Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Do Unto Others as You Would HaveThem Do Unto You - 4 PAWS UP


Our Raphy isn’t doing so well, sometimes he falls down when he is just walking across the room.  Mom says that we should be sweet to him because he can’t help it if he gets cranky.  Sometimes when I try to be nice and give him a little lick on the nose he just licks back as nice as can be but other times he growls and takes a little nip at my nose.  I don’t like it one bit but mom says that he can’t help it if he is in pain and crabby.  Sometimes Zeus, Isis and I get tired of it at the same time when Raphael is especially snippy and obnoxious; then all three of us try to put him in his place at once and all his little nips get reciprocated.  I feel bad when that happens because mom looks so sad and sometimes I even see tears in her eyes.

One day when we were all jumping on Raphael, to keep him from sitting on mom’s lap where we all wanted to be, mom told us a little story about a long time ago when she was a little girl. The 4th and the 5th grades were together and had the same teacher.  The teacher’s name was Mrs. Mc Rae and mom said that she just loved her, in fact she wanted to grow up and be a teacher just like her.  Mrs. McRae often had mom help other kids with their work after she was finished with hers; she told her that she thought she would be a wonderful teacher when she grew up.

One thing Mrs. McRae was quite strict about was being late to school.   Being tardy was especially  embarrassing since the door to the classroom opened right in front of the class; then to make matters worse, the coat room door opened at the side of the room so you had a second chance to feel humiliated when you walked out of the coatroom after hanging up your coat.  Mom said that she will never forget how much anguish she felt for the two little girls who walked into the class room late one cold winter day.  They looked like two slight waifs standing in front of the classroom, shivering from the cold, with nothing on but their mother’s old house dresses…no coats, each one clad in only a thin, worn dress.  The tense silence was broken by two loud whistles and then in chorus some of the boys yelled, TWO SMELLS FOR DUBELLS.  The two small girls stood there with their head slightly bowed as if in acknowledgement that they deserved this kind of treatment.  They sat in their desks shivering from the cold and all mom wanted to do was go over and give them her coat.  At least they were spared the humiliation of going into the coat room and then once again having to appear in front of the class.  At recess mom told each one of the boys what she thought of them, she asked them how they would like to be treated that way.  Then mom looked straight at me, Isis and Zeus; she asked us how we would like to be treated like that (no paws went up),  then she said that is how you are treating Raphael because he is different and can’t really defend himself.  Mom said that treating other people like we would like to be treated has great rewards; she said that she knew those boys would never be mean to the DuBells again, at least as long as she was any where close by.  We knew that was  meant for Raphy and our treatment of him.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Zena"s New Friends

You go first Lady Olivia
Mon Cherie and Lady Olivia
My mom's new friend, Heidi, sent us these pictures of Lady Olivia and Mon Cherie using a Puppy Stairs ramp.  The first thing I thought was hey, "you two are on my ramp '.  I know that I am the star model for Puppy Stairs but I didn't realize that other puppies could actually have them too.
Practice makes perfect.

Look at me, nothing to it.
I'm going to ask my mom to ask Heidi if Lady Olivia and Mon Cherie would like to be friends and come over and play with Raphael, Zeus, Isis and me.  Our garden is so fun; it has rock paths to walk on and tall flowers and bushes for us to explore.  We are pretty careful to stay on the paths so we don't break off any flowers.  We love to chase each other and run through the flowers and shrubs which are all sized just right, compared to our sizes, to call it a forest.  Our very own secret forest.  

In the picture below you can see our beautiful garden forest just before the icy cold weather and winds came and took the blooms of our flowers.  We miss smelling our favorite blossoms but it is quite an adventure to walk through the foliage and brush a plant that is laden with rain drops and get a delightful shower.  I hope that Heidi will let Olivia and Mon Cherie come over and play with us.
Our special corner of our garden


                                                

Friday, November 4, 2011

For the Love of Raphael

                                                              
When we first moved here, Raphael got really sick and couldn’t even stand up or walk.  He had to be carried around like a little baby.  The doctor didn’t give my mom much hope and we were all very sad when he said that Raphael had suffered a stroke.  But Raphael just tried as hard as he could to get up on his legs and stand and our friend Wil stayed right with him and encouraged him day after day to not give up.  Finally one day he actually stood up on all four legs at once for a few seconds and then tipped over.

The next time he got up he stood a little longer and each time he tried he did better, and one day Wil said, “I do believe that he will walk again.”  Every day Wil sat on the ground and coaxed him to stand and take a step by putting his arms out to him and then move them back slightly when Raphael, with his legs shaking and trembling,  would use all his strength and will power to reach Wil’s out stretched hands, and as he started to fall, Wil would gather him up in his arms and praise him effusively for being such a good boy.

  Then one day when Raphy stood up in his usual precarious manner, Wil stepped back a little further than usual, and Raphael actually ran a few steps to him.  That was a day of rejoicing for all of us.  Sure, his legs were all wobbly but Wil said they would get stronger, and sure enough our Raphael can walk and even run, with an unsteady sort of gait for sure, but he can run.  He’s still a bit wobbly and sometimes falls down, but he gets right back up and tries again.  Sometimes I see my mom get tears in her eyes when she is looking at Raphael .

Raphael tries to play with us and likes to run after a toy that has been tossed.  He falls down often but he gets right back up and still tries to be the one that gets the toy in his mouth first.  The other day Raphy and Zeus both had the same toy in their mouth and they played tug on the toy for a while, but then I saw Zeus gently let go of the toy so Raphy thought he won.  He looked so happy it made me happy, and I thought it was really nice of Zeus to let him have the toy.

www.puppystairs.com

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Zena Returns From Her Sabbatical

It has been a long time since I have written on my blog and I have missed all my followers and the kind comments they often left for me to read.  So much has happened and there is so much to write about that I don’t know where to start so I will just tell you a little about my new
surroundings.  My whole family moved to a beautiful, peaceful island where we have a big fenced yard, a beautiful flower garden that is tended by our friend Wil and a glorious panoramic view of the ocean from our front windows.  We love it here.  We have our whole yard to play in; I especially like to walk on the paths in our garden that wind around and under the plants and flowers.  I adore getting up each morning and going out in the garden and smell the Posies (that’s what Wil calls them).  The flower I like the best is a yellow and violet pansy that has a pungent, spicy aroma; I even took a little bite one day and it tasted good.  I pretended like I didn’t hear when my mom said, “do I see a puppy eating my pansies?”  Raphael ate the spinach plant before they even got it planted.  Mom said oh well, spinach is good for him, it has lots of iron.

I’m putting some photos of Raphael, Isis, Zena, Zeus and me on here for you all to see.  In case you don’t remember, Raphael is my Uncle, Isis is my Momma and Zeus is my daddy.  They all said to tell you that they like it here too and that they think it is special to have their picture on my blog.  Zeus wants me to tell you which one he is in the picture so you can see how cute he is.  Now they all want you to see that they are cute too, so I’ll start with the pup on the left in the picture that shows all four of us.  First pictured is Isis, next Zeus (he wants me to say he is the handsom one), then Raphael and me, the last one.  Mom says we are all totally adorable and with that I’ll end for today…more tomorrow.

Zena
 P.S.  You can see the four of us at our job as famous models at www.puppystairs.com