and then i saw this today.  a friend posted it on her FB page, i read it and thought, hey-that’s Ruby!  and it got me to thinking that every dog should have a bucket list, especially rescue dogs, who without a foster home or adopter wouldnt have had a life at all.  Read this article and then send me some ideas of what you would put on your dog’s bucket list, i would love to hear from you.

…oh, and i promise not to be gone so long from now on.  even though we are now running full throdle with remodeling and will not be able to foster for a few months, i still have plenty of ruby stories and stories of those that came before her!

as the week ends, i will go back and post about her last few days.  my anxiety in coming to this day kept me from forming complete sentances, remembering certain things (like taking m cell phone to work) and from basically performing some simple daily functions.  but as wel all recover with the knowledge that while our hearts say otherwise (and they always will) our minds win out and always do what’s right by our pets!

SO, this entire week she has been and will continue to be completely spoiled.

MONDAY-she went to stay at the vet for the day so that the docs could completely evaluate her. during her stay, i brought her dunkin donuts and she shared lunches with karen, tammy and kim. the tossed the tennis ball for her (her favorite sport) and she actually ran after it!  for dinner she had left over pot roast in her food, TOTAL YUM FACTOR!

TODAY-she went back to the vet and a bit more lazy day than yesterday, she was really tuckered out.  again i brough treats…a boston cream donut and a vanilla long john.  she shared karen’s soup and while sarah took a phone call, ruby helped herself to sarah’s wrap sandwich….gotta love her spunk!  tonight she had the rest of the pot roast, potatoes and carrots.  after dinner she had a tostada shell for a treat, and then licked the remainder of z’s strawberry yogurt.  angus was so jealous that he started licking the OUTSIDE of the container….but the best part of all tonight….ruby joined me in an official wine tasting!  now how many dogs can you say have done that?  we shared a 2008 DOCO Chianti classico and as you can see by the photos, she very much enjoyed it….a girl after my own heart!

tomorrow ruby goes to daycare with angus and will once again be spoiled rotten!  more pictures of that tomorrow night.

her tasting last night was chamagne chicken and left over rigatoni from the night before.  as usual she scarfed it down, but had some problems getting the rigatoni…they kept slipping from her grasp.  no desert last night though as it was a very late dinner with much plowing to do afterwards.

today she is at daycare with angus, getting spoiled out of her mind.  i hope i can live with her swelled head when she comes home tonight

"Hand over the burger and no one gets hurt!"

pretty please, can we have the burgers now?

thank you so much for visiting them leslie and per the text you sent earlier, please feel free to come over any time you want,  whether we are home or not!  you know they love you…as do we!

and for Today’s Taste:  breaded shrimp stuffed with monteray jack cheese (and cauliflower)….the shrimp were a HUGE hit, but the cauliflower….not so much-lol.

last week (last week of dec/first week of jan)

this week (1/9) view #1

this week (1/9) view #2

she has been having some good days as she is off the chemo and feeling a bit better overall, but the increase in the size and severity of the tumors is still a tell tale sign that we must address the unthinkable in the near future.  she has been getting up in the middle of the night now for weeks and while we were at first frustrated with this change in behavior as it seemed to come out of the blue, we understand that anything she may exhibit from now on is most likely due to her illness, so we let her out, change her t-shirt to make her feel better and go back to sleep…sometimes.  many times its then that i lay awake thinking about her, the dirtbags who owned her and what they have left us to do now.  the hardest part is that WE, her rescuers (tara and amanda…more on them in another post), the board members at placing paws (becky, jean, christie and cindy) and all the people who have met ruby…WE are the ones that love her and care for her and WE are the one’s left to do the hardest thing of all….say goodbye.  the day is getting closer-i know it-and i hate it already, but as i think most of you will agree, we wonder how much longer we can let her go on living like this, in pain and not leading the kind of life a dog her age should be living.  i just don’t think its this week….

on a lighter note, in keeping with our goal of new experiences for ruby, Today’s Tasting was potato and onion perogi….and boy did she ever love it!

long story short, we found her and her two babies living under a shed in my sister’s neighbors yard.  the two kittens were friendly enough that we rescued them and found them new permanent homes, but kipper was too wise for us.  but after getting to know me she started frequenting our home almost every day for food….she also kept my garage void of mice (total win win).  she eluded trapping for about 3 years and we did have to go through at least two litters that we know of.  the first litter she brought by my house regularly and the kittens were easy to trap and spay/neuter….one of them, snickers, was actually adopted out by one of her vet techs!  the other, buster (or buster brown as i called him a lot), lived in my garage for about a year and then one day just disaapeared.  however, i was not and am not as worried about him as i was for kipper since we had also trapped and neutered 3 other tom cats in our hood and they all took off after my torturous actions towards them…you should have seem them run when i opened the trap…..never to be seen again, but i’m sure have taken over as boss of the hood on the next block or so.

however, kipper was the one thing that i could count on….on my doorstep every night waiting for her dinner.  during the warmer months it was dry adult kibble and during the winter months it was kitten kibble (to give her the extra calories; fattening up for the harsh winter) with some heated canned cat food!  total yum for her, she loved the stuff.

when we see the cats on our front porch the sign they know (that tells them i know they are there) is for me to tap on the door window and they head for the garage door.  i open it set down the food and water on a rug in the garage and they come in (great for the winter as they can catch a break from the cold wind and snow) and eat til their heart’s content.  however, on occasion, one or two of them have been trapped in the garage, however, so very briefly, in the garage  door must come down (the 6″ or so its open) before it can go back up again, so bob has come home from work and accidentally trapped her inside.  when this has happened before, she has left us for about a week but never any longer….until this last time.  seven worrisome weeks went by before she came back to eat yesterday.  she wouldn’t however come into the garage, so i warmed up the canned food and put it on the front porch for her, hoping that it will lessen the fear and she will make it a habit of once again returning on a daily basis.

its just a huge relief for me as i’ve grown very fond of kipper (who got her name from z as she loved the children’s cartoon ‘kipper the dog’.  we were finally able to trap her about 2-3 years ago (with a very large contraption) thanks to serena at feral feline project http://feralfelineproject.org/ (who i’ve been working with since we noticed kippers first litter).  she has been spayed and we are happy to report that she, by herself, will no longer be helping to populate our little neighborhood with homeless kitties.  however, i have one more that is too, ever elusive.  we named him garth, after my fav country singer, as he’s a bit plump (actually obese in the winter) and slightly crossed-eyed and that makes him absolutely adorable.  garth only comes around to eat in the winter months when i can’t trap him, so the quandry continues as to how to get this guy and fix him once and for all.  i honestly think he is one of kipper’s offspring as we haven’t had any ‘new’ cats come by in about 3 years, but if he’s like any of his brothers or his father (which ever one it was) he too will dissapear and i will miss his adorable face.  i will try to get some pics of them if i can, but its hard because even after all these years, they still don’t trust me enough to let me get closer than about 3′ to them….sad, but true.

oh, and yes as all things relate back to ruby, on her new taste menu yesterday….warm, canned cat food!  OMG, this dog was in total heaven…oh and for desert she licked the inside wrapper of a butter finger candy bar….so what, the chocolate is going to kill her? (ok, maybe that was in bad taste, but we do need to lighten things up a bit, too!)