All Dogs Go to Heaven

I’ve been going with momma to look at puppies.

I’m no longer of this world. I crossed over, peacefully in Momma’s arms on the front steps listening to the birds chirping.

It was on July 8 ten days before my tenth birthday. Bear, my Newfoundland roommate passed two weeks before me. He’s cool. I’m cool.

Now I’m encouraging momma to get a puppy.

The trouble is we haven’t found many.

I see dogs all over the place, but then I’m in heaven with Bear, and other dogs momma has loved. You see, you don’t really lose us. We’re here. We watch you. I tell Daddy to get his butt out for a walk with Momma so I can walk down the sidewalk as we used to. (Go to the forest. I love the forest.) I will look out for you.  That’s my job.

For the last nine years I had been treated for Addison’s disease—a condition , not a disease. My adrenals were not operating properly, thus I required medication. My pills (cream cheese made them yummy) kept me going and happy all those years. Hey I traveled with Momma and sister and Bear and Baby Darling on a road trip across eight states. I slept on Hotel beds. Bear and I stayed in a van in the shade while Momma and Sister went to Disneyland. At night I slept with Momma. I flew in an airplane to Hawaii and back. I had a good life.

One neat thing that happened after I passed was that Momma received a card from OSU Veterinary School saying that my Vet had donated to the school in my honor. How cool is that?!

Momma misses me, but I will find the perfect next dog for her. Hey, in might even be me in a new body.

The people in this house and me have discovered a strange phenomenon—I learned that word from Momma—there are few dogs available for adoption. 

Oh there are purebreds with prices of $2,000, or $1500, or $600 even. I wasn’t cheap. It is strange though, that the City Pound, and the shelters have few dogs. (Pit bulls end up there a lot.)

Now I don’t want any dog to be homeless, terrible terrible, people are our pack. We might be one dog to you, but to us you are our whole world. It just appears that people have become control freaks in their effort to control dog population.

It appears that the powers that be have tightened the laws so tight that the only mixed breeds available are designer dogs made so by breeders. They are trying to mix the breeds to strengthen the gene pool. Purebreds have developed some problems—as I did.

I was a great dog, a purebred, a poodle, don’t get me wrong. I loved and was loved. I just had a condition, and for the last year I was stuck daily to give me subcutaneous fluids.

The rules imposed on people wanting to adopt a dog are as stringent as buying a house.  Applications. "How much money are you going to spend on your dog???" Geesch. Whatever it takes. The dog must be neutered, given shots and micro- chipped. (I had to be micro- chipped to go to Hawaii. I didn’t complain. It was wise.)

I’m not a control freak. I’m a happy dog. Happy happy happy.

Lighten up folks.

I will talk more here on this site…

Love,

Peaches the Pink Party Poodle for Peace.

Do You Smell What I Smell?

No?

I can’t believe it. The world is my smell feast.

Mom was telling me about dog’s noses. Of course, I know about smelling, and cute dog noses, but she learned some facts. Human’s like facts. We dogs like to smell.

Okay, here’s the story:

One drug-sniffing dog found 35 pounds of marijuana submerged in gasoline within a gas tank. Another dog insisted that there was melanoma on a person’s skin after the doctor declared the person cancer-free. Guess what a biopsy confirmed. Dog right, doctor wrong.

How do we do it?

While you, dear humans, can smell a teaspoon of sugar in a cup of coffee, we dogs—that’s me—can detect a spoonful of sugar in water the size of two Olympic sized swimming pools.

To put it another way if you delightful, wonderful, but smelling impaired humans can see one third of a mile, we darling stupendous dogs could see three thousand miles. It’s an analogy, we can’t see that far, actually our eye-sight isn’t as good as yours, it’s the smelling I’m talking about.

Researchers, that’s those smart humans who like facts, say that a dog’s smelling ability is 10,000 to 100,000 times better than a human’s. Gosh you poor humans, how do you function in the world? We dogs smell in each nostril independently, and move our heads back and forth to tell which direction the scent is coming from.  And I heard that humans can’t wiggle each nostril independently. Dog’s can.


Mom is surprised that I can’t find a hotel room we left a few minutes earlier. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know she wanted me to find it. I know a bloodhound would have no trouble. He can follow footprints. Now, how many molecules fall off the bottom of a shoe?  And to follow a specific shoe scent when the ground is littered with other smells, what a feat. A bloodhound’s big floppy ears help him, too, they fan odors up into his nose.

When you humans exhale, air goes out the same way it came in. With dogs it goes out the slits in the sides of the nose, and that helps usher in new scent. Also a part of inhaled air is shuttled up into special smelling glands that help us identify molecules, while another portion of the air goes directly into the lungs.

That way we can smell continuously.

No wonder my dear dog friend Gabe fainted when sprayed in the face by a skunk.

Talk about overwhelm.

Momma gets to keep her hens. The rooster has a new home, free range, they call it, except all the chickens go into their house at night.  Raccoon prowl, not if Bear, my house mate, was there. He would tell them a thing or two. He is big. Not me, I wouldn't tangle with a raccoon. Squirrels are more my size, and they don't have hands.

I'm stuffed on turkey. You wouldn't believe the smells that wafted through the house last Thursday, they kept me salivating for three days.

Live long, prosper, keep the faith--what does that mean? Whatever you want it to, to not give up, to aim for happiness, to believe in the goodness of life and all the creatures, to follow you dreams, your bliss, and your dog--he/she will not steer you wrong.

Bye bye, see ya later.

Hello again

It's me, Peaches the supporter for Mom who has been upset over her chickens. A neighbor complained, and she may not get to keep them. Chickens are all right I guess. I like egg yolks--cooked of course. The whites? Yuck! Scrambled eggs are yummy if you mix them up really good.

I'm curious to see if mom gets to keep her chickens. You hear about backyard chickens a lot, and you would think, this being a rather rural community, that chickens would be allowed, but it appears that the city has an ordinance against them.  We didn't intend to get a rooster, sorry, but the hens, they ought to stay.

Have you seen the little chicken house? It's not offensive.

Kitchen window view--I saw it once when momma gave me a bath in the sink. Yuck.


Look at this, maybe someday...Wow!

P.S.  A lady not far away has agreed to see if the rooster will fit into her flock. Crossed paws!

A Champion of the Animals

Life is a great big canvas and you should throw all the paint on it you can. --Danny Kaye

Perhaps this is one kiss you don't need.

I Peaches am dog, and an anonymous somebody, kind soul that they were, said they were happy I’m  back blogging, so, I owe it to them to post, to pontificate, to spread my word.

We watched a video last night called Dolphins. Did you know that they are the only animals besides people who call each other by name? And they name themselves—something people do not do on a regular basis. Oh, I know a few people who do. Little Boy Darling is Meowy right now, sometimes Meowy is a cat, other times he something else. Last night he was a spider.

So here I am. I choose to come into this life-time as a poodle dog, and I am colored like a peach, so that fits. I do have a chronic condition. I don’t know if I knew that when I decided to enter this cute little body, but we manage.  I choose Momma to help me. She and Daughter Dear give me fluids every night. I’ve been stuck with a needle more times than  Momma washes dishes, and here I am with a voice.

I believe I ought to champion the cause of animals…

“I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;
Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with the mania of owning things;
Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived thousands of years ago.

Walt Whitman wrote that.

Some animals are wild—like the dolphins, and people ought to see that they are protected from fishing nets , and that their ocean stays pure.  Some are wild like the horse, and they ought not to be sold for dog  food, Ugg, Never will my lips touch horse meat. And then there are many many other wild things, the wild pigs of Hawaii, the mongooses, and here in Oregon there is a symphony of the wild in the forests. Love, love, love it.

And dogs? Well, we love humans, and cars and soft beds, and while I used to chase the lizards of California, I do not see many here in Oregon. Chasing a frog? Naugh, why bother. Occasionally a stranger cat will wander into our yard—now that’s fun.

Here is a success story:

Amazing Grace at rescue facility:

Amazing Grace at Parelli Summit:

I'm Back--Still Meditating

Momma told me that bloggers who don’t post regularly are forgotten.

Me? Forgotten!

I can’t let that happen.

I am Peaches, the Pink Party Poodle for Peace. I have to speak my word. I would have spoken earlier but my secretary has been asleep at the switch, and I’ve been asleep on the bed—or in the bookcase. Meditating that is.

They say that getting in the Zone makes for a happy life. Sleep more. Don’t stress out. Go with Mom in the truck--my favorite most activity of the day. Except that yesterday I had a bath first, and I jumped into the truck sopping wet. The car heater dried me, and then I rode with the wind, listened to thundering hoof beats in my head, and slept, and dreamed of a beautiful tomorrow.

It was fun last night when the trick’er’ treaters came to our house--the doorbell would ring, I would bark, that set off Bear, he would bark, Little Boy Darling would run to the door, and open it to  the weirdest kids I had ever seen in my life. They said I looked cute though, so it was okay. They took candy and left.

And you know what?

Momma just ate the last candy bar.

P.S. You've heard of "Bad Piggies?" Well they hit our house.

I retreated.

Peaches' Picks

I feel comfortable here now. For awhile I was sad, so sad if mom left in the car without me. After being with her in the truck for four days, going into hotels together, staying in a hotel once we arrived in Eugene, and even staying with Auntie Lisa, for awhile, I believed my place was beside mom.

She tells me it is sometimes too hot in the car for me, but when I'm in the car it feels perfect. I don't know what she is talking about. HOT? Mom, its not hot.

Oh, it's when she is gone and the car isn't running. Now I get it.

Okay, I will stay at home sometimes, but only if I have to.

I've been pinteresting with the other pinners. Here are some of my favorites:

Dental exam

Best bed ever.

Best perch ever.

Dangerous pit bull.

When Mom first got me she had a Rottweiler named Gabe and he laid beside the bed, a foot stool so I could get on the bed. Mom said he lived longer because he had a good job.

A New Home--Same People, Different House

Looks like me when I was a young squirt, I was a little bigger and a little creamer in color, but just as cute.

I haven’t written for a while because it has been in turmoil around here. I haven’t let it upset me too much though—as long as I am with Mom everything is ship-shape.

We moved—that was fun. Not so much for Daughter Dear and Mom, but Bear and I settled into the truck, with a cat crawling over us, and Little Boy Darling strapped into his car seat beside Bear and we made it from California to Oregon—took us four days. Hotels are fun. We sniff for evidence of other dogs that have left behind scents—you wouldn’t believe—the world is one big smell fest.

And then in Oregon we looked for houses and stayed with Daughter and Natasha her dog who runs over me—hey, I’m a little dog and not too fast on my feet.  Handy that I’m a small dog—in the truck I can nestle down between Daughter Dear, lay my head on Mom’s thigh, and the world slips by until a McDonald’s sign flashes past my vision and I send psychic signals to mom to stop. McDonald’s has the best water, and if I ask really nice I get a hamburger or a chicken fillet.

We found a lovely house where the frog’s sing at night. (No lizards though.) We’re  settled in.

So now, what’s next?!!!

The Spark that was Disney

Hi, Peaches here,

Mom read a note from a reader to me. Our friend got this information from Jean Huston's book, Mystical Dogs.

What is one of the most successful enterprises in the world today? By any economic or populist standard it is the various Disney Worlds where archetypal animals – Mickey the Mouse, Donald the Duck, Goofy the dog – are there to greet us and bring us home again to a land of wonder and enchantment. The creators of Disneyland and Disney World may not know it, but they have presented us with modern Platonic forms, and in their presence we feel safe and ready for adventure.

Our friend then shared this story:

I once had a conversation at Disneyland in California with a man who every day and for some time had worn the Mickey Mouse costume. He had divested himself of costume and mask, and now was permitted to talk. I asked him what it was like being Mickey Mouse month after month, and he told me something very strange. He said that sometimes when he looked into the eyes of wonder of some little child, he felt that he was the great Mouse and that he also was the essence of the heart and spirit and knowledge of all animals. Then the parent of the child would tell him to pose for the camera and it would be gone. But for a moment, he had known the magic and the mystery that indigenous people know when playing in their totemic incarnation.”

Posted by Jewell D at 12:25 PM 1 comment:

"Grandma's Soup"

Mom and I spent the day in bed--no not the day, the afternoon. I was feeling punk, and had been hopping around on three legs. It was the front leg, don’t know why, it is usually my hind leg that acts up. The whole idea of food and water turned my stomach. I did lick water off Mom’s finger though.

 As I said Mom and I spent the afternoon in bed.

 Mom read, that is between sneezing fits. I slept when she wasn’t waking me with all that sneezing—she called it a head cold.

 That night I got my appetite back, and gobbled up some “Grandma’s Soup.” Wow! How good was that! I’ve been on a bland diet, (I’m not supposed to have fat—that’s a bummer.) That soup, though, fixed me up.  Grandma’s soup is a recipe from Mom’s mother-in-law. It’s tomato based, has hamburger, onion, celery, carrots, and a secret ingredient, PIZZA SAUCE. El Yum-o.

 I drank water, and I’m feeling much better, thank you.

 I even went out in the car with Mom yesterday.

 Things are looking up.