about enjoying a beautiful, happy, funny, and inspirational dog like Pepper at Rainbow Bridge. She is such a real lady, and a perfect definition of what a dog should be.  I love visiting her every day, but I know she would rather be with her mom.

Pepper is desperate to let her mom know that she is still with her, just in a place where she can’t be seen, heard, touched or smell.  It is a place where the senses fail to recognize, but, if the unknown sense that is hidden in the heart and mind come forth, an angel’s presence can be felt, if only fleetingly.

We pray for the day those unknown senses come forth for Miss Cathy to give her a brief respite from her pain and start the healing process.

Tails From Rainbow Bridge: Can a Good Dog Save a Bad Man

It seems that every week there is a story of an angry man whose life has gone wickedly wrong, and who becomes violent resulting in a wake of death behind him.  It is too simple to say if these men had dogs they would never have become violent but a dog did help one violent man  

Budhi Bryant grew up in a horrific home where the seeds for the abusive man he would become were planted.  His mother was addicted to drugs.  To pay off her debts, she gave Budhi to her drug dealer.  When that transaction occurred Budhi’s father was in jail,  HIs grandfather tracked Budhi down, and he moved in with his aunt and uncle.

When  Budhi was five, his father was released from prison.  He found his son with his grandmother, beat her, and took him.  Budhi’s father abused him for years.  Budhi took comfort in his dog until his father, during a violent episode, beat the dog to death in front of him.

Budhi was removed from his father’s home and put in the foster care system.  He was then returned to his aunt and uncle, but he was unhappy there.  At 16 he joined the Navy.  He made a good friend with a shipmate, but that man was murdered on board, and Budhi was assigned to scrub the scene clean.

He went to Penn State, got a good job, and it looked like he had escaped his violent past, but he was still in the reserves, and he was called up to serve one year in the Middle East as part of a combat search and rescue unit.

He returned home suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which he treated with alcohol.  His work did not suffer, but when he got home, he drank until he passed out.

He was married and had a daughter, who he loved, but the disease, and the drinking pushed him into the past where he became his father.  He got drunk at a wedding, nearly beat his wife to death, and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

While in prison he struggled with the knowledge that he had become who he hated.  His wife divorced him.  He gave up on himself and attempted suicide.

He discovered salvation when the prison administration began a program where prisoners would train rescue dogs to become service dogs.  He was given a pit bull named Layla who had been hit by a car and had scars covering her body.  Layla hid under a table when she entered the prison and could have been deemed a failure but, perhaps remembering the dog he had lost as a boy, Budhi refused to leave Layla side until she crawled out from under the table.

Layla was saved and rehabilitated by Budhi, and she did the same for him.  When Layla was placed Budhi got more dogs to train, taking those who had been used for fighting, or had been abused, and got them ready to re-enter society and they did the same for him.

Budhi got a nine to five job when he left prison, but he soon began his own business, Training Buddy, and he dreams of opening his own training center operated by vets and former inmates.

Recently Budhi was challenged by a Labrador-Brittany mix named Ryder and his overmatched owner.  Budhi worked with Ryder but the overactive dog made his owner crazy, and he wanted to surrender Ryder.  Having been given up on several times in his life, Budhi would not do that with Ryder.

Budhi brought Ryder home to live with the abused pitbull who he had adopted and named Layla after the first dog he had saved.  The three of them recently hiked along the Appalachian Trail, three rehabilitated souls with the wide open country lying before them and their limitless future before them.

Pocket and the Mysterious Bump

It always starts innocently. A week ago I was sitting next to Daddy on his recliner.  I stood up to walk across his legs to sit with Mommy.  He reached out with his left hand to scratch my neck.  He touched something and said:  “What the hell is that?”

This is never words a dog wants to hear especially when they are being touched.  My dad had found a strange growth on my neck.

He picked me up and put me on Mommy’s lap.  River, who had been lazing next to her, stood up.  The three of them studied the growth.  It was brown, legless, and flexible.  It resembled a tick, but, being legless, that possibility was dismissed.  My parents determined it was a skin tag.

I sighed in relief.  That didn’t sound like a problem.  The rest of the night passed peaceably.

But my parents fancy themselves to be intellectuals which means they have to read everything there is about a decision they have reached until they convince themselves they are wrong.  In the past, this would require a time-consuming trip to the library.  Thanks to the Internet an entire library of bad information is at our parent’s fingertips.

It took them a day to decide that skin tag may not be the answer.  They studied the multi-syllable medical terms, all slick and sinister,  for bumps on dogs:  sebaceous cyst, wart, abscess,  mast cells. Hematomas.  They examined each category, mentally listing why my growth did or did not meet the requirements for each type of bump.

The lump was photographed and put on the Internet without my consent.  People from around the country discussed it.  My parents decided on a Saturday night that the vet needed to examine the grand mystery under my chin.

On Sunday morning my parents found a similar growth on River Song.  What was this?  An epidemic?  Was our kitchen a mass cancer site?  

The anxiety came in the form of massive, random waves.  When the waves were offshore, my parents were convinced we had skin tags, but when the waves crashed on the beach every dark wormhole of negative assumption was realized, which meant more growth examining and worry.

On Monday the vet was called, but the technician did not understand the urgency of the tiny brown growths on two dogs or understood the mindset of my parents continually pounded by rogue waves of senseless anxiety.  My appointment was for Tuesday, at 3:45, which, according to my stressed-out parents, was 35 hours past the turn of midnight.

It rained on Monday and we were trapped inside living with two growths that, with each touch, seemed to grow or recede.  On Tuesday my parents worked outside, then came in, to wait.

I was the guinea pig.  They would find out how serious a problem this tiny bump actually was, and if, as seemed inevitable, it was severe, River would be examined the next day.  

I was seen right away.  I was placed on the cold, sterile table.  My father spread my fur to show the female technician the vicious growth jutting from my skin.

“Oh, it’s a tick,” she said.  She grabbed it with two fingers, removed it, and told us there would be no charge for the service.  My parents stood, in the exam room, looking at one another, unable to speak or move.

       "A tick!" my dad finally said.  "I thought so."  My mom readily agreed.         When they returned home, grateful, but also embarrassed by the two intellectual dog experts who failed to recognize a tick, they gave River a shot of tequila, and a stick to bite on, then quickly removed her tick as well.

Before that act, which ended this drama, there was a side trip.  I was taken to the polling place, where they must have been voting for the President or something, and allowed to become a real citizen by voting for the first time in my life.  I was the hit of the polling station.

So here I am now, both tickless and lumpless, an American, but not a true American, as I am not yet completely exhausted, stressed out, and overwhelmed.

But if I keep following my parent's footprints I will get there.

Wordless Wednesday

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And with one kiss from Prince Charming, the beautiful Princess awoke