Three Dog Beds and Mom's Chair

Angel dogs in training are not supposed to be jealous of their charges. And I'm not. Truly I'm not. Really, really, really I'm not. I just want to know why my earth-bound brother, Levi, is allowed to sleep in Mom's chair but I never was. She even had one of those X-Mat pet training things designed to keep me from getting up there. Be warned, dogaroons, those thing hurts when you jump on them!

You're probably thinking there's more to the story. I guess I did leave out that fact that I liked to dig in the chair, too, trying to make a nest for myself while pretending I was out in the wilds of Montana. But Levi will learn to do that as well. Doesn't Mom know that? No, she just lets him sleep where he can keep an eye on her in the kitchen and Dad in his Lazy Z Boy. I'm not jealous---I think I've established that---I'm just concerned for Mom's judgment with raising Levi. She's getting old, you know.

And since I'm making comparisons, he's got three---count them---one, two, three dog beds. I only had one. He's got the soft, cushy one in the laundry room that he uses at night. Another one that fits in the bottom of his crate that Mom keeps in the car, and the third is a 'crate liner' bed that Levi is allowed to drag all through the house so he can plop down and sleep where ever he pleases.

Here is a photo of Levi in his crate liner bed, sleeping next to the waste basket. Can you believe it, he's never looked inside that basket! What self-respecting dog wouldn't have dove in after the junk mail and shredded paper by his age? He's going to be six months old on the 23rd, he should know about waste baskets by now. I hope he's not retarded.

My angel brother Jason says I have a selective memory. He says I didn't need a dog bed in the car because I always got to ride on Mom's lap back in the days when Dad could drive and after that I got to ride on Dad's lap. Levi needs a crate and bed in the car because, 1) he doesn't know enough not to jump out of an open door while Mom is transferring Dad to his wheelchair and 2) times have changed since I was a pup and Mom knows, now, that dogs are safer riding in the back where air bags can't get them.

I'll concede that Jason is right about all of that but he didn't have a logical explanation for why Levi has that third bed. The best he could come up with is that when I am able to let go of my earthly attachment to things, Levi could have a hundred beds and it won't matter to me. This is where Jason loses me with all that Zen stuff. Up here at the Rainbow Bridge, what ever we can imagine having to make us happy---tennis balls, steaks, Sarah with her pink tutu, fields to run in, water to play in---they magically appear. Yet when I look down on earth, all I'm suppose to see and help nurture is love, compassion and laughter.

"You already have that ability inside you," Jason told me. "You just need to master using it."

"Couldn't you just wave a magic wand and make me full angel wings worthy?" I begged him. All I've got now are those stubby trainer wings, you know.

"And have you miss great opportunities to grow and learn?" he answered with a smile. "That's not the angel way."

Love, compassion, laughter, growth, and learning---I'm tired of trying to figure out what all this has to do with Levi having three dog beds and Mom's chair to sleep in. I've got a poker game to go to. I'm out of here. Catch you later, alligators. ©

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We've Been Tagged!

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We've been tagged by Petra! Here's how the game goes. Each player that is tagged answers a set of questions about themselves. At the end of the blog entry, the player tags 4 or 5 other dogs to play. Then they post their names and go to their blogs and leave a comment, letting them know they have been tagged and asking them to come read your blog for the rules and quiz. After answering the questions, you then go back to the person who tagged you and let them know you posted your answered the quiz.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
Me (Cooper): I was earning a living getting paid a quarter every time I'd go some where with my humans. My piggy bank stash came in handy, too, when I'd get to go shopping at the pet store.

Levi: Being just a puppy at 18 weeks old, I wasn't clear on where he was 10 years ago. So I consulted with my angel brother and found out that before Levi's birth he had been a wee little angel. Sometimes when puppies die too young they get another chance to find humans to love and be loved back. Time has no meaning up here at the Rainbow Bridge so there's no telling if he'd been up here a week, a month, a year, or 10 years.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
Me: I want to pee on a hundred trees, snatch a steak off a grill, snooze in the sun, roll in deer poop, and check on my humans through the magic water at the bridge.

Levi: His to-do list is pretty much the same each day: sleep, play, pee, eat, chew and then start all over again.

3) Snacks I enjoy:
Me: I never met a snack I didn't enjoy. My favorites were Pupperoni Sticks and Pedigree Breath Busters.

Levi: His experience with treats is very limited. So far he's only got to try Old Mother Hubbard puppy biscuits and Iams Smart Puppy bits.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Me: I would make sure all the dogs on earth had good homes with plenty of love.

Levi: He's probably buy a billionaire dollar's worth of rawhide chew sticks. That boy is having a hard time cutting teeth!

5) Three of my bad habits:
Me: This is going to sound like I'm bragging but I didn't have bad habits.

Levi: Barking, wanting to chase birds and chewing on Mom.

6) Five places I have lived:
Me: Before Mom and Dad got married I used to bounce back and forth between their two houses. My mom called Dad 'Doggie Daycare.' I lived in an apartment for a year after Dad's stroke and after that we had a brand new wheelchair accessible house.

Levi: He lived as a wee little thing up here at the bridge and was born to make sure Mom and Dad got a very special puppy when they needed one.

7) Five jobs I have had:
Me: Oh, my! I could never do the neat jobs that Petra did. I was awestruck by his creativity. I was a snowplower's companion, a clown, a singer, and a poodle stereotype buster.

Levi: He's too young to work. Right now his job is to pee and poop in the right place, play, eat, give puppy kisses, and look cute.

The dogs I tag now to answer this quiz are as follows. Have fun!

Hershey and/or Kaci
Joann
Penny
Bailey and/or Baxter
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National Stuffie Appreciation Day

In honor of National Stuffie Appreciation Day, May 8th, I'm sharing photos of Levi's and my stuffed toys. Levi is using all my old hand-me-downs. Mom says he can get some of his very own when he's old enough to go shopping on a leash.

This is the Blue family, Mr. Dippy Dog and Miss Teddy-Do. Mom likes the blue family because she can see them on our gray floors and Dad can run over them with his wheelchair and not get stuck.



When I was earth bound, I hated the White family, Mistress Lamb and Wacky Duck, because they were too noisy for my tastes but my baby brother loves to make them squeak and squeal.



Levi and Wacky Duck.



These are the Rainbow Buddies. Both of them were fun to play with and triangle was my very favorite stuffie. Today, Levi got his first lesson on retrieval with the rainbow ball. There is a bigger triangle in the closet but Mom is waiting for Levi to grow up a little bit more before giving it to him. I used to stick my head right inside of that triangle and Levi is trying to do the same thing with the little one.



This is a photo of my very first stuffie and it was taken on the day my humans brought me home for the first time. Can you believe it! They made me live in a cardboard box until I got housebroke. You can just barely find me in this photo. My eyes are in between the yellow and blue.



When I was three years old my Dad sent away in the mail for this Energizer Rabbit stuffie. He really did spoil me rotten. Mom sold it when they downsized, but there's still a little one packed away.



This is Dad's stuffie from when he was a toddler in the '40s. Boy, did Dad get mad when I tried to take him for a walk one day. Teddy lives in a glass cage now.



This is another of my dad's stuffies, Mr. Froggie. He won the green guy playing a carnival game called 'frog flopping' back when he and Mom were young. Dad would never let anyone play with Mr. Froggie either. He lives on a high shelf in the library.



These are Mom's stuffies from the '50s. They do things. One walks and one has a radio in its nose. The small one is into voodoo, he's full of pins.



This stuffie lives in the guest bedroom. I feel sorry for German Dog because no one plays with him. Mom says she rescued him from a flea market, so I guess the guest bedroom is a better place to live than a flea market. I hate fleas.



Happy National Stuffie Appreciation Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Daddy's Little Service Dog

Something bad happened to my dad just before my seventh birthday. He went away for three months and when he came home, he couldn't walk or talk. He's had a chair on wheels every since and it didn't take me long to figure out that I could walk right underneath it. That route came in handy as a shortcut. Dad and his wheelchair take up a lot of room and he likes to park right in doorways which once made my mom say she wished she could do my trick. I don't do it much anymore, now that I'm pushing sixteen, but it sure made my dad laugh back when I was younger.

So that's how it came about, my switching from being a mom's boy to being daddy's helper. From my seventh birthday on I took it upon myself to keep Dad company whenever he sits in his La-Z-Boy. I think mom felt abandoned at first but she said Dad needed me more so she got used to it. It also became my job to make sure that Dad felt needed. I did that by making him my exclusive go-to human for treats. That was clever of me, don't you think?

But my most important job involved that circus trick I told you about in my last blog entry---walking on my back legs. Dad did learn to stand up again and once a day he leans on a metal stick and tries to see if he can walk to the kitchen while my mom follows close behind with the wheelchair. He wobbles and he's very slow but I do my best to encourage him. I stand up straight on my back legs and hop backwards as he steps forward. Now days, I can only go about five or six feet before my arthritis kicks in but Mom and Dad appreciate that I still try to help. I probably shouldn't brag but I once heard Mom tell someone that my Dad's physical therapist got goose bumps when he heard about me helping dad with his homework.

I'm not a certified service dog but I'll bet I could be...if only I could learn how to reprogram the TV remote when Dad drops it on the floor. ©

No Tutu and Rhinestones for Me

I joined the family seven or eight weeks after my predecessor died of cancer and once I heard my mom tell my dad that she had gotten me too soon. She hadn't finished mourning Jason, a twelve year old beige poodle who passed over to the other side while still in her arms. He was a skinny rack of bones by then and they say he was a wise old man all of his life.

With all do respect to the dead, Jason couldn't have been very smart. Back then, my mom had a book on how to train poodles to do circus tricks and he just went along with the program. I'm told he'd jumped through hoops, rolled over on queue and could do the obedience training routine in his sleep. Yadda, yadda, yadda. That's just wrong. Dogs---especially macho dogs like me---aren't supposed to be counting with their paws and playing the shell game with humans. Not me. I was smart enough to call my time my own and do what dogs are supposed to do. Make trouble. They even called me the Trouble Bubble when I was a pup. I'm kind of proud of that.

The only circus trick I didn't mind learning was walking on my back legs. That was fun and it earned me another neat nick name. Back before I became sway-backed and pot-bellied I was lean and lanky and dad said I looked like the Pink Panther when I'd walk around on my back legs, my front paws dangling precariously in front of me. He called me that for years. I didn't walk that way to please mom and dad. I was up there looking to see what was on top of the tables. It was also the best way to follow flying insects around. One time mom purposely let a fly in the house for me to play with because, she said, it was the only thing that kept me busy and out of trouble for any length of time. Those were the good old days before arthritis got to my joints.

Looking back over my puppy-hood, it's been one helluva ride and I think I've lived longer than Jason did because I didn't brown nose as much when it came to learning circus tricks. Working for your kibble ages you and if a poodle isn't careful he'll find himself wearing a tutu and a rhinestone collar. My folks didn't make Jason wear those things but he sure had a lot of sweaters when he died. ©

Photo: poster from allposter.com