Look at This!

Oh, my gosh, look what Levi got from Latte & Cookie and Abbie!


The award states: "This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships!" In other words, blogs that receive this award "are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

Levi is tickled pink to get this award. But meanie Moomie is making me pass it on to other worthy dogs. Since me has to do that, Levi is giving it away to my new and old friends:

Tibby Tales
Fenway
Willow
Lady Kaos
Ruby

Okay, that only five but that's as high as me can count. Me's still a baby.

Smell ya, later. Levi

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Rain, Rain Go Away!

Lord almighty it's been a busy week up here at the Rainbow Bridge. My angel brother, Jason---affectingly known as Mr. Do-Good----gathered up a bunch of us dogaroons to help the displaced canine from hurricane Gusto. He's an angel trainer so I'm learning a lot about using our powers. We've been doing our best to help calm the fears of all those displayed dogs caught in Mother Nature's path and I'm learning more about pushing the envelope of what we can and can't do to interfere with life on earth. As I've blogged before, there are rules for being an angel and Jason says I have a tendency to overstep what angels are suppose to do. Yadda, yadda, yadda. I just don't see why I have to be so subtle about helping where I can. But I like earning those pretty, permanent feathers to my trainer wings so I'm trying hard to tow the line.

Speaking of rain and nasty weather, Levi has been giving Mom a fit about all the rain they are getting and I haven't had the time to help out with his fears of going outside when heaven is crying---you know, there are priorities and hurricanes trump plain old rain. This morning it took Mom over an hour and a half to get him to go outside. Even holding an umbrella over his head didn't help. In and out of the door leading to the garage he went---he really had to GO---but Mom had to literally push him out of the garage and onto the deck. Poor Mom, it's supposed to rain all week. She even tried putting my old raincoat on him but he's a nudist and fought that idea tooth and nail.

Well, I've got to get back to work before Jason finds out I took a break. He's a slave driver about his do-good projects and he's extra hard on me. I do have to admit he's pretty inspirational. He doesn't have much trouble getting newbie angels to volunteer to take on extra angel work. I grumble a lot, but secretly I admire his wise and patient teaching methods. It's not like we HAVE TO take part in any of his projects. We can take all the time we need to learn all the ins and outs of being a full-fledged angel-dog. ©
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Toad Hunting

Levi here. Is it Schnauzer Saturday yet? Can me blog today? Me can't see the calendar. Moomie has it too high in the air. Me---no---I tried to grab it to bring it down so I can read it but Moomie is a meanie and she won't let me do that. She also says I I I I I I I---not me---has to learn to use proper English. That is SO unfair. Daaady says "me" all the time. "Me coffee." "Me sleep." But Moomie says that's because he had a stroke---whatever that is---and he can't say, "I." Well, maybe me wants to be like Daaady. Levi pours---no---Levi pouts over that. Poopy spelling! I get so confessed confused.

Guess what. We caught another baby toad last night. That makes five that Moomie's put in her Relocation Program. Every night at midnight we go hunting in the dog yard. Moomie takes her flashlight and an empty Starbucks cup and I take my schnauzer instincts---that means I'm a good hunter, Moomie says. I always find them first and me wants to eat them. Me don't want them to grow up BIG so they can eat me someday. They are growing fast! Last week they were dime size. This week they are quarter size. Moomie gets hysterical when I find one. "No, Levi, NO!" she yells. Someday I'm going to get one in my mouth before she gets it in the Starbuck cup.

Me gotta go. Moomie coming.

Smell you later.

Love, Levi

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Bad Boy Puppy

Levi is turning into a bad boy puppy making me as proud as an alley cat that just found a plate of fried chicken sitting on a picnic table. That goodie two shoes act he had going there for so long must have been him making sure Mom and Dad fell in love with him until he was positive the ink had dried on his adoption papers.

He's had quite a week. He discovered the joy of pulling threads in a throw rug. The floor is minus the rug now. He figured out that decorative couch cushions are just stuffies without eyes and lips to kiss. The cushions are lined up like soldiers on the back of the couch now where he can't reach them. Yet. He also made his Houdini escape from the dog yard that I wrote about the last time I blogged, and Levi learned to chew paper and pull house plants apart. But the biggest bad boy stunt of all happened the day before yesterday when he peed in the house for the first time in two weeks.

Well, what did Mom expect with the peeing on the carpet. She'd completely forgotten to let him out at 10 PM and by midnight my baby brother was tired and he had forgotten to try working on his canine-to-human mental telepathy. Mom caught him in the act and made the same mistake she did the last time she caught him. She called him a 'bad boy' in a loud, angry voice and he paid her back in the same way he did the other two times she did that. He didn't peeing again for over twelve hours, making her feel really bad for his tiny little bladder. But three times is the charm and I'm hoping Mom knows by now that Levi's a lot different than me and Jason were at his age. We could let the scolding go in one ear and it was forgotten ten minutes later when it came out the other ear. Baby Levi keeps it in his brain and truly gets his feelings hurt. He wants Mom to always be syrupy sweet, full of praise and wiggly all over the way humans get when they are using that positive reinforcement stuff. So he's trying really hard to learn the house rules...unlike me who always thought that rules were best when you broke them and could then watch Mom and Dad get all puffed up about it.

The next day after the soiling the carpet caper, like clock work Mom took Levi outside every two hours and stayed long enough to read a whole chapter in Whistling in the Dark and when she'd come in Dad would use one of the few words at his post-stroke disposal and would ask, "Pee?" and Mom would have to report "No" and feel bad all over again for yelling. ©
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Humpy and the Vet

Yesterday Levi got his rabies vaccination and the rest of his puppy shots. He weighed 12 pounds 4 ounce---a gain of 2 pounds 2 ounces in two weeks. He's going to be a cow when he grows up! Mom says he's like picking up a Beanie Baby because he folds, bends and drapes as if he doesn't have a bone in his body. But he's still going to be a COW! A huge COW compared to all his poodle siblings up here at the Rainbow Bridge. The vet gave him a 'puppy love' neck scarf for being so brave---he didn't even cry when she plucked hair out of his ears---and mom got a bill for $125.32.


As if the little bugger didn't use up enough money from the metaphorical cookie jar, Mom took him to the pet store after seeing the doc and let him pick out a toy. The new stuffie was named Humpy because he looks like he was made for---well, you know. His butt is always in the air and he has a distressed look on his face. Levi likes him because he's got five squeakers implanted. He's addicted to squeakees.

Levi is trying really hard to figure out how to do canine-to-human mental telepathy and Mom is trying to figure out if he's doing it, or not. He is but he's sending his messages off into space without aiming them at any particular person. And you know what else that screwball does? He goes to the window, instead of the door, when he wants to poop or pee. Our angel sister up here at the bridge says Levi's misdirected telepathy reminds her of her time on earth. She says Levi is a space cadet like she was but our angel brother Jason says, "No, Levi's lack of skill is age-appropriate for a puppy." Sarah is sweet but she's still a space cadet. Most of the time we just humor her and her silly notions.

I'm signing off for now. Jason is on the orientation committee up here at the bridge and he's taking me along to greet a couple of newbies. We'll show them all around and make sure they find some friends so they won't ever have to be alone. ©
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It's All Mom's Fault!

I shouldn't laugh at Mom. I really shouldn't but she can be an airhead sometimes. Yesterday she got up promptly at eight to take little Levi outside. Right away he peed and she got all happy-wiggly with him, human style, making him feel good for doing his job so quickly and in the right place. So far so good, right? Then she called him up the steps from the dog yard and he came but he didn't want to go in the house. He plunked his little butt down on the deck and here's where Mom made a big mistake. She picked him up and made him come in the house anyway and he promptly pooped on the kitchen floor. Levi is going to be SO confused if Mom doesn't learn to read his very obvious body language soon. Jeez, a blind monk on a mountain top could have seen that one coming. Hello! It was morning and he'd had another poop and pee free night.

Levi is getting five minute training sessions several times a day. He almost has it mastered to come when called, sit when asked and is no longer resisting walking on a leash...well, accept for when he wants to poop and Mom has her blinders on. Yesterday he even went to the door for the first time and sat down waiting for his leash to be attached so he could go outside. Fortunately, Mom saw him do it. Holly molly, she needs to find a better way for him to let her know its poop and pee time in the old corral---and quickly. She can't always be near the laundry room to see him sit patiently waiting for her to open the door. Oh, and add this to little Levi's list of accomplishments: he finally figured out how to go down as well as up the required three steps off the deck.

Speaking of corrals, when I was earth bound I never had an issue with my bathroom duty yard being covered over with shredded bark, but Levi does. He goes out there and tries to chew on every single piece of bark, all 300 pounds of them. Mom got so exasperated trying to dig bark back out of his mouth she finally took a rake and rounded up all the bark she could into one corner. That exposing the dirt which created another fun activity for Levi---rolling in the mud and getting himself tangled up in his retractable leash. He's so little that he can fit through the slats of the fence so he has to be leashed out there for now. I sure gave Mom a run for her money when I was Levi's age---I was bullheaded compared to him---but he's no slouch at creating his own brand of doggie drama.

Every day at tea time when I come to the Rainbow Bridge to check up on my humans, I meet the nicest canines doing the same thing. We laugh and cry with our families and trade stories about our time on earth, but not in a sad way. We are happy and contented here because even though our humans don't always know it, we're still with them in spirit. ©

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