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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Angel Puppy on Earth, Trouble Bubble in Heaven

I've been at the Rainbow Bridge just over two weeks now in human time. Up here, though, there is no such thing at time marked by weeks, months or even years. What is IS if you know what I mean. Mom and Dad still talk about me every day or I should say Mom talks and Dad listens because he can't talk since his stroke. She tells him stories about me as a pup and how much different little Levi is from me at the same age. They laugh and smile at the memories and pour the love on Levi that they can no longer give to me. I may be absent physically but I'm still presence in their hearts.

Levi is the perfect pup for them at this time in their lives. He is sweet and obedient and God knows I was anything but obedient. I was nicknamed the Trouble Bubble for a reason. Adopted at five-and-a-half weeks, I turned out to be a hell-raiser on four paws and didn't make an effort to get civilized until many months later when I had some sessions with a doggie shrink. (See this blog entry for details about Dr. Spock of Dogdoom.) But Mom and Dad were younger back then and they couldn't go through all they did with me again.

At fourteen weeks Levi was the last of his litter to find a home and many of the problems adjusting to living with humans that I had he never developed. He is so tender hearted that he gets his feelings hurt with the slightest reprimand and he takes Mom at her word when she says 'no' to things like chewing shoes laces and table legs. He also doesn't whine or cry when he has to sleep behind a baby gate in the laundry room or ride in a crate in the car. He accepts everything except the vacuum cleaner in his new world including the fact that he can't poop and pee in the house anymore. I'm bragging here but my baby brother even sent his very first mental telepathy message to our mom and she got it! He stood with his front paws on the window sill and kept looking back and forth between the view of the dog yard and Mom, asking her how he can get out there to do his job. Yup, God and I did a great job matching my humans up with little Levi.

Not that Levi is a perfect puppy. He has a stubborn streak about things like Mom's requirement that he not pull weeds in the dog yard and toss them in the air. And forget about the Fooey brand bitter tasting stuff she sprayed on the bark still left along the edges of the fence. Mom got some on her fingers and about gagged on her cookies when it got transferred by accident to her lips, but Levi likes it. He's also a puppy who loves to roll in the dirt and yesterday he discovered the joy of digging holes. Mom better hurry up and get those patio stones over my grave before Levi decides to dig up my bones.

Well, I'm off to my first Mother's Day party up here at the Bridge. I hear tell there will be grills set up where we can snatch all the hamburgers and hot dogs we want and there will be a champaign toast to our earth mothers everywhere. ©
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My Doggie Shrink Sessions

Did I ever tell you about the time I met a pack of German Shepherds and a shrink? It happened out in the sticks and my dad said the place looked like a Paramilitary or Michigan Militia compound. It wasn't, though. As near as I could figure out, the guy who owned the place trained dogs who needed to work for a living. My vet had sent us out there to meet who my mom called Dr. Spock of Dogdom. He was an animal behaviorist who specialized in problem dogs. At nine months old, already I had earned that label even as tiny, cute and cuddly as I was. I had completed puppy pre-school and obedience training but my mom was getting worried because when I played I used to bite all the time, among lesser offenses in the world of humans.

Dr. Spock of Dogdom was the sternest person I ever met in my whole life. None of my puppy antics could make him crack a smile. He asked questions about my birth mother---he called her a bitch and I didn't like that very well. He wanted to know about my adoption day when I was just barely five weeks old. Then he had my adoptive mom show him what we'd learned at obedience school and how we played together. I even had to mix it up with some German Shepherds puppies and God, let me tell you that was the scarcest moment in my young life! I didn't like the canine mixers at obedience school much either. To me, humans were a lot more fun.

Mom told him about my worthless time-out cage and he told her about a shock collar he could use if I didn't straighten out by my next appointment. A shock collar! I could tell by the way a few of those German Shepherds reacted to those words that I didn't want one of those 'shocky' things. That's when I decided to pay attention to what this guy had to say for fear my parents would leave me there to learn how to be a junk yard guard dog or something more ominous than that. Working for my kibble didn't have much appeal to me plus those big dogs could have eaten me for breakfast and still been hungry afterwards.

At home over the next month my adoptive mom practiced what she called her 'alpha dog voice' and I spent a lot of time in my time-out cage. Back then, I wasn't too sure if Dr. Spock had given mom any better advice than the obedience instructor had. The woman had my mom bite me whenever I bit her. I never did get the point of that exercise and mom seemed embarrassed when she had to explain why I was covered with lipstick. But finally the principle of 'cause and effect' did kick in and I figured out if I bit mom I couldn't spend as much time in her company. I love my mom.

By the time I had to go back to Dr. Spock he pronounced me improved enough that we didn't need the shock collar. Thank heavens. Even as well behaved as I was that day, he still didn't crack a smile. The German Shepherds seemed happy to see my again, though, but I was sure glad I never had to visit those big guys or that stern shrink ever again. ©
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