From the folks at Bad Rap, a wonderful Pit Bull rescue in the San Fransico Bay Area:

If you're a pit bull owner, no doubt you've become strangely accustomed to living under a microscope. We endure public scrutiny and condemnation for - of all things - enjoying a breed that's been America’s sweetheart for over 150 years.

Our dogs are good teachers: They've taught us to strip down to the basics, ignore the naysayers and just...LIVE.

Celebrate the spirit of bold innocence with our BAD RAP Exposed 2008 Calendar, photographed on some of California’s most beautiful beaches. We’re proud to say that, freckles and all, pit bull owners have nothing to hide!

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Mine is on the way!

Gary

Last week I was surfing the Bad Rap blog and shed waaaaayyyyyy too many tears reading about a dog they called Gary. Gary was pulled him from a shelter all skin, bones and fleas, as a compassion case. Bad Rap planned to send him off to the bridge with peace, dignity and love instead of letting him die in a shelter all scared and alone. I don't know of any rescue group that pulls dogs from shelters to give them compassionate care. If that isn't one of the most selfless, kindest things I have ever heard in all my days. You can read about Gary and see his video on the Bad Rap Blog.
Bring a tissue.

The Gary chronicles start here. Scroll down to the middle of September's page and then look for more on Gary in October. Gary made great strides in foster care, and almost made it to a home of his own.

From the very first Gary entry on the Bad Rap Blog:

This boney guy was covered in hundreds of fleas on his scarred, filthy dirty, starving little body. Just another day in an urban animal shelter. He was nobody's dog and he was basically, already dead. But he managed to look us in the eye with the calmest look of quiet resignation. Suckers-R-We ... we only meant to give him a bath before he went to meet his Maker, but his brown eyes sold us a bill of goods and five baths later, we loaded him up in the car.

When we can manage it, our group will take home compassion cases for the purpose of letting them die in peace after a few days of rest, love and sunshine. We don't talk about it much because, frankly, it's both painful and controversial. Why save a dog only to put it to sleep?!

RIP Gary, I know who you will be waiting for at the bridge.

The world has lost one great trick dog. You may remember Shebang from her appearances on Pet Star a few years back. Here is one of her most famous tricks.

Shebang gets in Tupperware

Here are a few of my other favorites:

Bring me your tail

Shebang stacks rings on a toy

You can read more about Shebang and see wonderful pictures of her performing by clicking here.

Shebang was only 8 years old. We are all sorry for your loss Tammy.

Hard to believe we were gone only 24 hours. Tuesday night straight from agility class, the kids, dogs and I drove down to Massachusetts to visit with my parents and see the fireworks in Boston. The weather was not on our side and we came home early, but not before we had a great family visit, swam in my parents pool, and visited the New England Aquarium. Have you ever seen Sea Dragons? They are still my favorite exhibit.

But the thing that was the most special to me, was our very early off leash dog run over at Belle Isle Marsh---my old neighborhood. Belle Isle holds a piece of my heart and it is the only place you can take dogs to run off leash in the East Boston/Revere area. There are leash laws of course , but for as long as I can remember, dogs have run off leash at Belle Isle. If you go make sure you leave the marsh by 7:30 am and do check for your dog for ticks.

Belle Isle is 350 acres of reclaimed marsh land with 7 acres of walking trails. When I was a kid, it was the site of a drive inn movie theater, but because of it's proximity to Logan Airport and the fact that it is on a flight path, it wasn't open for very long. After the drive inn closed, the area became an informal dumping ground, and for years the Friends of Belle Isle Marsh tirelessly cleaned and reclaimed what is now a pristine city oasis.
It was my last dog Dina's favorite place on earth to visit, and it was always a very special place for all my childhood dogs before her. When Dina passed, I took her ashes and placed them under a wild rose bush in the middle of the field.
In keeping with the Jewish tradition, we always place a few rocks at her resting spot when we visit, and as always, we brought with us some very special rocks from Maine.

In the photo, just to the right of Charlee, lies Dina under the wild rose shrub.
I never once regretted the decision to bring her there.

Condolences go out to everyone who has ever met Harry.

Harry was owned by New England Assistance Dogs (NEADS), and he attended my group class with his puppy raiser Teena at the Brown Dog Inn in Freeport. Teena has raised 9 pups for NEADS, and both she and Harry were dream students in class. Harry was being trained as a hearing assist dog who was to be spending a good portion of his days in a lucky person's lap.

After extensive medical testing at Tufts, at only 8 months of age, Harry was found to have serious and painful genetic defects in liver, heart and kidney. Many of you may have met Teena and Harry out and about at different events. My kids feel in love with Harry last fall at Deering oaks Park at the Animal Refuge's annual Paws in the Park, and they took the news really hard.

When Teena gets another pup for NEADS I will donate class time again, but no dog can ever replace Harry.
I will miss Harry sitting in my lap and rolling his feet up to my chin to be scratched under his doggie coat.

Harry stole my heart.

My good friend's dog died suddenly when a medical procedure went horribly wrong. Her death was the result of a problem with an oxygen line. Maggie, pictured above, was immortalized as a puppy by well known artist Raven Okeefe. Maggie's image has been used by many Border Collie Rescue groups as a fund raiser T- shirt.
I am wearing my Maggie shirt right now, and while I didn't see her very often, I will miss her and all the wonderful stories that my friend shared about her these last short 6 years.

Knowing how very loved and important Maggie was to her family, I find my words to them hollow and well, just not right. My question today is---
Does anyone have a poem or a quote that they find is comforting to a family that lost a pet? I am looking for something more personal than the Rainbow Bridge .

What do you all say?

If I was to pick the one thing about my job that is the hardest, it is loosing clients that I have known for years. In a very close second are the stories that I am told about the previous beloved dog, when owners bring their new dog to me for training. I couldn't even begin to count how many tears I have shed over dogs I never even met, but even after all these years, it seems I never say the right thing.

Last week over at the always great Dolittler blog, Dr Patty Khuly shared that she learned grief counseling in Vet school.
This is not something that I ever learned in school, but I do know that my sincerity helps. Even in grief, I think people do know when you are sincere and when you are not, but it would be nice to have that right thing to say when you want to help to comfort someone.

As for Maggie's family, I already know that there are no words, and even time won't help heal Maggie's loss.

She was that special.

Life's sure not fair.

World ugliest dog dead at 14

If you count all the goldfish, crickets, and Siamese fighting fish, then I have been to more funerals for pets than I have for people. When we lived in East Boston my son used to con me into running a cricket rescue. Whenever we were buying pet food, he would beg and plead for a dollar's worth of crickets. Sometimes they ate potatoes in their critter-keeper but usually we let them go in the yard. We often laughed on hot summer nights when people out for a leisurely stroll would stop in front of our apartment to listen the song of the crickets. Ours was the only house that had em'! When the little fellows in the critter keeper died, we always had a proper send off, complete with grave markers.

Countless numbers of gold and other fish had a burial at sea, not via the toilet, but through a hole in one end of the Cashman Boat Pier in East Boston. We (me and the kids) would take the solemn walk from apartment to pier and all of us would say a few words. Most of the time though it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud as I laid on the the fish tales pretty thickly.

"Goldie came to us from the Early Education Center and a finer fish I have never known. He served as a sterling example to the kindergarten kids of how to care for living things, and we all enjoyed watching ______ (insert name - more often than not is was ...you guessed it "Goldie") grow into a fine fish. Goldie looked forward to the morning and evening meal and (splash) we return you now Goldie to the great circle of life."

That sort of thing.

Having kids and any kind of pet just leads to seriously somber yet silly funerals and lessons about life and death. I will never forget scattering my dog Dina's ashes over the snow in her favorite field. We were not prepared for them to pile up instead of blowing away. Each time we went to visit her we would put rocks on the site but for months her ashes were visible and we couldn't bury them because the ground was frozen. We had piles of rocks in the car that we got at the beach to stack in a mound at the site, only to return and find they had been removed, probably by other children. My kids picked only their favorite rocks, but I had to console them that other kids surely could see just how special and carefully selected each rock must have been. It was so sad that it become one of the funniest things to ever happen in my life. We would go back each time and laugh and laugh. It really was one of life's cruel jokes.

But this morning's funeral was different. Today we buried Blazekin our red-factored canary in front of the day lilly patch. Ask any person with a rescue animal and they will tell you how it must have been fate that they came into their lives. Animal people can attach a lot of significance to meaningful numbers and signs when it comes to their adoptees. Charlee is in my home partly because I thought her birthday was the same as my last two dogs'. Hmmmmmm.

Following that reasoning, Blazekin (named after a Pokemon for those of you out of the loop) really was meant to live in our home. Nearly four years ago my husband and son were walking in East Boston when my son spotted a yellow bird amongst the trash and weeds. They quickly scooped it up in a Dunkin Donut cup that was blowing by and brought it home. At first glance I thought it was some sort of Finch, but it turned out they had found a male canary. The poor bird had suffered some sort of horrible abuse and was wrapped up in micro thin wire. His legs and wings were broken and it took us hours to get him completely untangled. Our little foundling lived in our home for over a year, but could never perch normally. We kept his cage as clean as we could and he in turn thanked us with beautiful songs daily. We were deeply saddened when our yellow bird died.

A few days after the yellow bird's passing found us visting a friend at a Petco store in Massachusetts, who worked in the bird room. Cindy had helped us with the little yellow bird's care and she gasped when I walked in exclaiming "I can't believe you are here, I was just looking for your number." She quickly ushered me into the quarrantine room where a gorgeous red canary sat convalescing for - you guessed it - another foot injury. The store could not sell him and they wanted to know if we wanted him. Of course I said yes!

So we made preparations to head home. The kids were very excited at the prospect of our newest addition. We picked out a cage and bought food but then were told that the employee who nursed him back to health had decided to take him home after all because "they had bonded".

We're told that we can't have him. We felt that bird was meant to live in our home and were saddened by this announcement. We wondered what the odds were that two injured canaries would come into our lives and just "knew" that bird was meant to be ours. The kids took it hard that the bird they had named Blazekin was not coming home with us.

Somehow I was conned into getting two parakeets at the shelter in Westbrook. The very day I brought the parakeets home I got a message from Cindy at Petco to come back and get the bird before the employee changed her mind (again). Her fellow Petco co-workers had talked her into letting us adopt Blazekin after all. So that is how we came to be a three-bird family.

Blazekin was different than any other bird I have ever known. I am sure that the care of his leg wound required that he be handled constantly and so he had become bonded more closely with his caregivers, and to me in particular. He would follow me about the house wherever I went and his songs were a special treat. On his final day, he followed me downstairs to the office and fell asleep on my desk. By the time I realized he was sick, it was too late. His was a somber funeral with not a dry eye in sight. Rest in peace, my sweet little red bird, I will forever miss you.

Monday was my first night back teaching classes. On my way out the door I spotted a sign advertising, "Free to a Good Home" for a small golden and white hamster, complete with cage. I glanced up at the calendar to be reminded that it was 7/11. I have said "No" before to hundreds of free pets (including hamsters) but the date seemed like an auspicious sign so I took him home. Apparently "Tater Tot", as he has been named by the kids, was the runt and nearly died but was nursed back to health by a Pet Quarters employee. Fast-forward a few years and I imagine that there will once again come a day where we'll gather to observe this little guy's somber funeral, the kids will be crying and I'll be saying something along the lines of, "Tater Tot was the finest hamster in the whole world and we cherished every day we had with him. We knew from the first day that he was meant to live in our house. At first we nearly all went insane when he rode that squeaky wheel night after night after night, but we learned to live with it and to love him..."

It's a sad fact, but a true one, that our pet dogs do not live long enough. And with the passage of time it seems I' m hearing all too frequently that another of my wonderful former training clients has passed over to the Bridge. Among animal lovers The Rainbow Bridge is a well-known poem about grieving and pet loss. It is comforting to believe that when our pets die they will wait for us at the bridge and cross over into heaven together with us. They will no longer be old or sick or hurt, but just the way we remember them on their best day, and they will be in perfect health. That poem helped my young children deal with the death of our last dog Dina. In Patricia McConnell's book, “The Other End of the Leash" [highly recommended) she tells of losing her beloved dog. For her the world did not stop as she thought it should. She, like the rest of us, had to go to work and carry on. We are not afforded grieving time for our four-legged family members, and oftentimes even our own families do not know the depths of our grief. So many times people may tell us, 'It’s only a dog..."


Who but our faithful four-legged friends see us through all of life's joy's and sorrows? They are not only a huge part of our lives, but a cornerstone of our memories. Dina shared one of the most difficult times of my life...bringing home a gravely ill infant who was in and out of the hospital for nearly three years. She sat quietly next to me while I nursed my firstborn back to health. She was my rock. Looking back through my photo albums from my childhood, events were marked with family and dogs posing in front of my parents now magnificent Magnolia tree. Back then, it was just a seedling.



This year has brought the passing of several of my all time favorite dogs. There are no obituaries published for dogs, but I must acknowledge these special dogs waiting at the bridge - Clyde, Coffee, Lulu, Leggers, Mugsy, Scruffy.



Lymphoma took Scruffy with just one week's notice. Her family buried her in their yard and the children helped to plant many beautiful spring flowering bulbs on her grave. Upcoming blogs will focus on the topic of wellness and vaccines and unnecessary toxins we may be putting in our dog’s bodies. Maine recently amended their outdated requirement to vaccinate dogs for rabies from two to three years largely due to the tireless effort of a few amazing Mainers. More on that soon.

Here is a link to an animated version of the The Rainbow Bridge
This link is accompanied by music and should post a TISSUES NEEDED warning! (It may take a few minutes to download.) As my Dad (who still tears up at the mention of Ginger, my childhood Golden Retriever) is fond of saying, "I know she was only a dog, but she was my dog."





Give your pets a little something extra today and Happy Training!