My One Year Anniversary at The Rainbow Bridge

Can you believe it, it's been a year since I left earth to come to the Rainbow Bridge. We don't mark our existence up here by the calendar but today I happened to check up on my mom, dad, and baby brother and I found Mom working on my grave site. That's what reminded me of how long it's been. She was cementing the marker down on top of a couple of patio stones and adding polished river stones and broken china to decorate around it. It looks pretty and it made me feel good to know I'm still in her heart.

I'm finally a full-fledged angel-dog. Little did I know when I first got here that you start out with a little pair of training wings and if you want a "full-feathered" set you have to earn it feather by feather. I do look majestic, now, if I do say so myself. Not that most angel-dogs are vain about their looks. They're not. I was always a "preener" by nature and most earthly characteristics stick with you up here, especially the quirky character tics that make you you.

Little Levi who Mom and Dad adopted the day after I passed over to the Rainbow Bridge is doing well except he still squats like a little girl which amuses me to no end. Dad always said I probably lifted my leg a minute after I came out of my mother's womb.

Being a poodle, I used to think poodles were the best groomed in the world but watching my schnauzer brother grow up has given me a new appreciation for and definition of dogging beauty. He takes my breath away, he's so cute and Mom loves to run her hands over the soft texture of his hair. She calls him her stress reduction machine. That long beard of his comes in handy, too. He hides bark in his mouth when he's outside and brings it inside. Mom always has a pile of confiscated bark sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to go back out.

Speaking of stress, there's been a lot of it the family house for Levi to help Mom overcome. All the bankruptcy talk in the news about the company my Dad gets his pension and health insurance from is causing it. She even started selling stuff on e-Bay to help build up a nest egg should that happen. It takes up a of time and she doesn't like doing but she's the kind of person who has to do something when trouble is on the horizon.

Anyway, Levi is the perfect puppy for Mom and Dad and he came into their lives at the perfect time. I see that all now. In my sixteen years on earth I caused a lot of stress with my stubbornness and need for early intervention with an animal behaviorist. Mom and Dad were up for the job back in those days but now that they are older they deserve and need an 'easy' dog like Levi. He's a sweetheart with a sweet heart.

Cooper from The Bridge

P.S. Wasn't I a cute baby. That's me in the first photo above, when I was 4 months old. The second photo is one of Levi taken a few days ago.

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Pee High, Pee Often

Mom's been busy day dreaming over house plans and hasn't taken the time to help Levi get on the computer. She gets like that sometimes---drawing blueprints has been a life-long hobby of hers. Anyway, since Mom wasn't keeping in touch, I decided to take a break from my angel duties up here at the Rainbow Bridge to keep the blog from drifting off into oblivion.

Actually, what drew my thoughts back to earth was my older brother Jason. I caught him peering down through the magic water at Mom and he was tail-wagging happy, laughing so loud a group of dogs had gathered at his side. I asked him what was so funny and he pointed down at a photo Mom had found in a box of stuff that had been in a closet for the past six years.

Jason went on to tell about how Dad was never without his 35mm camera with a long, telescopic lens back in his younger years and Dad would drive Mom crazy because he took a zillion photos of Jason leaving pee mail all over the world. They'd go on vacation and half the photos he'd come home with would be of Jason peeing on things like: "You are Entering the State of Wyoming" signs, or a tire on the biggest front end loader in the world, or a tin can in the desert.

Dad's favorite "pee mail" shot of my big brother is the one below and Mom had been looking for it for a long time. So she was happy when it turned up in the closet with a bunch of other framed photos that never got unpacked when they moved in .


I liked seeing Jason in this photo. Up here at the bridge he's a Mr. Perfect, do-good Angel Dog and it was fun to see him acting all macho in the real world. Who would have guessed he and Dad were so obsessed with pee shots? But I seriously hope Mom shows this photo to Levi. He's a year old and I'm worried about him still peeing like a little girl! That can't be normal.

Cooper

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Dog Dancing---is She Crazy?

A bunch of us dogaroons up here at the Rainbow Bridge were lounging under the tennis ball trees discussing our humans and their habit of making New Years Resolutions. So I decided to peek down at my family and see what silly things Mom put on her list this year. Mom's a list kind of person so I knew she'd have one. Years ago she even made one of those "100 Things to do Before I Die" lists and recently she found it again. She'd actually done about half the things on her list and decided she should make a new list. The first thing she put down was: "Shorten this list to 25 things to do before I die. I'm old!"

I digress. For her New Year's Resolutions Mom had put down the customary weight and exercise related things that seem to be required for humans to list. She had a few improve-your-personality type things as well, pretty standard stuff for Mom. Then she had one crazy, totally unobtainable thing listed. Even crazier than the time she vowed to learn how to belly dance. In 2009 she wants to---get this---learn how to do dog dancing with my baby brother, Levi!

Mom thinks it will kill a flock of birds with one stone. 1) It will give her some exercise; 2) it will give Levi some exercise; 3) it will create a stronger bond between Mom and Levi; and 4) it will entertain Dad with their practice sessions. What Mom left out of the equation is that fact that she's old and she can hardly walk. Sure, she'd got one new knee but the other one won't even bend. It's shot and needs replacing, too. She can't walk fast or for long without pain, let alone run and if she tries to dance, she'll look like a character in a low budget Frankenstein movie. I love her but a hunchbacked old woman dragging a leg behind her doesn't exactly inspire my confidence in her ability to pull off dog dancing with Levi.

Levi, the little trouper, is doing his part. Already he's learned how to bow, shake right and left, do circles on command and is learning to go through Mom's legs. He can also do the normal obedience things like sit, down, stand and heel. And get this. When I looked down on them today Mom was sitting in her rolling computer chair trying to get Levi to back up and come forward as she rolled to and from him. I think she's mixing wheelchair dancing up with dog dancing. I know she's watched those wheelchair dancing competitions but I'm not sure she has a clue what dog dancing is all about.

I tried to talk to my older brother, Jason, up here the Bridge about Mom's craziest. He's a full-fledged angel-dog and a newbie trainer on top of that. But he says I can't interfere. I tried to tell him she's going to fall and break her neck but Jason is firm about the rules. No ifs, ands or buts about it I can't erase 'dog dancing' off Mom's New Year's Resolution list and her memory and replace it with 'knit everyone on the block a sweater.' It's a pain in the butt sometimes to have all this angel-power not be able to use it in so-called wasteful ways. How is it wasteful to make my mom act her age? On the good side, most of her New Year's Resolutions don't make it to April. ©

Cooper

Wheelchair Dancing Competition

Wheelchair and Dog Dancing

Paragility Show and Dog Dancing

Carolyn and Rookie, Dog Dancing Team

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Christmas Time at the Bridge

The holiday season up here at the Rainbow Bridge is a busy and happy time. There are parties and bark-alongs and lots of speculating on what our humans are giving each other for Christmas. We've even got a good natured pool going. We're trying to see which of us angel dogs can guess the most gifts correctly. No way can I win the pool because there is just my mom, dad and Levi to exchange gifts in my family but Dad and Levi can't go shopping so that just leaves Mom to buy two gifts.

The Christmas gift pool has made the lines up here at the magic water extra long. The magic water, you'll remember, is under the bridge and it allows us to view our humans down on earth. But even waiting in the lines is fun because we all exchange stories about our holiday times on earth when our humans would dress us up in reindeer antlers or velvet bow ties and other silly things like the blinking, light-up collar I had for many years. We'd also swap stories about the trees that accidentally got peed on and the gifts that got ripped open.

One day after waiting in line I finally I got my time at the magic water and I could see a red Christmas fabric neck scarf for Levi sitting on the dining room table and an unopened U.P.S. box sitting by the front door as Mom and Dad came back from the grocery store.

"I think Cooper's Christmas present came!" Mom told dad.

A gift for me? I thought. What on earth could they get for me? I've been dead for ten months now.

I couldn't wait to tell the other angel dogs what my quirky Mom was up to. I couldn't wait myself to see what she was up to! But imagine my out right shock when she opened the box and revealed a custom make grave marker. No more magic marker on a patio stone for me! I'm getting a REAL memorial marker and if Levi pees on this one like he does on the homemade marker the little bugger is going to feel my wings fluttering my anger in his face. ©


P.S. The photo above was taken of me about six years ago. Mom found it on an old roll of film she just had developed. The memorial marker came from www.harrietcarter.com

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BIG Trouble for Levi

Anyone there? Levi here. I'm in BIG trouble and me don't know what to do. I needs advice. Oops, Levi has to go. Moomie is coming and I'm not allowed on the computer without her next to me.

Being an angel dog sure isn't as easy as you might think. I was right in the middle of watching the Angel League Agility Trials when Levi started sending urge mental telepathy messages out into the world. By the time I got back to the magic water to look down to see what was going on, Mom had come into the kitchen after her nap to find my dad had scattered every mail order catalog in the house all over the table and counter top. He was on a mission. He was looking for the same baseball cap that Levi had just chewed up. It was his favorite hat, a Tony Lama number they bought 3-4 years ago, and there wasn't a chance in hell he was going to find it in the current batch of catalogs.

Mom had been warning and reminding Dad not to leave that hat on the table next to his La-Z-Boy but he forgets that Levi isn't me and he will steal things off all the low tables in the house. Poor Dad. He wore that hat every where, probably because it reminded him of his pre-stroke days. He loved his western attire---Pendleton wool shirts, Levi jeans, Tony Lama cowboy boots and Stenson hats. But they aren't very wheelchair compatible so he traded them in for a better level of independence that comes from sweat pants and pull over knits.

Levi was upset when Dad caught him in the act. Dad was upset, too, and he blamed himself for not taking better care of his hat.. My baby brother had never ruined anything more than a piece of paper before. (Not that he hasn't tried but Mom keeps a close eye on him.) Even Mom felt guilty for not corralling Levi in the laundry room when she took a nap. The whole house was in a gloom and doom mood as Mom searched the internet for another Tony Lama hat like the one Levi ate. No such luck. I wanted to use my angel power to help find one but my older brother tells me I can't do that. There are rules, he keeps telling me, about frivolous interference. Yadda, yadda, yadda. So now I have to watch poor Levi worry about getting un-adopted over this. Silly boy thinks Dad and Mom won't love him anymore.

Speaking of love, Levi got this neat Blogging Friends Forever gold card from Nottie Scottie, Rocky, and the gang over at Forget Sit & Stay. Levi will be beside himself when he sees this gold card and maybe it will make him forget about the hat. Thanks you all!

Like all awards it has some suggested rules for pawing it forward:

1. Only five people allowed.
2. Four have to be dedicated followers of your blog.
3. One has to be someone new or recently new to your blog and live in another part of the world.
4. You must link back to whoever gave you the award.

We're going to paw it foward to: Mr. T-Bone Beasley, Secret Schnoodle, Scruffy, Lacie and Stan's Place. And the forth one goes to any long-time friend who hasn't gotten this award yet and wants to grab it. For our new blog follower we paw it forward to: Mona and the Mommy.

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The Naughty Puppy Catalog

Anyone there? Anyone there? Levi here. Me graduated from puppy obedience class last night! Moomie says we might go back in September. Me hope so. Me will miss playing with my friends.

Levi, it's not Schnauzer Saturday yet.

Me gotta go. Moomie's coming. If she catches me on the computer Levi will get in trouble.

Can you believe my baby brother? He finds the most creative ways to get into trouble. This past week he's been a handful with his wussy reaction to his neutering surgery and he's added several curious items to his naughtiness catalog. 1) He's started playing on the internet when Mom's back is turned and 2), he's been peeing on my gravestones. What's that all about? Seriously. Does he somehow know that I'm the one whispering advice in his little ear? I doubt it but it's got me puzzled and I don't mind telling you, it's kind of creeping me out. I guess I should have my angel powers checked out to make sure I'm doing things right.

In addition to the wussiness, grave peeing and internet episodes, Levi's figured out that one of Dad's feet doesn't work very well so he's been snatching the sock right off that foot and running with it. Every time Mom turns around she has to track the sock down and return it to Dad's foot. He's got no respect for Dad's disability. Well, that's not entirely true. When Mom helps Dad with his showers, and has to transfer him in and out of the shower stall, Levi has learned to sit-stay just fine. But I think he's only doing it for the treats, not because he really understands the safety issue of getting in the way.

Mom's got treats in all her pockets. She never did that for any of her other dog-kids. Half the time she forgets to remove the kibble from her pockets when she does the laundry and it gets washed and dried. Weird, it doesn't look any different having gone through the laundry process. It just falls out the dryer door and Mom scrambles to pick it up before Levi gets to the detergent laced stuff.

Got to go. It's been busy up here at Rainbow Bridge and I want to tag along with the welcoming committee, help out if I can. ©


By the way, if you haven't seen the Bone Relay for the 2008 Paw-limpics, you have to check out the neat video that Lenny made. What a lot of work he put into that video and it turned out to be an awesome start to the Paw-limpics.

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The Neutering Ritual

Poor Levi is having a bad day and he's desperately trying to piece together what happened when he went to the vet's office to get neutered and micro-chipped. Mom told Dad that my brother's surgery went good and they don't expect any complications. But poor Levi doesn't like the cone and all he's done since he got home is sit, trying to tell Dad his troubles. Listen to the thoughts he's blasting out of his little boy brain, trying to connect to dad to get some answers ……

What happened to Levi? Moomie took me to the visit the nice vegetarian---or was it veterinary? (Darn words get so mixed up!) But while we were waiting a lady snatched me from Moomie's arms and put me in a wire cave---no---cage. Me don't remember what happened next but when me woke up from sleeping me discovered something missing. Me looked every where for my walls---no---balls but they are gone. They used to be right here between my legs. Me almost sure it was my back legs but me looked in between my front ones, too, just in case they moved. Me counted my foes---no---toes and they are all still on my foots---no---feet. (Darn English!) Me checked my tail. It's still there. Just my balls are gone. Then Moomie came and brought me home and put this thing on my head. Now Levi can't walk anymore! Me hope Moomie doesn't get sad---no---mad when she finds out my balls got lost. Me don't feel good. Levi needs a nap!

I'm a little stressed up here watching Levi being so scared and confused over his surgery. When he gets to sleep I'm going let him know he'll be just fine without those body parts. That's not a frivolous use of angel power, do you think? He's really worried and it won't take but a second to whisper reassurances in his ear. He should know that humans apparently think testicles are just accessories we don't need and to tell you the true, I never missed mine for very long.

There's a rumor going around, though, that neutering makes dogs more responsible citizens. Judging by all the neutered angel dogs I've met, it must be true because there are some awesome guys up here. Don't get me wrong. Those fully equipped dogs are great, too. It's just that some of them seem pretty damned proud that they escaped the neutering ritual---oops, I've got to quit swearing. I'll have to get one of my fully equipped friends to tell me exactly what those balls are for. I never gave it much thought when I was still on earth.

Hey, look at that! Mom took pity on him and put Levi in a onsie. That did the trick of covering up his stitches so he can't pull them out. No more cone! He's even got a little hole cut in the onsie for his tail. He's settling down for a nap now so I've better get ready to do a little angel business. ©

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Mom's Crocs and Other Family Secrets

Gosh, I wish I could still 'talk' to mom the way I used to do when I was on earth. I'd tell her: "Chill, Mom, chill. Levi will get it eventually." She's been struggling this week with the homework from puppy obedience class number four. Specifically, trying to teach the 'stand' and 'stay' commands. The technique of teaching the stand command starts with Levi being in a 'sit' position and then drawing him forward with a treat until he's standing. That part is working well but he's not connecting the word with the action. It's all about the treat for him and he would follow her to Alaska to get it.

One thing I'm learning up here in angel training is that yesterday's successes (or failures) don't matter, only the present counts. I wish I could tell Mom it doesn't matter that Levi was a shining success in past classes and that people there might have great expectations for his performance at the next class. (She can be a little competitive, you know.) It only matters that they are spending quality training time together, building a strong bond in the process.

That growing bond and the love that goes with it are good things for Levi because for the first time he ruined a material object---one of Mom's beloved Crocs shoes. She can still wear it but it's full of teeth marks. She didn't notice how badly he'd 'puppy stamped' it until yesterday when she was sitting along side of a nature trail that overlooks the backwaters of a river. She and dad were having a rare day with her brother, niece and her niece's husband when her niece wanted to try on her Crocs. As she handed them over and noticed the wide-spread damage Mom thought about how much of a puppy Levi still is. That some how made her feel less guilty that she didn't bring him along on their outing. He can still be unpredictable. (Important lesson to be learned here, Mom. Don't take off your Crocs. Wear them to bed, sleep and shower in them because they chew just like Kong rubber toys. Yummm good.)

On the nature trail Dad and Mom saw three families of tundra swans, several great blue heron, green heron, mallard ducks, two varieties of turtles sunning themselves, and a dozen other birds not normally seen by city dwellers. Levi would have wanted to chase them all, his puppy bark breaking the peacefulness of nature's masterpiece. Yup, as much as Mom suffers separation anxiety when she leaves Levi home it was a good thing common sense won out and she left him home on that hot summer day. With three other people along to push Dad's wheelchair, and no puppy to keep out of trouble, Mom got a much deserved day of bliss, void of worrying about the comforts of another being.

When they got back home, it was apparent that Levi faired just fine being left to his own devices for six hours, the longest he'd ever been left alone. The woodwork was tooth mark free, the table cloth was still in place, the decorative towels still hung on the oven door. The only things that Levi touched were the toys in his box. He'd obviously beat the crap out of them because they laid around the floor like dead soldiers on a battlefield.

When the forces of heaven matched Levi up to my family they did good. Happy six months birthday baby brother! ©



Painting by Robert Bateman
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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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Devil Angel

There are rules...or I should say principles to learn to become an angel dog. Yesterday I screwed up royally. I swear, I couldn't help it and if I were being totally honest here, I'm not sure I feel sufficiently contrite about my error in judgment to EVER pass the muster up here at the Rainbow Bridge. My knobby little pair of wings will probably never blossom into glorious, pure white fluttering appendages like my brother Jason and my silly sister Sarah has. If I didn't have such a macho image to maintain, I'd sit down and cry about that.

What exactly did I do? you ask. I crossed over the line and possessed little Levi for a few minutes. I truly, truly couldn't---why won't anyone believe me---help myself. As an angel in training we're suppose to learn how to look out for our earthly charges without twisting their desire to fit our own purposes. How was I supposed to know that doing the latter was more like the devil's work? The angel pledge is full of fine print. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Who reads all that?

Anyway, back my heartfelt confusion. Levi was in the bathroom while Mom was peeing and I saw him looking at the flash of white paper that came off the roller. "Do it!" I shouted in his head. "Grab it!" And he did! I know I possessed Levi for a few moments because he's been watching Mom pee and pull toilet paper off the roll for two months now and he just accepted that flash of paper as something humans do. It was none of his business and he had that down pat until I planted the naught idea in his head. This time---because of me---he snatched the paper out of Mom's hand, took off running and left her holding air. I used to do that all the time in my the first two years and last six months on earth.

Jason said that what I did was bad in principle but not in deed.

"What the heck does that mean?" I asked him.

He gave me that wise-old-monk-on-a-mountain-top look of his, laughed and said, "Grasshopper, some answers you must find in your heart." ©



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Doors and Lamps, No Problem

I thought I was smart while I was on earth---or was it smart-alecky?---but I never in my entire life tried to turn on a lamp or open a door. Levi is only inches away from accomplishing both of these things. Granted, the lever style door openers Mom and Dad have in their universal design house makes it easier for a clever dog (and disabled people) to figure out. But still, Levi's got to be a pretty smart little puppy at 23 weeks old to stretch himself up in an attempt to pull one of those levers down, thus opening the door if he could reach it. Once he puts a little hop into his efforts---which he'll figure out soon---Mom is going to have to make sure the doors are locked with the deadbolts all the time. Did Houdini have a dog? If so, I wonder if it was a schnauzer and Levi is a blood relative.

The lamp is easier to figure out than the door but still I never tried turning it on like Levi did today. He crawled to the top of Mom's chair in the living room and made a grab for the pull chains. I guess he wanted to learn to read the new book Mom got in the mail today---The Dog Owner's Home Veterinary Handbook---and he needed some extra light.

Levi also managed to crawl on top of the twin beds today, too. I could never do it because they are extra high to accommodate dad's bed-to-wheelchair transfers. The first time my baby brother did it Mom didn't see how he got up there. Levi can't take a running, flying leap in the bedroom like he does to get on the couch in the living room, so she was puzzled. She turned around and there he was lying in the middle of the bed. So she put him on the floor and five seconds later he crawled up the side of the bed like Spiderman on the side of a downtown skyscraper.

Another accomplishment for Levi this week is learning how to nap with Dad. He's been in training for this event for weeks but today he actually stayed on Dad's lap for more than a few seconds. Mom was pleased. She clocked him out at six minutes before he jumped down and she said, "When he grows up enough to have a longer attention span he'll be a good little napping buddy."

That napping comment was bittersweet to my ears, though. I was Dad's napping buddy from the day he came home from the hospital until six months before I came up to the Rainbow Bridge when I just couldn't jump anymore. Levi can't get up there by himself, either, without Mom to help but he's young and will learn soon enough. In the meantime Mom puts Levi on Dad's lap every afternoon for bonding time. When she does that, I have to turn my head and look off towards the magical place where all the rainbows from earth arc up to touch. That helps me remember that angels aren't supposed to be jealous of our earthy replacements. I'm still an angel dog in training, you know, so I have a few things like that still to master. ©


P.S. In case anyone is wondering what the two headed pot is sitting by Mom's chair, it's called a Yellow Dog. It got its name from Teddy Roosevelt who saw these hanging on oil derricks in Texas. They filled them with crude and had two rag wicks coming out the spouts and lite them for light. Teddy said they looked like yellow dogs. A newspaper reporter over heard him say that and soon after a newspaper back east had a headline that read something like: The President Sees Yellow Dogs in Texas! The name stuck. Mom and Dad bought that because they didn't know what it was and it took them several years to find another one. That second one was in an oil and gas museum where they finally learned its purpose and history.

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Heaven Sent Service Dogs

I've been thinking a lot about services dogs. So instead of blogging about Levi today I want to share some of my thoughts from here at the Rainbow Bridge. What got me started thinking about service dogs is I a met a K9 military service dog today, a beautiful German shepherd. A bunch of us were exploring the four-leaf clover field at the time and he was talking about how rewarding it was to have a job down on earth. Then a Siberian husky spoke up about how he came from a long line of working sled dogs. One after another we all told about our breed histories regarding jobs we've done for humans---herding stock, circus performers, hunting, guard and patrol dogs, search and rescue, drafting like horses do. Our blood lines went way back to the Middle Ages when dogs were used to power crude machinery. We even have drug enforcement and cadaver dogs up here and one of newest types of working dogs---the therapy canines.

All this talk made my angel sister, Sarah, cry and we couldn't figure out why. Finally she told us that because she had been so dim-witted down on earth from being the product of a puppy mill that she hadn't been of much value to anyone. I didn't know what to say---I was speechless at her assumption---but my angel brother, the ever-so-wise Jason, told her about how she filled a giant hole in our Mom's heart at a time when she was just figuring out that she couldn't have any two legged babies. "You were a therapy dog," he told her, "before they even invented that category of working dogs." That Jason, he always has the right words on the tip of his tongue. That's why he's one of the official newbie greeters up here at the bridge. When dogs come here, disorientated from a sudden death, he helps them find acceptance and sticks with them until they understand that they are still with their families in spirit, can check on them at the magic water under the bridge, and will be able to jump in their arms again when it's their time to come to heaven.

Levi is a therapy puppy, too, I think. You see the last six months that I was on earth I was getting sicker and sicker and that made my Mom more depressed than she even realized. She knew that she'd get another dog when I was gone and she spent some time looking at rescue sites and the local human society site in my last two months. That depressed her even more because none of those dogs seemed right for Mom and Dad's situation. They had personalities or special needs already formed and with Dad in a wheelchair she didn't want an older dog. Puppies seemed rare on the rescue sites and even if there had been puppies there was no guarantee that they wouldn't be unhealthy puppy mill victims, she thought, or would be like me who had been sold way too young---5 1/2 weeks---from a ruthless breeder creating a lot of behavioral problems. Mom needed an easy dog this time around.

When Mom first saw Levi, two weeks before I died, she hadn't planned on looking at a litter of puppies. She had gone to pick me up from the groomers but I wasn't ready on time so she was driving around to kill time when she saw a 'puppies for sale' sign. She pulled in and met two male schnauzers. She told my Dad afterwards that she would have taken one of them home on the spot if not for the fact that it probably would hurry up my death. I was too ill from my heart problems to deal with a frisky puppy. Two weeks later, I crossed over to the bridge and the next day Mom called to find out if the schnauzer she liked was still there. He was.

I call Levi Mom's therapy dog because he's bringing such joy to her life. Sarah, Jason and I were all loved for different reason but with Levi it's different in a way---more intense---because Dad can't talk anymore or express things he used to be able to do. Levi gives lavish affection and kisses that Dad can't. Levi also helps her remember that life is a cycle and not all about dying, disabilities and illness. So I guess what I'm saying here is that all dogs that are in loving homes serve mankind in some pretty amazing ways, whether it's through formal training to do a job or just by being themselves. ©


NOTE: Our blog got nominated for the 'Awesome Blog of the Month' award. Voting ended Saturday June 28th and we didn't win but it was exciting getting nominated.

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Poor Pooping Levi!

Oh, my God, my mom is ruining Levi! Three nights in a row she got her head lost in her keyboard and completely missed his very weak-but-still-there attempts to use mental telepathy on her. So he did the next best thing a puppy in poop distress could do. He did his job in front of the door. Mom bawled herself out up one side and down the other but if she doesn't learn to pay attention soon poor Levi is going to need a doggie shrink to undo our mother's failings.

To make matters worse, two times in the past few days he's pooped on the deck instead of in the dog yard. That's Mom's fault too. She gave my baby brother too much access to the deck. That deck is huge, wrapping two sides of the house so Dad can take his wheelchair out there from three different rooms of the house. Until last week Mom was limiting Levi to one end of the deck using a lattice work barrier to contain him. But she used that lattice to line the picket fence to keep Levi from doing another Houdini escape.

Too much deck freedom or not, it's not as if my brother wasn't being supervised outside. Sort of. Mom's been faithfully sitting out there with him but when Levi pooped on the deck she was lost in the Marley and Me book. Yup, while reading about the antics and misdeeds of Marley the Labrador retriever our own puppy was having a major melt down because he couldn't find the steps down off the deck to the dog yard. Levi needs to learn to turn his mental telepathy up a notch when he's asking for help and Mom needs to quit being an airhead.

Jason, my angel brother up here with me, says Mom raised three other puppies who turned out just fine and I have to have more faith that she'll shape up before she ends up creating a permanent problem. But I'm wondering if Jason remembers how one-tracked and lost in another world Mom gets when she reading and writing. It's been a long time since he lived on earth with her plus she's seventeen older now.

I also confided in Jason that I'm a little worried Levi might be a tad slow at catching on to how life and bodily functions work. He laughed at that one and reminded me that I was nearly three years old before I figured out farting. Whenever I'd do it I'd take off running as if the devil himself was giving me a rectal exam with his pitch fork. All our canine pals up here the bridge who heard Jason tell that story had a good laugh over that one. ©
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