Now Cracks a Noble Heart: Thoughts on Loss and Bixby

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.  

― William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"

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When you adopt a dog, you are not only adopting a life, but a death. As George Carlin put it, “It’s inevitable when you buy the pet. You’re supposed to know it in the pet shop. It’s going to end badly. You are purchasing a small tragedy.” One might argue with the scale of the tragedy, but his larger point is true. You are going to outlive your dog—and furthermore, you want to outlive your dog. To refuse to face that this momentous love will result in a momentous loss, to deny that death is one of the truths of life, to consign all of your well-being to a companion who will unlikely to be with you for more than a decade: these are all ways, in my mind, to increase your agony when the inexorable truth is that life ends and for dogs, it always ends too soon.

There is never enough time.

Or is it just enough?

I am someone who believes in the power of dichotomy, that we cannot truly understand something unless we also comprehend its opposite. How can we understand light if we’ve never been in the dark? How do we comprehend satiation if we have never been hungry? It goes beyond just obvious opposites: to use a topical example, never experiencing injustice can make you blind to your privilege. And it wasn’t until I left Seattle for college in vastly different Florida that I truly understood where I came from and how it shaped me.

What is life? “The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.” Without death, we would be as rocks: slowly, slowly, slowly transmuting over billions of years, a sea floor one eon, a mountain peak another, our shape and fate dictated by the vicissitudes of weather and the slow creep of plate tectonics. Such an eternity would strip all emotional meaning from matter. When all is undying, why cherish anything?

To quote the Talking Heads,“Heaven is a place / A place where nothing / Nothing ever happens."

It is loss, therefore, that renders so much of what we care for precious. 

As dogs are precious.

To love a dog is also to lose a dog and to lose a dog is to grieve a dog: these things are all inevitable. The last thing I want to suggest is that the unavoidability of death somehow negates any need to mourn. A loss is a loss.

I have taught myself this lesson: that my dogs will die, and that is as it should be, and that I will mourn them, and that is as it should be, and then I will move out of my grief, and that is as it should be, too. Because dogs, for me, provide a bulwark against dying by suicide. I have been in the position where I have needed to find external reasons for living and I know that in order to be there for my dogs, I would seek the care I needed should my currently successful mental health management fail. I am adamantly clear to myself that no one dog stands between my life and death, that it is a continuity of dogs that are loved and lost and mourned that give me strength. I can’t risk being blindsided or devastated by a loss that is written into the contract, so to speak, of loving a canine companion. I have been doing extra mental and emotional preparatory work regarding Nala’s certain approaching death. At an estimated age of fourteen, she’s an old dog by any calculation. Senescence is upon her. It is unlikely that she’ll live more than another couple of years. 

But it is Bixby who was first to die. 

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American Staffordshire Terriers are hardy dogs with a typical lifespan of 12-16 years. We estimate that Bixby was eight years old. I had every reason to expect to have him by my side for at least four more years. While he had a lot of health issues, they were all related to allergies—none were of the sort that shorten a dog’s life. Yet there was death on a Thursday evening, a death, in fact, some time foretold, but silently, until the fatal rupture. 

It is a comfort to me that there is nothing I could have done. The spleen is an organ rich in blood but not vital to an adult dog’s functioning. My veterinarian told me he usually only finds them before they burst, leading to catastrophic internal bleeding, if he's palpating a dog's abdomen for some other reason. Even then, by the time a splenic hemangiosarcoma is detectable, 90% of the time the cancer has already spread to other organs. It’s possible to take the view that it’s just as well that Bixby went so fast. This aggressive cancer impacted only two and a half hours of his life. 

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Pumpkin, I called him at the last, lying nose-to-nose with him on the floor of the emergency vet hospital. “Oh, Pumpkin, you are so loved. Oh, Pumpkin, I’m so sorry.” 

I could not give him more time. I could not give him more life. I could not give him more of my heart, since he already had the entirety of it. I could not even, as I was able to with Abbey, give him a beautiful death. He stared to cry under his breath, there at the end. It’s the memory of those barely audible whimpers that broke me then and breaks me still. So I gave him the only thing in my power: I took away the traitorous heartbeat that was, with each pump, painfully draining away the substance of his life. 

I did not linger long with the body of the beautiful caramel-colored dog, blood red beneath the skin of his distended belly. It wasn’t Bixby. Bixby was the spirit, the animating force, the character, the personality. I walked out into the twilight with my shock and my grief; I walked out of one story and into another.

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Cancer, for all that it may be frightening and fatal, is unremarkable. Forty percent of people, like me, will develop cancer in their lifetime and roughly 17% of us will die of it. Nearly 50% of dogs die of cancer. Bixby’s type of cancer, hemangiosarcoma, accounts for approximately 5% of annual canine cancer deaths. The dogs most likely to develop hemangiosarcoma are large male dogs in their late middle age or early senior years, with pit bulls being among the breeds that are genetically susceptible to it. As emotionally shocking as it may have been to lose my Bixby to hemangiosarcoma, statistically, it was a very normal death. An individual but unremarkable tragedy, the price I knew I would inevitably pay for loving my dog.

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Some people say that losing a dog is akin to losing a child. While not having a child myself, I find this comparison unlikely. But I don’t think it detracts from the grief to say so. When a dog dies, you lose someone child-like.

Someone innocent.

In the months since Bixby died, I’ve returned again and again to the idea of innocence being one of the attributes so many of us most value in our dogs.

Dog ownership has changed dramatically in the past century and even more rapidly in the past twenty years. Just calling it “ownership” seems wrong, as it implies that a dog is a thing. Currently, 97% of dog owners consider their pets part of the family. You’re now a “dog mom” or “dog dad.” People refer to their dogs as “furbabies.” It’s a change even from when I was growing up in the 1980’s-90’s. Dogs went from companion animals to kids. This is in some ways surprisingly literal: instead of being bred for performing specific tasks or even for conforming to specific “breed” requirements, most pet dogs are bred to be as puppy-like as possible. Playful? Goofy? Trusting? Joyful wiggles? Wagging tails? Giving kisses? These are all the attributes of canid puppies. A dog bred for companionship is a dog that has been arrested in a state of permanent childhood. In uncertain times, when we marry later, have children later, and live more isolated from extended family, dogs can fill the gaps in our hearts. Dogs are creatures of a fascinating level of plasticity at multiple levels and one result of our coevolution is that they will take on any role we ask of them.

Including being our babies. 

Eighty-five percent of pet owners give their animals winter holiday gifts.
I am among the 60% of pet parents who hang up a stocking for my dogs. In 2019, Bixby got a bowtie, along with treats, in his stocking. I am also among the 45% who give my pets gifts "from Santa." That's who left him the bed he's snoozing in on Christmas Day.

In a tough world, we want to spoil our babies rotten. Globally, the pet industry currently amounts to $320 billion and is projected to reach $500 billion by 2030. There are dog bakeries (often called a “barkery” because dog people leave no dog pun unturned) where you can buy a customized, decorated birthday cake for your dog and the other canine guests at your dog’s birthday party. People fork out huge sums for “premium” food brands that satisfy human emotional needs more than dog nutritional needs—dogs are, after all, capable of surviving on literal garbage. (While I don’t think you should feed your dog garbage, if your dog doesn’t have specific health-related restrictions, they really honestly are okay eating kibble.) Veterinary medicine has expanded so much that pet health insurance is becoming a necessity to keep up with the expenses incurred when your dog gets orthopedic surgery followed by physical therapy that includes cold laser treatments and pool time. Toys? Yes! Costumes? You bet! Doggy nail polish? It’s a thing! Blue lifejackets with shark fins on top? TAKE MY MONEY NOW!

It may seem ridiculous, but the fact is, when you pet a dog, it triggers a release of oxytocin—the same hormone that is critical to childbirth and promotes bonding between a newborn and its parents—in both you and the dog. Oxytocin is also released when we fall in love and it promotes trust, reduces stress, and leads to feelings of positive wellbeing. To love and be loved by a dog is to live in a perpetual positive feedback loop of hormonal bliss. 

Mutual oxytocin production in action.

A dog is such a gift in that regard. It’s no wonder that we attempt to give our “babies” so many things in return. 

I never felt like Abbey’s “mommy”—that didn’t fit our relationship at all—but I have at times felt like a "mommy" to Nala and Bixby. In the case of Nala, it is because she’s needed so much special, nurturing care. I’ve remarked that the older she gets, the younger she seems, because helping her overcome her trauma has allowed playful, silly, puppy-like behaviors to emerge. In the case of Bixby, it’s because he was so clearly cherished as a puppy that he decided that being a baby doggy was the best thing ever. If he was a baby, that made me his mommy.

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I don’t go in for regrets. I believe that every one of us is doing the best we can given who we are and what circumstances we are in at any given time. It’s not necessary to like who we are/what we do at any given time, but the fact is that we are, at each moment, the sum of ourselves. But we can change that sum! This is not a magical prescription, of course. There might be any number of limiting factors, both external and internal. But still, we can accumulate changes that lead us to different circumstances. One thing we can't change is the past. Ruminating over it, being embarrassed by it, clinging to it: it doesn’t help anything or anyone. Learn what you can, change what you can, forgive what you can’t, going forward.

My disabilities mean that I truly am, at any moment, doing the best I can. And that best is often so very limited. I have no cushion. I live each day pared down to the bone. I have to be utterly unflinching and entirely forgiving in my assessment of who I am and what I can do. So I regret nothing. 

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This applies to Bixby.

But, oh, I am so very sorry I ended up so sick from first COVID and then cancer. It was so hard on my sensitive buddy. The impact it had on his emotional state led to terrible health issues at a time when I was completely unable to support him. It damaged his belief that the world was always wonderful and that it was always good to be a Bixby and I am incredibly sorry that he lost his innocence.

Self-Portrait of the Photographer Hairless from Chemo in Glass Door with Dogs

We were working so hard on getting him healthy again. When I was finally well, I prioritized getting strong enough that I could fulfill my longtime dream of doing agility with him. Agility was even more awesome than I thought it would be and it did wonders for his mental health. If we'd had another year, I'm sure I could have brought him back to a state of physical, mental, and emotional wellness, even if I could never restore his innocence. I'm so sorry we didn't have that time, that he never had the chance to fully heal.

We had so much fun doing agility!

I’m sorry, too, that due to a series of injuries and disability-related complaints, I hadn’t played his favorite game with him after dinner for a couple of months. Every evening he would ask and I kept having to telling him no. “Soon, buddy. Soon, I promise,” I told him on the evening before he died. I couldn’t play that day because it was too hot. I have limited heat tolerance and it was hot enough outside my air-conditioned room to make me sick if I lingered, so I really, truly, absolutely couldn’t. But if I’d known that he was going to die in July, I would have played with him on a couple of the days when I felt too tired in the weeks before his death. But how could I know? And I really was tired on those evenings and the amount of activity it took to play Bixby’s favorite game—which involved making one of his toys dance and swoop and then playing tug with him when he caught one of the arms—could have make me sicker. So every day I was doing the best I could and I can’t regret that I didn’t play with him more. And while I'm sorry that there weren’t more days, more days have never been in my power to grant to any dog I’ve ever loved. 

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If I could undo one thing, it would be COVID. Not because I was in bed for months, not because of the lasting health issues it has caused me, not even because it delayed my cancer diagnosis and treatment by half a year, but because it broke Bixby’s heart. I was isolating in my bedroom. Nala had decided that she was in charge of me and let him know he wasn’t welcome. My mother was working out of our dining room where Bixby couldn’t join her in case he saw some critter on the front lawn and had a barking frenzy while she was teaching. And so he spent roughly three months alone in the family room during the day, growing increasingly depressed and increasingly ill because affection and a feeling of belonging were critical to his well-being. By the time my mom retired and my sister started working out our dining room while my mom cared for my little nephew, by the time the house was once again full of people and fun and company and activity, Bixby’s psyche was damaged to a degree that he never fully recovered from. 

Bixby had finally gained some couch privileges in the beginning of 2020, but he lost them not due to any misbehavior of his own, but because we discovered that Nala was discretely using the rug in that room as a bathroom. Because I wasn't well, the easiest way to deal with the issue was to shut the door. That meant no more couch for Bixby. 

In an attempt to draw me out from my COVID isolation, Bixby took to dragging his brass-studded collar along the wall in the upstairs hall because he discovered that I would get out of bed to stop him. Sadly for Mr. B., I took away the studded collar instead of rejoining the family.

The dynamic between Nala and Bixby changed when I got sick. She decided that she was in charge of my care and he didn't get to be part of it. In this photo, Bixby stress-yawns after he's asked if he can come up on the bed and I've said yes but Nala has said no.

Facebook post from 2/21/2021: 
I have to say, I miss Bixby. Yes, we're still in the same house, but I've been under orders to isolate as much as possible because my white blood cell count was so low that I managed to get a cold despite masking in the house and no one around me being sick. Nala has made it clear that Bixby is not allowed to be on the bed with me in the daytime and I had enough nights where I didn't feel well enough to have a large dog in bed with me that Bixby is now choosing to sleep in my parents' room. I say hello to him whenever I see him, but it's not nearly the same. It's going to be another three months before I'll be in a position to spend a lot of time with him. Sigh... Nala, of course, is with me pretty much 24/7, either curled up on my feet, snuggled next to me and using me as a pillow, or sleeping during the night on the bed next to my bed.

In this photo from July of 2021, not long after I'd finished chemo, I'm down on the floor to try to give Bixby the cuddling I knew he desperately needed but would no longer seek out from me. Nala inserted herself into the activity by vigorously licking the stubble of my re-growing hair.

Facebook post from 5/21/2022:
Bixby has been refusing to sleep with me for a year and a half after being banned while I was going through chemo. It hurt his feelings and I think he was also afraid that if he came back and got used to it, he might then get shut out again. (To be fair, that happened when he was banned after my mastectomy, was invited back after I'd sufficiently healed, and then banned again a month or so later when I started chemo.) So he's been sleeping in a dog bed in my parents' bedroom all this time and flat-out refused to sleep in my room even when I've asked. But a few weeks back he gave himself a phobia—he got scared on a windy night and then was scared to be in my parents' bedroom and so he ended up sleeping his crate for a few nights, during which he licked his rear end raw. So I said, "Enough is enough." He is now back sleeping in my room, on my bed, and I am SO happy and he's happy, too. Nala might be slightly less happy, but he is pretty good for cuddling with before I turn my light out and she doesn't sleep on the bed at night anyway. Last night, Bixby fell asleep his great big lovely warm head on my chest for the first time since being back in my room—I'd missed that so much!

This makes him sound clingy and needy, but it wasn’t the case at all. Before 2020, Bixby was a canine ray of sunshine. He did everything with gusto. I’ve never seen a dog nap exuberantly before, but he did it with the same joyful abandon he brought to everything. He so firmly believed in life’s abundance that he didn’t even bother licking small crumbs off the floor. His motto was “It’s Good to be a Bixby!” His theme song was “The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers,” with his name subbed in, of course! My other saying for him was “It’s not that Bixby isn’t deep, it’s just that the water is extremely clear.” His embodiment of sensuous leisure made it easy to forget that he was extremely intelligent until he snapped into training mode and demonstrated his capacity to focus and learn quickly. I did hurt his feelings terribly once early on when I used a squirt bottle to stop him from trying to climb up on the leather chair in our family room, but we quickly reconciled and it was back to la dolce vita: decadent naps, gleeful zoomies, passionate snuggles.

"The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers/Bixbys"

My favorite photo of Bixby doing agility is not any of the ones where he is doing an awesome job, but this one where he's SO EXCITED that he's got the zoomies and I can do nothing but wait until he's run off some of his overflowing joy before we can resume working on the course.

To then hold that same tender soul in your arms after he’s been up all night vomiting because he’s terrified that you don’t love him anymore; to see him turn away from the affection that you know he needs as desperately as water because he can't face that you might withhold it; to watch as he, in his distress, literally starts withering away; to be powerless to explain or change the circumstances that have led to him to fear for his place in your home and heart: it's agonizing.

A sick Bixby curled up tight as can be in my lap.

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For all of this, I don't think of myself as someone who is overly sentimental about dogs in that I recognize not all dogs are pets. The whole idea of a "pet dog" is really quite new, at least in evolutionary terms. Up until the Industrial Revolution created a large middle class, very few dogs were kept solely as companion animals. It was then that an interest in breeding dogs for appearance and not for function gained popularity, giving rise to the "show dog." These non-working dogs were precursors to the family pet. In other words, from as many as 32,000 years ago up until the late 1880's, all owned dogs were first and foremost working dogs. There are still many dogs working today: ancient breeds serve as guardians just as their direct ancestors have for thousands of years; meanwhile, the very modern service dog can perform tasks as complex as calling 911. But it's really only very recently, in just the past few decades, that dogs have become surrogate children. The idea that dogs are furbabies that need and deserve all the best of everything is extremely anomalous to who and what dogs have been for the entire history of canine domestication. 

While it may be a new role, a lot of dogs discover that the inside pet life is a good gig, though it can be challenging for a dog that retains a lot of its original working drive to fully adapt to being a placid perpetual puppy. It's irresponsible on the part of people to expect, say, an intelligent, high-energy dog to be able to settle into all that luxury without a ton of exercise and mental stimulation, but it should be noted that genetics are not destiny: you'll find absolutely all kinds of temperaments, intelligence, athleticism, and other traits among dogs of a single breed. When genetics do still play a role in behaviors, it can be quite fascinating. For example: my childhood dog was a Basset Hound-Springer Spaniel mix whose genes, when he once found a dead bird in the yard, instructed him to pick it up very gently and bring it to us. My mother had a colleague whose Shetland Sheepdog was a real handful until she found a place where the Sheltie could herd sheep every weekend. I've never forgotten how a coworker's Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, a type of gun dog used for hunting birds, instinctively zeroed in on the smell of a bag of dyed decorative chicken feathers in a drawer in a very large space with lots of scents despite never having been used for hunting. It fascinates me that recognition of a smell was hardwired into his brain! Otherwise, of all the dogs I've known, only Jazzy the Mini Aussie, who didn't really come with an "off" switch, and Cutie the Pyrenees, who retained many livestock guardian traits—such as barking loudly in response to anything "suspicious," much to the chagrin of the neighbors—were driven by their DNA in ways that could only be mitigated rather than overcome.

Every dog I've ever owned or cared for.

In other words, the collies and retrievers, ratters and herders, the crosses and mixes, had all effectively been transmuted into a single category: pet dog. Pet dogs of various levels of intelligence, of energy, of sociability, with the typical gamut of opinions on subjects most dear to a pet dog's existence: people, other dogs, toys, baths and nail trims, car rides, the vet, treats, the vacuum, being on the people bed, getting their feet wet, walks, strangers coming to the door, mealtimes, cats, thunderstorms and fireworks, children, preferred forms of physical affection, squirrels, taking medication, the location of the best sunning spots, and so forth. 

I was Abbey's purpose.

It is interesting (and relevant) to note that while all the dogs were firmly and only and quite dedicated to being canine companions, a few of the dogs I've known have gone a step further and designated a role for themselves in their family. This is not what the family necessarily has envisioned for the dog, but what the dog has envisioned for his- or herself. It is not a particular skill-set, it is not about hierarchy, but something deeper about a dog's sense of purpose. Nala, notably, found a higher purpose while I was sick with COVID and then chemo: she knew I was sick (I'm sure I smelled very different, for one), she knew that I was in bed all the time in a way that was different from me being in bed all the time due to chronic health problems, and while all it looked like was her spending the days snoozing on the bed just as she did on days when I was in bed due to my disabilities, her purpose shifted. She became more. (It's also why she started being rude to Bixby and letting him know he was not welcome to join us on the bed during the day.) When I got better, she went back to being her usual self. For most dogs, though, it's their life's work. It's hard to describe, but people who have loved a dog like this will know what I mean. A lot of these dogs are what are referred to as "heart dogs" or "soul dogs," where the depth of the bond is one monumental and fundamental, dogs that forever change your heart and your soul. Not all heart dogs are dogs with a larger purpose; I recently spoke with Goldie's mom who hasn't adopted another dog and may never will because no dog will ever compare: Goldie, she said to me, was an angel in canine form. That may well be true. But it wasn't Goldie's purpose. She didn't choose to be an angel, she simply was. 

Abbey was the dog-of-my-heart and always will be. A dog similarly special to me is Sweetheart the German Shepherd. We only had a year together, but during that time, we connected not as dog to person but soul to soul. Sweetheart's love was vast and pure and our love had no higher purpose and none was necessary. If you'd asked her if she had a purpose, she would likely have told you it was to look after "her" kids. But I hesitate to ascribe the knowingness that animates the sort of purpose I'm talking about to Sweetheart's love for her family—it was in her nature, an intrinsic force. It's the difference between, "I watch out for my family" and "I am the one that watches out for my family." This may seem like a bunch of nonsense, but during six years as a dog-sitter, I cared for fifteen dogs in addition to my own, and I will solemnly swear that some dogs see themselves as having a deliberate purpose that goes beyond the purely instinctual, that is animated by a greater sense of self, a belief in "I am."

Child at heart.

I believe that Bixby was such a dog. Out of the all dogs I've known, he was the most childlike. Loving to cuddle, wanting to be on the bed and the couch, being fearful about certain things, and having plenty of goofiness are all standard features for today's canine companions; what was different about Bixby is there was something so strikingly youthful about his guilelessness and his joy, not just in how he appeared to others, but how he viewed himself. It goes beyond the effect of being adored as a puppy; after all, most dogs are adored as puppies. For Bixby, it was a higher calling. (Not every purpose is a great ennobling one, though I'm sure he would dispute my characterization of his higher calling to be anything less than epitome of canine achievement.) I adopted him to be Nala's service dog by modeling how to be a be a pet. That he did, by firmly believing it was his role to be cherished, that he existed to be loved. He was not at all immature and I've known far sillier dogs. He was observant and intelligent. But in his soul, he never grew up. 

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This is all a narrative. A story created by me about a dog I called Bixby. 

As Joan Didion writes, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live... We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”

Bixby's story of himself, if dogs are capable of stories, may well have been different. 

A memento of
his suffering.

But these are facts: He couldn't thrive without full-body contact. He came to us used to being not just on the couch but in laps and even years later, long after he accepted the "no dogs on the couch" rule at our house, when he wasn't feeling well, he'd try to climb into your lap to be held. He was so stressed by my succession of serious illnesses that he developed Inflammatory Bowel Disease. And once upon a time, there'd been some major change in circumstances in the loving household where he'd been raised, something that separated him from his family: his fear of be unwanted was not unfounded. 

It is also a fact that there remains, on the wall of my bedroom, a spray of the anti-nausea drug Cerenia where it squirted when I depressed the plunger on the syringe too hard when prepping the dose before injecting it into the nape of Bixby's neck at 3 a.m. during one of his worst stomachaches. It is a fact, likewise, that when it's windy, my first thought is, "I'm glad Bixby isn't here for this anymore," because I spent so many exhausting nights dealing with his anxiety—an anxiety, it should be noted, that hadn't been severe until the stress brought on by my sickness.

And this is my narrative: I believe that, as pet parents, we must honor dogs as who they are. Bixby had been bred to have a canine companion's arrested development, he'd inherited the emotional sensitivity common to pit-bull breeds, his first family doted on him and he grew up in their laps and beds and arms; through a combination and nature, Bixby's wellbeing was wholly dependent on human affection and he lacked the emotional fortitude to cope without it. I may not have seen him as a furbaby, but I do believe he was an innocent. I wanted that for Bixby in a way I haven't for another dog: a life where he was always bonny and blithe, good and gay. It's tantamount to a sin, I feel, that a heart so pure and so joyful should be broken. I couldn’t prevent that breaking any more than I could prevent his dying, but I am so sorry that he suffered that terrible fear of being unwanted when he was, in fact, so loved. What I grieve is not that he died of cancer, but that he lost his sunshine in the years prior. It wasn't that he was never happy again, but there had not been time enough to fully restore him to a state of belief that it was good to be a Bixby.

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But in the end, Bixby was just a dog.

I forget that sometimes, caught up in the story of Bixby. I'm glad to have videos of him not doing a great job at agility because it reminds me that he was just a dog. "Just" may seem dismissive, but only if you think that being a dog is not enough. He was superbly a dog. He was everything I asked for and more than I ever hoped for. He gloriously fulfilled his purpose. As a friend put it, "He managed to achieve peak dog early and had to move to his next stage of being." Born a pet, lived a pet, died a pet. Bravo!

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I wish we'd had more time. Of course I do. But death is absolute. Battering away at death with powerless wishes will do nothing but further break your heart. My heart is broken enough.

It's final days of March as I type this and the angle of the sun has changed enough that it's just starting to shine in the space between the front window and the side of the couch in our living, which was Bixby's very favorite sunning spot. He is not here to bask in that spot, as he was not here to bask in the winter sunshine that spread across the family room rug. Every day he recedes further and further away from me, less and less a dog and more and more a character in the chronicle of my life.

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There's another story here, too.

Twice, in the days immediately following his passing—perhaps even that very night?—I went on PetFinder and searched for medium-sized adult dogs with short gray fur. I was not looking to adopt. I just needed to know that the story of having dogs would continue, that Bixby's death wasn't just an ending, but a beginning that paves the way for future dogs. It doesn't end with Bixby.

I mused, at the beginning of this piece, if we get just enough time with our dogs rather than too little. Dogs can help us change and grow. When I ask myself if I would want to have Abbey, dog-of-my-heart, by my side forever, I don't think I do. After twelve years together, her work was done. She'd help to transform me completely, but to change and grow more would require a different dog. That's what life is, by definition: a capacity for growth and continual change. I wish very much I had a couple more years with Bixby, but I'd rather love and lose dogs than stay the same forever.

And so, the tragedy I purchased for Nala in August of 2017 has come to pass. Yet, I continue to choose love and I will choose it over and over because to choose love means to choose life. My life. That life will forever be lit by the glow of my golden boy. He has set the standard for canine rays of sunshine very high. There will never be another like him; there will be others. This is the story of my life: choosing and being chosen by dogs, again and again, knowing that every dog will die, knowing that every loss will be worth the love.

Bixby, you were so, so worth it. 

✯    ✯    ✯

Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs? — Mary Oliver, “The Summer Beach,” Dog Songs

✯    ✯    ✯

A Dog Named Bixby

Demerits! Bixby's Collected Complaints

A Love Larger Than Loss

Moving Forward

Demerits! Bixby's Collected Complaints

In the spring of 2022, I learned about a fantastic private group called What's Our Little Pit Bull Problem Today from Pibbling with Theodore, one of the dogs I follow on Facebook. WOLPBPT is where pit bulls go to complain about their "staff" and issue demerits for human incompetence. I've taken to starting my day by seeing what the pit bulls are peeved about! Bixby took right to the format and became one of the most popular dogs on the site. Here now, collected all in one place and available to the public for the first time, are Bixby's complaints!

March 20, 2022

I just found out that the comfy and stylish new tank top Staff got for me was—brace yourself—made for English bulldogs!!! I've been BETRAYED. Yeah, yeah, bulldogs and AmStaffs both have blocky chests, but it SPECIFICALLY states in my contract that my clothing should be obtained only from the finest pit bull fashion houses. Do better, Staff! Now hand over your credit card and the Tooth & Honey catalog so I can recover from this sartorial betrayal. 

— Bixby

"Wait, my tank top was made for...

...BULLDOGS?!?!?

"That is NOT a pit bull on their logo! Get with it, Staff!"

March 30, 2022

Someone stole my skeleton while I was sleeping! Help!

— Bixby the Rubbery Pibble

March 31, 2022

Merits to Staff for this bedonabed! Demerits to Staff for the curious lack of covers. Also, additional demerits to Staff for a) removing all the lovely Bixby funk before putting the covers back on and then b) dismantling the bedonabed! Why can't a guy get a bedonabed with covers? I'd even settle for the non-funky ones...

— Bixby

April 4, 2022

I don't understand why the humans think it's funny that I just lay down whichever way I'm facing when the urge to get off my paws strikes me. Senior Staff not only took this photo to send to Staff, but titled the photo "A Room with a View." They're mocking me! I was walking and then I was done walking. I flung myself down as usual and so what if my nose is just inches from the wall? I don't know about you, but I take my naps with my eyes closed and you don't need any special view for that. Sheesh. Humans are amused by the weirdest things.

— Bixby

April 5, 2022

Bixbys are generally very brave boys and are only scared of one thing in the whole wide world: the wind! It makes a scary sound, okay? And sometimes things fall on the roof! The wind gets ALL the demerits for blowing and blowing Sunday night and all day Monday, worry this poor Bixby. Merits to Senior Staff for letting me cuddle on the couch (normally taboo!) with her at 3 a.m. when I was really scared and for Staff letting me sit in her lap in the afternoon when I was especially worried. Demerits for Staff for not turning off the wind. Staffs CAN turn off the wind, right?

— Bixby the Normally Very Brave Pit Bull

"Hi. I'm scared. I need to sit in your lap."

"Thank you for the lap. But now could you turn the wind off?"

Taking a selfie with a heavy DSLR camera with a large dog in your lap isn't easy!

April 7, 2022

Can you believe that Bixby got close enough to a fly to sniff it but he DIDN'T EAT IT?!?!?!?!

— Nala and Abbey*
*RIP, not actually a pit bull despite what the shelter said, definitely a fly huntress extraordinaire

Why would I want to eat something with a hairy exoskeleton and buzzy wings and a bunch of leggies?!?! Bixbys only eat the finest comestibles!

— Bixby

April 9, 2022

Alas! How I must suffer! Ten minutes soaped up with medicated shampoo while standing ankle-deep in medicated water. Why do *I* have to be punished if it's these things called "allergies" that are the ones causing all the problems? I'm going to have to do some zoomies and then have a hard nap to recover from this farce!

— Bixby

Don't let that pathetic face in the first photo fool you, he's busy munching on a street! — Staff

So sad! (Actually eating a treat.)

So sad! (Actually waiting for the next treat.)

April 12, 2022

Demerits to Senior Staff for saying, "Bixby! No licking the dishes in the dishwasher!" I didn't, because I am a Good Boy, but surely a pibble should get to lick the dishes, right? Especially when they are positioned so perfectly at pibble height.

— Bixby

April 13, 2022

Just how many times do I have to introduce myself to Staff? We've met!! I live here!!!

— Bixby

April 15, 2022

Today I am giving out all the merits! Staff and Mr. Senior Staff took me to training class again at last! Yay! The trainer said, "Hello, handsome!" when she saw me and I always love it when she says, "Hello, handsome!" Yay! I got so many pieces of dehydrated lamb lung! Yay! I was the best in the class at weaving through an obstacle course off leash! Yay! Nala didn't get to come! Yay! Staff does get a couple demerits for not doing classes for more than two years. She and the trainer also get a few demerits for not letting me say hi to all the people and I ADORE people and people adore me because I am a Bixby and that's just how it works. But most of all, Staff gets demerits for saying things like, "He's probably going to be a wild child at first. He's probably going to go crazy in the parking lot. Hopefully, he'll be able to settle down, but it's been so long..." She ought to have more faith in her Bixby! I snapped right back into training mode and was focused and chill because in addition to being a Bixby, I am a Very Good Boy. So ha! All the merits to me!

— Bixby the Humblebragger

Ready to train!

"Yep, that's me, a Very Good Boy weaving in and around cones!"

Off leash and by your side!

"Getting the treats I deserve while everyone applauds—that's just how life should be!"

April 18, 2022

Sometimes a guy just has to flap his flews, you know? Especially when heaving a frustrated sigh because Staff is delaying dispensing treats (they contain pills, but pills = treats, so hurry up with the meds!) in order to take a photo of me and the Queen waiting so nicely here side-by-side. Pfft to that!

— Bixby the Winged-Lipped Pibble

April 21, 2022

Why do I have to do a "leave it" for that yummy piece of scrambled egg? Surely Bixbys should be freely given ALL the scrambled eggs while STAFF does a "leave it" because all the scrambled eggs are for me! You're racking up 50 demerits for every second that you make me wait!

— Bixby

"Please let me 'eat it' not 'leave it.'"

"Why must I wait for that yummy bit of scrambled egg?!"

We didn't put any particular emphasis on teaching Bixby "leave it," but he takes it very very seriously. Senior Staff has put him on a "leave it," left the room, forgotten about him, and come back ten minutes later to find him still holding the "leave it"! Fear not, he did not have to wait ten minutes this time before he got his scrambled egg—this "leave it" was probably only worth 3,000 demerits. — Staff

April 21, 2022

Elegant long Bixby toes with elegant long nails with elegant long quicks.

Staff stole our nails! Like many of our kind, I have long, knobby dinosaur toes and nails with long quicks so I grow lovely long dinosaur talons. For some reason, Staff does not like it when my dinosaur talons get especially beautiful and steals them! Not only do I have to submit to having them cut, she then FILES them with an emery board, something about "dinosaur talons with razor sharp edges" being a problem. Pfft. They are only a problem if you are needlessly fussy about having Bixby scratches on your legs.

— Bixby

"I grew some REALLY nice talons on my back paws! I think ought to be able to keep them!"

Staff did Bixby's nails after she did mine and I didn't like it because her hands were touching Bixby. I tried to insert myself into the process as best I could so everyone remembered that I am the queen and should get attention at all times. Also, she didn't want me to eat the cut-off nail ends, something about them being "not food." I think I can decide for myself whether something is food or not, Staff!

— Nala

"I'm so jealous you're touching him instead of me that I'm going to hover with my head right over your hand while you cut Bixby's nails."

I must confess that I cut Bixby's nails because the particular flooring they have at the facility where Bixby's training class is held really amplifies nail noises and he clicked and clacked like he was wearing tap shoes last week. The length of his quicks means that I can't trim his nails short enough to be silent, but hopefully the clattering won't be quite as bad this week... — Staff

April 22, 2022

Bixbys are incredibly handsome dogs. Sexy, even. This photo is a LIE. A complete fabrication by Staff. SO many demerits. Bixbys are gorgeous 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. If you do the math, it is clear that this picture is a falsehood.

— Sexy Beast Bixby "Apollo" Bond

Bixby didn't do ALL the math—I captured this photo during a 10th of a second when he wasn't looking quite as handsome! — Staff

April 23, 2022

I'm very put out. Staff called me "baboon butt"! I'm issuing 100 demerits for every letter of that insult. She also put this weird pillow around my neck, which is not so bad, because I like pillows, except it is getting in the way of me licking my rear end. Canine friends, have you ever done a little licking and then totally got into the zone and entered this trance state (Staff calls this "mesmerlicking") where you lick and lick and lick... And then, weirdly enough, afterward the place where you licked is irritated and you need to lick it some more to soothe it? Yeah, that happened to me a few times lately when I opted to sleep in the privacy of my crate instead of with my anti-licking Staff. Obviously, the solution to the problem is to keep licking and now Staff is preventing me from engaging in hygienic self-care by giving me a wearable pillow. It's my butt! If I want my tooter to be raw and rosy-red, that's my business! 1,000,000 demerits! Free Bixby now!

— Bixby the Butt-Kisser

April 25, 2022

Finally! After embarrassing the heck out of me by buying me not one but TWO shirts for bulldogs with bulldog logos on them from a bulldog store, Staff got me a proper pit bull shirt from a pit bull store with SPACE PITTIES on it! Thanks, Staff! Have a few merits. Not too many merits, since this should have been done in the first place, but Staff can have some merits...in the form of being able to gaze upon my handsomeness in my sexy space pitties vest from Tooth & Honey. That ought to be reward enough.

— Bixby

"I'm so stylish!"

"Nala's so jealous."

"Did you get my good side?"

April 25, 2022

"Help! I can't see around my wearable pillow and my big head is too heavy to lift!"

Friends, I found myself in a terrible fix. I was all snuggled into my bed when someone walked behind me and because of this imprisoning pillow, no matter how hard I side-eyed and made face wrinkles, I COULDN'T SEE WHO IT WAS. This pillow ought to come with a review mirror or something for when a fellow is all snuggled in and doesn't want to move yet wants to know who is moving around in the house! Oh, how I must suffer! Staff says my chapped hinder-binder is "better" but "not there yet." IT WENT AWAY? I need this pillow prison off so I can use my tongue to verify the existence of my butt!

— Bixby the Possibly Bottomless and Definitely Nosy but Too Comfy to Move

"Woe is me!"

That face squish! Don't let the second photo fool you, he's all tucked in, cozy as can be, and drowsing off. Also, he pushes his head right into the pillow cone when it's time to put it back on, so he's not suffering too much... And I can verify the continued existence of his healing over-licked anus—it was periodically exhaling the effects of a combination of cheese, turkey jerky, and training treats after his training class last night... — Staff

May 4, 2022

Nala and Staff LEFT ME AT HOME for eleventy-billion years with no one but Senior Staff to care for me. Nala says the dog they were hanging out with is smaller than my head, though that's not necessarily saying much, since Bixbys are known for their large craniums. Staff apparently lets this "poodle" (is that even a THING? Is Nala just yanking my chain?) sleep on her legs at night which is SO UNFAIR because Staff won't let me sleep on her legs because, to quote Staff, "Ugh, Bixby, you're too heavy, I can't move my legs." As if you need to move your legs while you are sleeping! Demerits to Staff for abandoning me for a WHOLE WEEKEND and EXTRA demerits for letting another dog sleep on her! I punished Staff by making her pet my giant head a whole bunch when she got home and giving her a thorough licking and also some bruises.

— Bixby 

The Tiny Poodle is 5.5 pounds and, frankly, unnervingly small and fragile. I'd rather sleep with my 70 lb. heat-radiating concrete slab of a Bixby any day over a little cloud with fragile stick-like limbs. True, she can sleep on my legs and float on the surface of the blankets as I roll beneath them, but I'm scared I'll crush her any time she snuggles under the covers! — Staff

May 8, 2022

Blergh.

— Bixby the A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words and Each One of Those Words is "Demerit" Pibble 

May 11, 2022

I was all excited because a box from Chewy arrived! "Oh, look," said Staff, "it's for you!" And then get this, this is where it gets ugly: She continued, "Your vitamins are here!!!" No treats. No toys. VITAMINS. Pfft to that!

— Bixby the Well-Supplemented

"What's this?!"

"What?! Vitamins?! Forget that, lady!"

May 15, 2022

Many merits to Staff for saying, "Oh, Bixby! You're so cute!" It's true! Bixbys are very cute. Demerits to Staff for calling me "Monkeybutt" just because I gave myself a baboon bottom. Additional demerits for putting my neck pillow back on after taking this photo. How's a guy supposed to showcase his handsomeness when wearing that dang thing, much less lick his intimate areas into a state of redness when that pillow is in the way?

— Bixby the Beautiful with the Blushing Behind

May 19, 2022

These photos are PROOF of how much I'm suffering wearing this pillow all the time. It's a travesty, I tell you! But I showed Staff, she left me alone for two minutes without my neck rest and I did a flurry of licking and made my butt bleed on her sheets! Ha! Demerits for Staff, for everything. Demerits for my butt, which is sore today for some reason. I probably have other demerits, but I'm getting awfully sleepy...

— Bixby

"Oh...zzz...how I...zzz...suffer...."

"Zzz...so uncom—zzz—fortable...zzz..."

May 20, 2022

So many merits! First of all, merits for Thursday. Household staff was all like, "How does he know it's Thursday?" Um, how could I NOT know it's Thursday? Thursday is class day! Yay! Merits for class! There's a car ride! Merits for car rides! It was "graduation day," which meant we had to do the skills learned in all the previous classes. I've just been going with Mr. Senior Staff because weather makes Staff sick and we've had a lot of weather. It's okay, merits for a boys' night out! I wore my fancy space pitties shirt and people loved my shirt! Merits for the shirt and for people loving me! I was a little confused in class, though, because Staff is my primary staff member and Mr. Senior Staff is kinda #3 on the list and yet even though Staff was there, Mr. Senior Staff did all the work. But I am VERY SERIOUS about training and did well on my exam even though we hadn't practiced at home. My two best skills (merits for me!) are two of the hardest for the other dogs: Lining up with the other dogs and holding a "stay" until my name, and my name alone, was called. That's so easy! Merits for an easy task! My other best skill, the one that REALLY impresses people, is when I have to respond to "sit" and "down" commands even though my staff member is across the room and facing away from me. Merits to me for being an impressive smarty pants! So I passed "Above and Beyond" (merits for me!) AGAIN (I've done this class several times for fun and we don't do the same skills every time) and Staff has promised that I get to do agility next, at least when the weather gets better. Demerits to the weather, for keeping Staff in bed and unable to sign me up for agility. But so many merits, because I am smart and handsome and I got to show it all off!

— Braggart Bixby the Bestest Boy

"Yay! Car ride!"

Cruising to class.

"Hi. I am focused on you."

Ready and waiting!

"I can hold this stay all day! It doesn't matter what those other people and dogs are doing. But just say the word, Mr. Senior Staff, and I'll come!"

"It's my turn! Here I come!"

"Yup, another diploma to add to my records!"

The weather has been giving me migraine after migraine and the worst migraines kept happening on class nights! Bixby would have done even better on his tasks if I'd been his handler because we have a closer relationship and a much larger shared vocabulary, most notably in the realm of non-verbal signals ranging from tongue clicks to hand signs, but it's great for Bixby to practice his skills with folks other than me. His level of focus is so impressive! We did this advanced class again in order to a) give Bixby something to be proud of and look forward to after getting pretty depressed while I went through some very serious health stuff that triggered him to have serious health stuff and b) brush up on his skills, especially for when given commands while off-leash and some distance from his handler, so we can finally do agility! Both of those objectives were fully met. Now I just need the weather to cooperate... — Staff

May 22, 2022

Ha! That zebra was no match for me! I tore off its leg, ripped open the skin, and flung zebra bits everywhere! Demerits to Staff for not letting me eat the zebra skin. I wanted to swallow it whole, but she opened my mouth and stole it from me! A mighty hunter such as myself deserves to consume his prey as he wishes!

— Savannah Boss Bixby

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip!

Carnage galore!

May 23, 2022

923,859,603,836,575 demerits to the Frenchie next door! I was standing on my deck, sniffing the wind, minding my own business, when she came busting out of her dog-door cursing and yelling THE rudest things about my mama and my manliness and my intelligence. It made my hair stand straight up! I can't let such horrible smears on my character (and made at such a high pitch! and loud volume!) go unanswered, so I had to give her a big BOOF in return and then Staff made me go inside. The Frenchie Next Door is the WORST!

— Bixby of the Big Boof

Time for our annual summer "train Bixby to ignore the Frenchie Next Door" lessons to begin. Sigh... That Frenchie is such a pain. — Staff

May 27, 2022

10 merits to Staff for not narcing on me to Senior Staff when I snuck into the Forbidden Zone when the barrier was open in order to do some very serious sunning in THE most perfect pibble sunning spot in the entire house. 20,480,387 demerits for Senior Staff dubbing this area the Forbidden Zone because some nonsense about Bixbys not being allowed on the fancy white couches. Every couch should have a Bixby for a captain—ESPECIALLY the white ones! I am sometimes allowed to do some supervised sunning in the Forbidden Zone, but I snuck in while Senior Staff was distracted this time! Ha! 100,000 merits to me! (Staff told me that because she didn't know I was in the FZ, Senior Staff closed the barrier when she left. I was technically trapped out there except I was so sound asleep that I didn't wake up until Staff came around to photograph me about an hour later and opened the portal so I could go back to the Permitted Zone when I was done sunning.)

— Sneaky Bixby, Le Roi Soleil

I spy...

The space between the couch and the windows gets so warm!

There's good sun all over the Forbidden Zone in the summer.

Can't keep my eyes open.....

May 28, 2022

Help! I've melted!

— Caramel Sundae Sauce Bixby

May 29, 2022

Go away, Staff. I'm busy being a precious sleeping angel puppy-baby with a sapphire halo over here and it's a private fantasy that doesn't involve you.

— Beatific Bixby

June 2, 2022

I don't know why my Staff is making such a big deal about the fact that I'm sunning on her bed in the afternoon. I mean, yeah, I didn't sun on her bed for two whole years because Nala told me I wasn't allowed on the bed during the daytime, but I'm sleeping with Staff at night again after two years of not doing that and it's only natural that I would feel like I had a right to be on the bed during the daytime. Bixbys are very logical and good at extrapolating. Bixbys also like to sun without cameras intruding, so step back, Staff and let me....OMD!! Was that the Frenchie Next Door!?!

— Bixby the Nonchalant Unless The FND Is Involved

"What's the big deal?"

"Sure, it's been two years, but I'm here NOW and I have sunning to do and you're distracting me."

Smoldering Bixby eye.

"OMD!!! Was that the Frenchie Next Door?!?!?!"

It was indeed the FND, but not something that Bixby decided he needed to do anything about. I'm thrilled that insisting that he sleep with me at night has meant that he's using the bed in the daytime again, too! Take that, Nala! She really was a jerk about it and I was too sick to stop her, so I felt so sorry for poor exiled Bixby. But he's back! And his eyes are so beautiful in the sunshine. — Staff

June 5, 2022

What do you mean, "Where am I supposed to go?" I have very clearly left you a space. You're supposed to squeeze up tight against my shoulder. I didn't want to miss out on sharing my pillows with you tonight, so I made sure to get in place before you got in bed. Remember, there shouldn't be so much as an atom of empty space between us!

— Bixby, Snuggler in Chief

I had wrestle a pillow away from his clutches to put my head on! How is it that sleeping dogs can get so heavy? During the night, he actually found a position where he could lay across me that didn't bother me—closer to the pelvis than the rib cage for once, and with no bony elbows in tender places!—and we both fell asleep that way. It was his idea of heaven and pretty nice from my perspective, too. — Staff

June 8, 2022

1,000,000,000 demerits to Senior Staff for moving my dog bed out of her bedroom. I was so sure it meant that she did not love me anymore. I may be sleeping in Staff's room full-time now, but I knew I always had a place with Senior Staff...until she moved the bed. So I got very sad and scared, so sad and scared that it upset my tummy, and I also had to be very clingy. I was hoping that Senior Staff would make a special exception and let me up on the couch because I was feeling so worried, but she wouldn't, which was further proof that she didn't love me anymore. Staff, at least, felt sorry for me, and Senior Staff moved my bed back into her bedroom and has been telling me she really does love me and then I was allowed access to the Forbidden Zone for sunning to help cheer me up, but it's been a rough day, folks.

— Bixby the Tenderhearted

"Since you maybe don't love me, you might not mean it when you said I could be out here." 

*stress yawns*

"If you REALLY love me, you'll take off my pillow."

"Nala was a jerk and booted me out of the first spot, but fortunately there are multiple good sunning spots in the Forbidden Zone this time of year. Both Staff and Senior Staff came out to sit with me."

"Ahh... This place is my very favorite in the late afternoon. The sun-warmed wall feels so nice against my back."

"I can finally relax a bit. But I'm going to need some good cuddles tonight for further proof that I am still wanted in this family!"

It's a guess that moving his bed was what upset Bixby so much today, but it's a very educated guess, knowing what we do about his sensitive heart. If he thinks he's being rejected, it wounds him so deeply. Poor guy! — Staff

June 9, 2022

I want to give 100 merits to all the staff members in my household for proving that they still love me and want me, though I may never fully recover from the horrible 1,000,000,000 demerit scare I got yesterday when Senior Staff moved my dog bed and I thought maybe she didn't love me and want me anymore. I made a point of getting in the dog bed in Senior Staff's room for a while yesterday evening so that she knew, without a doubt, that I still wanted a bed in there, even if I'm sleeping in Staff's room. I think we all learned a lesson, namely, don't ever do that or anything like it again! Bixbys are sensitive souls and it is very important that every Bixby knows at every moment that he is loved and wanted. Being loved and wanted is the natural state of Bixbys and it is important to maintain the proper environment!

— Bixby the Sensitive Soul

June 11, 2022

The People Puppy can just munch away on something delicious-smelling called nori without having to do any tricks at all for Senior Staff while we have to hold a long "leave it" for Rice Chex? SO UNFAIR.

— Martyrs Nala and Bixby

This is especially wrong since the People Puppy is a little boy and I am ALSO a little boy and seems to me that ALL little boys ought to be sat at the table with sheets of nori or, if not that, at least I should get to be under the table while the PP plays with me with his feet, but nooooo, it's "Bixby, get out from under the table, [PP] needs to focus on eating his lunch." 🙄 If I was at the table, I wouldn't be under the table, did you ever think of that???

— Little Boy Bixby

June 12, 2022

Staff called me a "golden buffoon." THIS IS SLANDER!! 6.02214076 x 10^23 DEMERITS! I'm not a buffoon, I'm a Gentleman and a Scholar in addition to being a very handsome Good Boy. In other words, a Bixby. I AM golden, so I will issue 3.14159265859 merits for at least getting something right.

— The Name's Bond. Bixby Bond.

He's not even a golden buffoon, he's a tan one.

— Queen Nala the Unimpressed

June 15, 2022

Many demerits for Staff for cracking up every single time she looks at me. I got my board shorts and my muscle tank on, I'm ready to hit the beach. Or maybe the basketball court to shoot some hoops. I look super stylish (Bixbys are, of course, very stylish by nature) and I can't fathom what's amusing about that. Perhaps jealousy? Does jealousy give humans the giggles?

— Bixby, Athleisure Animal Extraordinaire

"Who's a handsome boy? I am!"

"Who's the best-dressed boy? I am!"

This is what happens when you lick your belly and your butt too much. It's working great! Though my father got to come home to the sight of the dog wearing his underwear. (And laughed and laughed about it.) In addition to preventing him from licking, I'm able to slather on ointment without worrying about Bixby licking it off! — Staff

June 19, 2022

No demerits here, just wanting to show off my breakdancing. I think I look pretty fly. Well, demerits to Staff for not hooking me up with my own breaking crew. Are any of you pibbles breakdancers? 'Cause if you are, watch out, humans, the battle is on! Pit bulls will naturally dominate the World BBoy Series because we are the bestest boys and girls in every way.

— B-Boy Bixby

June 23, 2022

Feeling betrayed because I was only trying to COACH the little squirrels who were on their first day out of the nest, I was yelling ENCOURAGEMENT and just wanted to make sure they were SAFE by wanting to be right under them as they crashed and slipped and ineptly leapt from branch to branch. But noooooo, Staff made me come inside and leave the "poor little squirrels" alone. How are they ever going to get trained up to be top-notch acrobats without proper training? Also, I think "Coach Bixby" has a nice ring to it, don't you?

— Coach Bix

June 27, 2022

Merits to Staff for turning up the heat! Demerits for also turning up the gravity.

— Boneless Bixby

July 1, 2022

Staff said, "It's not that Bixby's shallow, it's just that the water is extremely clear." I'm pretty that's a backpawed compliment. Forepaw compliments only, Staff!!

And the thing is, I think I DO get pretty deep. Like, here I am pondering what it means to be a good boy. If you're not living up to all seven definitions* of the adjective "good," can you truly say that you are a good boy? Humans often ask the question, "Who's a good boy?" but it seems like they already have an answer in mind, so should a dog even bother to quantify his own goodness? Can humans be trusted to make this judgment, since they always answer the question "Who's a good boy?" with "You're a good boy!" regardless of whether you are, in fact, by your estimation, maybe not being the goodest boy at the moment? Should a Gentleman and Scholar such as myself aspire to a higher ideal of goodness than the humans do? Also, what's the difference between a "good boy" and a "good boi"?

"What does it mean to be a 'good boy'?"

"And what's the difference between a 'good boy' and a 'good boi'?"

*The seven definitions of "good": 1) To be desired or approved of, 2) having the qualities required for a particular role, 3) possessing or displaying moral virtue, 4) giving pleasure; enjoyable or satisfying, 5) thorough, 6) valid, 7) used in conjunction with an exclamation to express extreme surprise or anger

July 3, 2022

Story time!!! So, there was a new friend cutting up the bushes in my yard this afternoon! YAY! Except I had to go outside on a leash because Senior Staff said, "We don't know if the pruner likes dogs," which is total pibble 💩 because I am a joyful battering ram of golden sunshine and who wouldn't want this giant head coming at them at high speed? BOO! Staff insisted that I had to be on my best leash behavior, too, and not try to pull her over in my attempt to say, "Hi! Hello! I am a Bixby! I love you!" to my new friend who was snippy-snipping the bushes. BOO to that, too! But, I had to 💩, so whatever, I found a place right by the fence and was maybe a little constipated and while I was struggling to pinch one off, the Havanese Next Door (not to be confused with my best frenemy, the Frenchie Next Door on the other side of the yard), came running up to the fence and was barking at me, JUST INCHES AWAY, while I was trying to poop! OMD!! When I FINALLY got that poop out, I went WILD! It was amazing! I almost pulled Staff over! I told that blustering HND what I thought of him and his ruff-ruff-ing! Ha! But eventually I let Staff pull me away because the HND is a total poser and not worth much of my time. Then I dragged her back to the house because the rule is, if I come running back inside when one of the neighbor dogs is barking at me, I get a treat jackpot! I got treats poured into my mouth! Huzzah!! So, I had a marvelous time in the end despite not getting to say hi to my new pruner friend because insulting the Havanese Next Door is always super-duper fun. Ha!

— Bucking Bronco Bixby

Suuuuuper bad timing by the Havanese Next Door! — Staff

July 6, 2022

Bixby: "Check out my booty in these shorts!"
Nala: "No."

How on earth is a dignified mature lady supposed to enjoy the simple pleasures of life while living with a Bixby? I find a nice spot of sun by the wall and what does he do? Stand over me and shake himself so I'm stuck inhaling Bixby dander in his shadow! I find another nice sunning spot by the front windows and there he is again, parking that blue-clad butt RIGHT IN MY FACE. He is so deluded that he thinks he's a fashion model. Well, I've got news for you, you idiot, you're wearing a pair of underpants backwards because you're so dumb that you'll lick your butt until it bleeds.

— Queen "Bixby Should Only Exist on My Terms" Nala

Bixby: "Hey, look, here's my booty!"

Nala: "NO."

I notice that you're happy enough to cuddle up to this hot bod come bedtime!

— Bixby the "I'm Too Sexy" Pibble

July 11, 2022

Staff said, "Oh, Bixby. You're so silly!" MAJOR demerits because this is not silly, there is some EXTREMELY serious work going on here. I'm practicing being a very handsome, well-dressed, upside-down kangaroo (Bixbys strive for versatility!), which requires great concentration, made much harder by the fact that I HAVEN'T HAD DINNER YET.

— Antipodean Bixby Who Looks Smashing In An Off-The-Shoulder Look

July 13, 2022

OMD OMD OMD OMD!!!!! Merits everywhere!! Merits flying like confetti!! Senior Staff LET ME LICK THE MIXING BOWL after she was done making my food for the week! I'm always very helpful when she prepares my special Bixby food, keeping close watch to make sure she uses the recipe formulated just for Bixbys and tidying up after any spills and taste-testing the scrambled eggs, but this was the first time (demerits for that!) that she let me clean the mixing bowl. For a staff member who is normally prejudiced about making use of the Pibble Pre-Rinse Cycle, this is a stunning concession. Yum yum yum yum yum! The bowl tried to run away from my vigorous Bixby tongue, but I put my paw down and quashed that nonsense. Huzzah!!

— Bixby the Gleeful Dishwashing Pibble

"So delicious!"

"Don't even think about running away, bowl!"

"Nala's not the only licker in this family!"

July 19, 2022

*sniffsniffsniffsniffsniff*

Staff was all like, "Oh no, Bixby, you sniffed the breeze so hard your ears came off!" Which is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, I was having a wonderful time sniffing the breeze outside in the sun, but no, Bixbys do not lose their ears from sniffing! I'd merely put them in storage behind my ginormous Bixby noggin to protect them from the heat coming off of my smoldering sun-lit eyes. It had nothing to do with sniffing at all! I'm not issuing any demerits this time because Staff can't help being so clueless (she's not a Bixby, after all) and Bixbys are generous and tolerant in addition to enjoying wind-sniffing and being very handsome. 

— Bixby "Magma Eye" Bond

Sniffing with smoldering eyes in focus.

Smoldering eye detail.

"See, my ears are still there, just stored behind my giant Bixby head to keep them safe from all that sun-blazed sexiness!"

July 25, 2022

Some of you complain about "snappy snaps," but Bixbys are dedicated to providing a steady stream of content for their adoring fans. Bixbys care deeply about the happiness of other people and what could possibly make someone happier than seeing a photo of a Bixby? But Staff has not been taking photos of me! She hasn't taken a photo of me since last Thursday! (And while there's no such thing as a bad photo of a Bixby, this one is not the...goodest.) She's taken 166 photos of non-Bixby things, including a weird bug and some wet rocks, but no Bixbys! I'm heaping 166,000 demerits on her for failing to properly document and disseminate my Bixbyness.

— The Disgruntled Mr. Bixby 

I admit, it's shameful to have gone so long without taking any dog photos. I solemnly swear that I will change the lens (good for weird bugs and wet rocks) on my camera to a more Bixby-friendly one. — Staff

July 27, 2022

While Staff may have apologized for not properly documenting my Bixbyness for several days due to having a non-Bixby lens on her camera, I'm still a bit stung by her accusation that I was only doing boring things like snoozing in my crate and therefore no one missed much. So rude! 😱 So let's take a vote: Am I right, that photos of me snoozing in my crate or staying cool by laying on the hardwood floor are exciting Bixby content OR is Staff right, that these are boring pictures of a dog doing nothing. Hint: She's wrong! Whatever a Bixby does is adorable and worthy of note AND I'm not doing nothing, I am busy being a Bixby. Being a Bixby is EVERYTHING.

— Sir Bix-a-Lot

"I love my crate and I look damn sexy in it!"

"Look at me, being so smart (though that goes without saying, I'm a Bixby) and keeping cool on the hardwood floor by the door to the garage!"

July 30, 2022

Here's a pibblicious Bixby boudoir photo for those who are (rightfully!) hankering for some Bixby eye candy. Three thousand demerits to Staff for being prudish and not allowing me to pose fully in the nude. Bixbys are ALWAYS tasteful, Staff.

— Bixby "Werk It" Bond

August 4, 2022

It is NOT MY FAULT that Bixbys have allergies and it is NOT MY FAULT that Bixbys are allergic to oats and it is NOT MY FAULT that Mr. Senior Staff forgot this and was giving me Cheerios and it is NOT MY FAULT that Bixbys leak greenish goop from their wieners when their allergies flare up and it is NOT MY FAULT that practicing good hygiene made my skin chapped and it is NOT MY FAULT that the only tool Bixbys have for soothing chapped skin is to lick it and it is NOT MY FAULT that licking it more made it need more licking and it is NOT MY FAULT that ointment is yummy so it is NOT MY FAULT that I have to wear trousers to make sure the yummy ointment stays on my belly and it is NOT MY FAULT that we had a week-long spell of weather that was too hot for trouser-wearing so it is NOT MY FAULT that I got a red belly. Extra demerits for Staff saying things like, "Oh, Bixby, not again," as if Bixbys are idiots who just lick their bellies for fun (that's what butts are for, duh!) while also saying things like, "Is it just me or does Bixby have a bunch of new hives? Well, it's summer, grass pollen must be bad right now," before she figured out that I was BEING FED ALLERGENS. NONE OF THIS IS MY FAULT.

— Canis lupus familaris bixcellentia var. rubrum venterii

August 7, 2022

Naturally, Bixbys elevate everything they do to an art form, but Two Beds is the medium in which Bixbys surpass all others. When Senior Staff photographed this particular masterwork and sent it to Staff, I thought it was just recognition of my unrivaled artistry. So I was wounded to my core when Staff said to Senior Staff, "That photo was hilarious!" and they both laughed. HILARIOUS?! SO MANY DEMERITS! ELEVENTY-BILLION! More like sublime, inspiring, and soul-stirring! How is a Bixby to flourish among such philistines? But I am undeterred: this heartbreaking disparagement shall serve as fuel for future works of artistic genius.

— Bixby, Le Artiste Exemplaire

August 9, 2022

STAFF FORGOT MY ADOPT-A-VERSARY!!!!! HOW COULD ANYONE FORGET THE DATE OF THE MOMENTOUS OCCASION OF BEING HIRED BY A BIXBY?!?!?! I signed on five years ago in order to teach Nala how to be a dog—can you believe that she didn't know how?! One of the first things I taught her was that dogs should help in the kitchen. I also persuaded her that it's NICE to hang out around people, not scary! And that doing tricks in exchange for treats is FUN, even if you don't know why people want you to do weird things! It only took me three weeks to get her doing "shake" and "down" and all the household humans were, like, "Bixby! You're amazing!" Which is true. Bixbys ARE amazing. For years, I worked as her mentor and bodyguard—Nala may be a Queen NOW, but she's only on the throne because I put her there. Seeing that the humans were unable to do for Nala what a Bixby managed to get rolling from Day One on the job, I think that August 8th should be A NATIONAL HOLIDAY. And I was still just a baby doggy when I did all this! It is not surprising, since Bixbys are extraordinary by nature and succeed at anything they attempt, but this excellence DESERVES TIMELY RECOGNITION, STAFF. My belated adopt-a-versary gift better be a good one!

— Bixby the Uncelebrated

"Hi. I am a Bixby. Bixbys are amazing!
Now pet my giant head."

I thought it was the 10th, not the 8th! I'm very sorry! His belated gift IS going to be a good one, I promise! And Bixby is amazing. When seeing how much safer Nala felt in the company of a pair of collies I dog-sat, I went looking for a big, male, people-loving, dog-loving, happy-go-lucky dude with minimal issues to be Nala's mentor. We got all of that in Bixby. (I'd also wanted a dog that was at least four years old, but the shelter staff's age estimate was off by quite a bit so I ended up with a dog who was two at the very most and still had some naughty puppy behaviors to unlearn.) From the very first day he joined our family, Nala started getting braver, more social, less skittish, and better able to try new things. Every single day she achieved a new milestone. For years! So Bixby is right: he's the one who put Queen Nala on the throne. He has gone above and beyond what we ever hoped for as Nala's mentor and he is, of course, so wonderfully handsome and funny and sensitive and smart and cuddly (and itchy), too. In other words, a Bixby. 💖 

"Look at me being a good boy in my new home! You can see how worried Nala was just to be sitting for a photo—she most definitely needed a Bixby to show her the ropes!"

Also, I'd like to give a shout-out to the family that absolutely adored Bixby when he was a pup. I don't know what tragic change in circumstances led to Bixby being separated from the people who clearly loved him so much, but before they were parted they instilled in him the belief that being a Bixby is the best thing in the world. I am sure they miss him still. I wish they knew that he lives in WA now and is an amazing canine mentor and an obedience whiz and that he looks great in sweatshirts (and underpants) and that he is loved so very much. — Staff

August 15, 2022

"Whee!
I'm a Bixby! Bixbys are made for agility!"

STAFF IS FORGIVEN FOR FORGETTING MY ADOPT-A-VERSARY!!! My belated present has arrived and there are MERITS EVERYWHERE!! See, a couple weeks ago, Staff and I started doing this SUPER fun thing called "Agility" where Staff and I run around and get to do all kinds of awesome things like jumping and climbing and spelunking and I get tons of treats and it is SO. MUCH. FUN. Staff will only take me once a week, though, so I had to invent my own agility obstacles at home, like jumping my feeding stand. But for my adopt-a-versary, Staff got me REAL AGILITY EQUIPMENT. Now I have a tunnel and a hurdle and weave poles and a tire jump AT HOME. Huzzah!

— Boing Boing Bixby

I'm been waiting years for all the stars to properly align so I could get Bixby into agility and this summer it finally happened! I KNEW he'd make a great agility dog and so far he's done fantastic. We're having so much fun and having obstacles to work on at home will accelerate his progress even more. I've known for years that he was a gorgeous jumper—the epitome of canine grace and power—but now I've learned that he also has THE cutest jumping face! — Staff

"OMD!!"

"This smells like FUN! Open it open it open it!"

"Yes, definitely fun! But what do you mean, 'Bixby, you're not helping. Bixby, you need to go in your crate so we can put this together.' I was only wanting to pibble-nibble everything and play tug with the pieces and tackle Nala because I was so excited!"

"Now I have my own tunnel...

...just like at Agility Class!"

"And now I have...

...my own hurdle...

...just like at Agility Class! YAY!!!"

August 25, 2022

It is I, the sun god, Bixby Apollo. Let turkeys and stuffies be sacrificed in my name, my altars piled high with cheeses. Dedicate odes to my handsomeness, give over to me the greatest share of space on the people bed, dress me in the finest underpants, and hold Agility Games in my name. Honor me in all things and I prophesy many merits, healthy flocks, smooth sailing, and eternal youthful good looks. Should you fail to honor me and refuse to sacrifice pillows to my appropriately-excited nibbling, pile only Rice Chex for treats upon my altars, sing not my praises and instead only offer voice to blasphemies such as "Bixby Apollo, stop licking your paws," object when I dig one of my divine elbows into your solar plexus while snuggling, dress me in stretched-out hand-me-down Hanes, and hold Agility Games a mere once per week, I prophesy MANY DEMERITS, powdery mildew on your squashes, endless construction gridlock, and premature gray hairs. Thus your sun god, Bixby Apollo, has spoken.

(I, Bixby Apollo, would also like to pass on the broad hint that tons of those demerits could be cancelled out should my divine form be allowed to dash back and forth along the fence in my swift chariot while freely loosing the arrows of insults at my chthonic enemy, the Frenchie Next Door.)

Sooo, I guess we're gonna have bad powdery mildew this fall and lingering construction traffic. — Staff

August 31, 2022

I'm not sure why the OTHER little boy gets to wear blue trunks with orange sharks on them and play in the kiddie pool out on the deck and I do not. 4,000 demerits! I wouldn't actually WANT to play in the kiddie pool—Bixbys find it rather mystifying that there would be any appeal in frolicking in an oddly-oversized outdoor water bowl—but I would like to have the OPTION of playing in the kiddie pool. (And by "playing in the kiddie pool" I mean "being on the alert for the Frenchie Next Door," ha ha!) And I think we can ALL agree that Bixbys would look VERY fine in blue trunks with orange sharks on them. Staff needs to get some fine bathing attire (Bixbys are EXCELLENT sun-bathers, the trunks would be put to very good use) for this sexy beach bod ASAP!

— Stuck-Inside Bixby

Sorry, Bix, a four-year-old enjoying a kiddie pool is quite enough activity happening on the deck without you adding to the commotion if the FND appears! You have a point about the blue trunks with orange sharks on them, though. — Staff

September 5, 2022

"What's your complaint, Staff?"

"Where am I supposed to go?" is a very silly question. Obviously, we left lots of room between us. And as you can see, the complaint was totally unfounded and Staff fit just fine. Why are humans so fussy about having so much space?

— Bixby and Nala

"We left you plenty of room right between Nala's tail and Bixby's elbow."

Bixbys love to be squished and sat on! I came up early to snag the best spot for Staff to smash me!

— Mr. Bixby

"See? You fit just fine!"

I wasn't about to let HIM get more snuggles than me. I wedged myself in there so Staff would have no choice but to be making contact with me, too.

— Queen Nala

September 18, 2022

Suave Bixby.

I am so very sorry that you all have had to suffer through TWO WHOLE WEEKS without any premium Bixby content! Staff had the gall to say, "Well, you haven't been doing a whole lot lately." That earned Staff 14,000 demerits (100 demerits per day without shared Bixby content) because I've been doing lots of important Bixby things! For one, I decided that I'd been Bixby Apollo for long enough and it was time to shift back into my Bixby Bond persona. Both, of course, are very excellent, but where Bixby Apollo is resplendently nude aside from a handsome collar, Bixby Bond wears a debonair blue suit. Thankfully, my allergies flared just in time for me to lick myself sufficiently for Staff to get out my fine threads, but THEN, if you can believe it (and another 14,000 demerits for THAT), Staff was all like, "Ugh, it's a pain to have to pin you into your shorts, let's just put the donut collar on." Well, Bixby Bond does NOT wear a donut collar. Can you imagine 007 attired thusly? But Bixbys are ingenious AND flexible, so I figured out how to lick my butt even while wearing the donut collar! Ha! So now I get to wear my snazzy underpants, though 500 demerits to Staff for putting chilly ointment on my butt for several days. ALSO, I've put in a lot of work on my novel, though I was SHOCKED to learn that the title "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" is already taken and—brace yourself—WAS NOT WRITTEN BY A PIT BULL. So 140,000 demerits to some human named Dave Eggers for stealing it! BUT!! After two weeks of mostly sartorial and cerebral adventures, Staff took me back to agility! Huzzah! I love agility! 14,000,000 merits for agility! So Staff is back in my good graces. For now.

— Bixby: The Most Interesting Dog In The World Even If He's Just Lazing Around Snoozing All Day

Intellectual Bixby.

Agility Bixby!

I think Daniel Craig might be able to pull off wearing nothing but the inflatable blue donut collar and still look suave... But the rest of the Bonds, save perhaps Connery? 😬 — Staff  

September 24, 2022

As everyone knows, Bixbys are very brave dogs and only afraid of clearly frightening things like wind or having their beds relocated. However, a NEW very scary thing manifested in the house yesterday: The EAR-SPLITTING CHIRP THAT COMES BY NIGHT. ELEVENTY-BILLION DEMERITS!!! And it wasn't just me that was startled, the humans were upset too and had to get up and then they weren't scared anymore, just grumpy, which was stupid, because how could they know that the terrifying entity that creates the EAR-SPLITTING CHIRP THAT COMES BY NIGHT wasn't going to attack and devour us all in our beds?! Because Bixbys are very safety conscious, it was important that Staff kept the light on for a couple of hours afterward and put on some soothing music to create an environment inimical to an EPSCTCBN and Staff was churlishly ungrateful for my efforts. Eleventy-thousand demerits! And if maybe I DID need a little Pepto-Bismol, it's only to be expected that an ESCTCBN would give a sensitive soul such as myself an upset tummy. Pepto-Bismol gets eleventy-hundred merits for taking the queasies away. Today I am very sleepy after having to stay awake so long to make sure everyone was safe from the EAR-SPLITTING CHIRP THAT COMES BY NIGHT and am doing my best to recover from my vigil.

— Brave-ish Boy Bixby

Oops, forgot to proactively change the battery in the smoke alarm, so of course it was 2:00 a.m. when it ran low and alerted everyone to the situation. Bixby was very upset! Nala, who is getting increasingly hard of hearing, slept right through it. Pepto-Bismol gets eleventy-million merits from me—essential when you've got a sensitive boy like Bixby whose stress manifests in nausea and stomach pain! — Staff

October 1, 2022

"Dog walk → red hoop → orange hoop → blue hoop → purple tunnel? 

I don't think so!
Dog walk → maybe red hoop → maybe orange hoop → NOT blue hoop → fast sprint → hi to Trainer Staff → play bow to Trainer Dog → sniff Trainer Chicken
is a MUCH better sequence!"

WHEEEE! I had a MARVELOUS time at Agility! A billion merits for Agility! A thousand demerits to Staff for being a total buzzkill and saying things like, "Bixby, come! BIXBY. COME. Bixbyyyyyyyyy, come here! BIXBY!" while I was busy saying hi to all my fans and enjoying some extracurricular turns on my favorite equipment. But was Staff happy that I was putting in extra work? Did I get an A+? No! She was all like, "Bixby, hoop! Bixby! Come back here! Hoop, Bixby," instead of giving me treats for doing such a nice job on the A-frame and being so speedy in the tunnels. What's the point of a stupid hoop, anyway? Borrrrrring! Demerits to hoops! This Bixby is totally boycotting them. And when I figured out that we could save so much time by bypassing all those goofy poles that make Staff say, "Weave, weave, weave," like some sort of stupid bird by simply going around to the end, was she happy? No! She and Trainer Staff, whom I LOVE LOVE LOVE, tried to make me do it again and again. Pfft to that! Also, rare demerits (just ten, because I LOVE LOVE LOVE her) to Trainer Staff for saying things like, "Bixby, you gotta go back to mom," and "Bixby, get out of there," and "Bixby, that chicken is not for you," except it WAS because Staff ran out of treats and Trainer Staff gave Staff chicken to try to make me do weave poles and I was super smart and was naughty so I'd have to get chicken again and again! Also, for some reason, NO ONE was happy when I busted out of my cubicle to say hi to Lorelei the German Shepherd. Including Lorelei, who said, "I don't like you," which is dumb, because everyone likes a Bixby! Many many many millions of merits to meeeeeee!

— The Gleeful Mr. Bixby

"No to teeters and weave poles! Yes to saying hi to Lorelei and Trainer Dog and Trainer Staff!"

Welp, that was humbling. Bixby has been such an agility rock star...until this week. I ran out of treats because I had to call him back so many times and used so many to try to keep him focused on each obstacle. He was having none of it! He was in Social Butterfly Bixby mode and wanted to say hi to all the people and all the dogs instead of going through hoops. The trainer (who gets a huge kick out of him) said she always prefers a dog that is excited to be at agility over a dog that's unsure or bored and of course all dogs have off days (including several of the other dogs in the class that day), but Bixby and I will be doing extra focus work this week before our next class! — Staff

October 14, 2022

"Look at me, a beautiful buttery baby Bixbean having a nap."

It's not so much that I mind getting my lovely talons trimmed—Bixbys are very stoic about such things—it's that Staff insisted on interrupting me when while I was doing a Bixbean, getting some CRUCIAL rest before this evening's agility class. I was SO over it. Like, I'm having a snoozle, lady! NOW is the only time you can find to take off my tap shoes?!?! Ugh. And then she was slow with the snacks after. It all got me kinda down, to be honest, which not the proper state for a Bixby! A whole Bixby butterbean sesh blown. Sigh... I had to do a bunch of sunning afterward to recharge. The breakdown: 180 demerits for cutting my nails, 360 demerits for filing them afterward which means touching my toes TWICE, 1,800 demerits for slow repayment after the nails were cut, and 18,000,000 demerits for waking me up when I was doing a Bixbean to do all this! 

— Bixby the "It's Called Nap-Time Not Nail-Trim Time, Staff" Pibble

Guilty as charged. It sure made it easy to do his nails, though... — Staff

"Wait, you want me to stop napping so you can do WHAT?!"

"Ugh, I'm so over it."

"Just finish, please."

"Here's my 'I can't even' chin-smoosh."

"And you didn't even have my reward ready?!!!"

"You are definitely getting a written warning for this behavior, Staff. But I have to recharge my perilously depleted batteries first!"

October 19, 2022

ZOOOOOOOOOMIES!!!

You can't tell me what to do, Staff. The right way to do an agility course is the BIXBY way to do an agility course! And that means going from zero to Bixby in .25 seconds! All that open space is for zoomies! The teeter is a jungle gym! And silly Staff kept skipping the important "play bow to trainer's dog" step between the second tunnel and the hurdle. Fortunately, because I am a very smart Bixby, I made sure we did the course the RIGHT way. Wheee! Demerits to Staff (1,013) and Trainer Staff (just 11 because I love her!) for saying, MULTIPLE TIMES, "No cheating, Bixby." Bixbys do NOT cheat because Bixbys make the rules! One million merits to all the other staffs for laughing and cheering because that is the proper response when watching a Bixby in action!

— Bestest Bouncy Bounding Bixby

"I know you said, 'Tunnel,' but that's ridiculous because the next step on this course is 'Play-bow to trainer's dog!'"

"Ha ha, I'm going to jump NEXT to the hurdle, not OVER the hurdle!"

"Boing! Off the side of the teeter! I'm going to have so much fun inventing new ways to enjoy the teeter that Trainer Staff is going to have to come out and give me treats. Score!"

"Whee! I'm gonna hop up on the teeter in the middle! Trainer Staff said, 'No cheating, Bixby.' Pfft. Whatever Bixby does is the right way to do it!"

"Yes, technically we've moved on from the teeter. But I don't want to do the dog walk yet, I want to have some more zoomies and launch myself off the teeter again!"

"YAY, I AM A GOOD BOI!!!"

Bixby had a lot of joyful energy to expend on his first run. We all laughed. (I should get merits for that, I laughed, too!) How can you not laugh when he's having such a wonderful time? He was much more focused on his later runs and had his best weave poles performance ever on the third, but it's the goofy, exuberant, "I do the teeter MY way" run that stuck with everyone! — Staff

October 29, 2022

"Yay, Staff, this is so fun!"

"Look at this goofy, happy, innocent Bixby, little knowing that his dreams were to be crushed so cruelly!"

I, Bixby, am brokenhearted and have one hundred and eleventy thousand million demerits to issue. Agility Day rolled around and this Bixby was not taken to Agility! It says it is Agility Day right in the name! (Staff said the "real" name of the weekday is "Thursday," but that is ridiculous, I am a Bixby and I say it is Agility Day, so there.) I'd been a good boy according to human standards the week before, too, with enough zoomies to make the humans laugh but not enough to make them sigh and frown and minimal "cheating" (other than doing the A-frame many times instead of the tunnel, but that's not cheating, that is just going with the proper flow of the universe, which flows up OVER the A-frame and not into a tunnel when a tunnel and A-frame are arranged beside another, that's just science), so I assumed I was in Staff's good graces and we'd do agility together forever and ever. Look at this poor innocent Bixby smiling when Mr. Senior Staff took a photo of us at the end of class! He had no idea that, when there was no agility on Agility Day, Staff would say, "Sorry, Bixby, but there won't be any agility for a few months. Hopefully, we'll be able to start again in March. We WILL do more agility, I promise." WHAT?!?! That's, like, FOUR YEARS in dog years!! She had all kinds of excuses, but there is simply no excuse for not taking a Bixby to his rightful agility on Agility Day!!! Demerits, demerits, demerits!!!

— Bixby the Betrayed

I am so sorry to put agility on hold for a few months, but I've got some health stuff that needs seeing to first. We will go back, I swear! — Staff

November 7, 2022

"This smelly crackle-pop heat source is better than nothing, but does it have to crackle-pop and smell so much?"

Friends, something terrible happened to this Bixby yesterday. The humans left the heat and lights off for NINE HOURS. And even though Senior Staff and Mr. Senior Staff put on hats and coats and gloves, they did not think to bundle up their Bixby! SO MANY SHIVERING DEMERITS!!! I was forced to try to keep warm by fluffing up my fur, but my fur, while a lovely toasty color and very good at making me look sexy, is not as good for keeping me warm. Many merits in this case to Staff for immediately seeing my plight when she got up, putting me in my hoodie and tucking me in with a blankie, and then telling the Senior Staffs to put logs in the wall and turn them into a smelly crackle-pop heat machine. Why they didn't just turn on the heat I do not know, but it came back on by itself in the afternoon and then I was finally able to warm up and relax. 380,183,658 demerits to my staff for not heating the house and keeping their Bixby adequately warm, 49,560,395,736 demerits to Senior Staffs for not bundling up their poor cold Bixby, 193,836,590 merits to Staff for seeing my plight and trying to make me cozy, and 1,000,000,000 merits to the heater for coming back on!

— Freezy Beezy

"THIS is the way a poor chilled Bixby should be treated!"

It's not fun when the power goes out this time of year! I had to give my folks a bit of a talking-to: if it's cold, make sure to put a sweatshirt on Bixby! With his thin coat, he has to wear a hoodie in the winter, otherwise he'll actually lose weight because he's burning so many calories to try to stay warm. Poor buddy! — Staff

November 25, 2020

You have been denied Premium Bixby Content™ for far too long for THE weirdest reason: Staff got SPAYED. Like, what?! Isn't spaying for mama dogs like Nala? But it turns out, humans can be spayed, too! I was originally fine with it because, you know, you do you, Staff, but then it turned out there is a No Bixbys Near Freshly Spayed Staff Members rule! I was appalled because everyone knows that heavy Bixby heads possess magical healing powers, Staff has said so herself in the past, so it's not like I'm making this up, but now Staff was all, like, "No, Bixby, you can't be on the bed with me." And she blocked me with a little table across her tummy! Nala told me that even SHE was relegated to the end of the bed. Originally, I was going to get to sleep with Senior Staff and Mr. Senior Staff while Staff was recovering, but for some reason, they didn't like it when I stood first on S.S., then Mr. S.S., then back on S.S., etc., during the night, so they made me sleep in my crate for a WHOLE WEEK. And Senior Staff and Mr. Senior Staff did all of the Bixby chores, which was weird, and they didn't adhere to the proper Bixby Care schedule. It was so confusing! Fortunately, Bixbys are VERY good at handling both minor and major changes to their routine. Every once in a while Staff would sort of shuffle downstairs and say, "I miss you, Bixby," and pat my big head, which was nice, I guess, but hardly up to snuff, and then go back to bed again. But then! On Wednesday, Staff moved my "Don't Lick Your Butt on the People Bed While Staff is Brushing Her Teeth" neck pillow back into her bedroom and I knew that I got to sleep in her room again! Yay! I give Staff a fair amount of grief, but things are very much better for this Bixby when Staff oversees my care.

— Bixby the "Can I Step on Your Tummy Yet?" Pibble

Bixby did much better during his exile than I expected. Despite what he says, he is NOT very good at handling changes to his routine and in the past when he hasn't been allowed to sleep in my room when I'm having some kind of health issue, it's hurt his feelings very badly. I hadn't actually planned on inviting him back for another week, but when he made it clear that he believed moving his "Don't Lick Your Butt" donut was the signal that he was allowed back in (really, my mom was just tidying up), I didn't have the heart to tell him to scram. I've no doubt that would have crushed him and when he feels rejected, he gets terrible stomachaches and has to be in someone's lap for a day or more. It seemed better to just pile pillows on top of my abdomen and let him sleep with me. I'd missed him, but bony Bixbys with dinosaur talons who believe cuddling is a full-contact sport and tender surgery sites do not mix! This total hysterectomy should be the last treatment of my two year breast cancer journey—hopefully there won't be any reasons to bar Bixby from my bed for a long long time! — Staff

December 8, 2022

Eleventy-billion demerits to Staff for saying, "With jaws that big, you ought to be better at catching treats." Bixbys believe that actually catching a treat is secondary to the awe-inspiring performance of catching a treat. Behold the breathtaking magnificence of a Bixby's leaping lunges, the glorious synergy of all of a Bixby's whiskers pointed at the flung object, the incomparable grandeur of a Bixby's gaping maw, and the percussive music of a Bixby's weight coming down on eight bracing talons. Ears flap, jaws snap. Worlds tremble. Critics weep. So, no, maybe this Bixby doesn't catch very many of the Rice Chex that Staff tosses, but, oh, such a sight! Such a wonder! Another virtuoso effort! Five stars for Bixby! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Zero stars for Staff! Oh, and zero stars for Nala for tidily catching her treats in her practically toothless old lady mouth with hardly any style at all. And those little old lady hops she does when she catches them? I taught her that. So you owe me merits, Staff, every time you think Nala looks cute!

— Bixby "An Epic Display of Athleticism Outweighs a 10% Catch Rate" Apollo

Seriously, if Bixby wasn't always trying to do something fancy when I toss him treats, he'd catch so many more! He's great at catching treats I toss him when he's laying down. But no, if he's standing, he's got to do some poorly-timed jump every time. Nala, meanwhile, pretty much never misses. And she DID start adding a little hop after observing Bixby jumping after treats, but SHE'S figured out the timing! It's a tiny old lady hop, like an inch and a half of air under the front paws, and it cracks me up. — Staff

December 14, 2022

Several of you requested video evidence of my performance art when Staff throws treats and MANY MANY DEMERITS for it taking her so long to "get a good video" when what she really meant was she was getting videos of ME catching treats and NALA missing them! But she got some video that she's happy with and I am happy because you get to see me, a Bixby, in action! I think you'll agree that my style is superior to Nala's accuracy. Merits to Staff's friend for saying, upon seeing the videos, "Bix is just an open mouth and a dream." That's a compliment, right? So merits to meeeeeee!

— Bixby the Eye-Catching If Not Treat-Catching Pibble

P.S. Staff's friend pointed out that I "can’t see the treat around [my] ginormous whale filter feeder mouth," so I'm totally vindicated, though am not sure I like "whale filter mouth" as much as "capacious magnificent maw."

December 21, 2022

Dear Santa,

As you know, Bixbys are Very Good Boys by nature so there's no chance I'm on the Naughty List, but I'd like to point out that it is also the nature of Bixbys to pibble-nibble when they get excited and there's no such thing as pibble-nibbling too roughly, no matter what Staff says, and those times that she jumped and yelped was all in good fun!

With that out of the way, I would very much like all of the Agilities for Christmas. Yes, ALL of them. However, if that is too much to ask, I will settle for MOST of the Agilities. To that end, it would help if you made my staff broken less often. It gets in the way of me having the Agilities and because Bixbys are generous and givers by nature, I'd like to point out it would be nice for her to be broken less often, too. I have a giant magical healing head, it's true, but one pibble, even if that pibble is a Bixby, can only do so much, so that would be very nice if you helped out. I realize it's a pretty big ask, though, so if it's not something you can deliver, I'd love to have lots of trips to the vet because I love the vet! Staff says to pittie please NOT ask for lots of trips to the vet, but how am I supposed to jam my tongue up one of his nostrils on a regular basis as is my duty as a Bixby if I don't get to see him all the time?! Staff says Santa is actually more about the giving of THINGS instead of SERVICES, so if this is true, I'd very much like some turkey. Lots of turkey. And unlimited octopus stuffies. But most of all, I'd like the gift of stylish underpants. Bixbys are handsome and sexy and nothing shows off a Bixby's gorgeousness like a fine, fine pair of underpants.

Love, 

Very Good Boy Bixby 

January 11, 2023

"I'm so hungry. I promise my tummy is better!"

Friends, I think it's time we called a meeting of the Pittie Committee to talk about tummies. Because Bixbys are uniformly excellent, it can therefore not be my fault that my tummy has what my Staff tells me is called Inflammatory Bowel Disease. I've noticed that many of you ALSO have tummy troubles, so I think we should meet up and make a demand as a group that our staffs make tummy problems go away. Things have improved a great deal around here ever since Senior Staff started making my food from scratch and Staff stopped having cancer and making me worried, which goes to show that it was a staff issue, not a Bixby issue. I still get oogies from time to time, but usually Staff will give me half of a Pepto-Bismol or a drug called "Placebo" in a mini marshmallow and then everything is all better! But the other night my tummy was SUPER unhappy and I was so queasy I couldn't even take the anti-oogies pill the vet gave me and I barfed up all my dinner and then Staff grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, STABBED ME, and squeezed this super-chilly funny-smelling liquid UNDER MY SKIN and then I didn't need to barf anymore, but I still felt icky and my tummy hurt and I had the squirts the next day. I will give Staff some merits for sitting next to my dog bed all day yesterday to keep me company. But today I feel better and have tried to tell Staff that she can feed me ALL THE RICE even though I'm still carrying my tail pretty tight and have my fur fluffed—that's just a coincidence, I'm sure, and there is no need to "go slow." Demerits for not feeding Bixby all the rice! Anyway, maybe tomorrow after I'm back on my real (delicious, allergen-free, homemade) food we could convene the Pittie Committee? I'd rather not have another "flare-up" and I'm sure none of the rest of you do, either, so there's no point in putting it off. I have high hopes that if we present our "Happy Tummies All The Time" proposal, the humans will realize that making the oogies go away forever is surely less labor intensive than cleaning the carpet at 3:00 a.m.! It's amazing that it hasn't occurred to them already, but humans are like that. We can do this! And send snacks. 

— Bixby the Hungry Pibble with the Temperamental Tummy 

"Hint, hint, you could feed me

more rice from the pot on the

stove! I'm sitting so nice!"

Pepto-Bismol is a day-to-day lifesaver for us, but at this point, the vet also keeps me stocked with an arsenal of Reglan for nausea, refrigerated pre-filled syringes of Cerenia for REALLY bad nausea, gabapentin for pain, Flagyl for diarrhea... The faster I can act, the less he suffers. Sometimes the pain is so bad he can't even move, though thankfully this wasn't one of those times. I think the trigger might have been the multiple nights with wind in a row, not to mention those scary NYE fireworks. He'd been a bit off for the past week. Now that he's on the homemade diet, most of his triggers are emotional. Sometimes he gets a tummy ache because he's WORRIED about getting a tummy ache, which is why I can often quell low-level episodes of nausea by PRETENDING to give him Pepto-Bismol. Poor sensitive Bixby! — Staff

January 18, 2023

Staff complained that the camera was "making" my head appear "larger than it actually is." Blasphemy! Demerits! Bixbys are renowned for having huge and magnificent heads and there is no such thing as a Bixby's head appearing too large! Merits to Staff for being happy that I had a pre-light's-out snooze with my PERFECTLY depicted enormous head on her chest. And then I slept the entire night with my head on Staff's pillow right next to her head and it was lovely, so no complaints there and I think the snuggle merits ultimately cancel out the blasphemy demerits. But I do think it needs to be restated so everyone is clear that as long as a Bixby's right to have a head that is and APPEARS to be as large as a Bixby wants is respected, we can all be happy.

— Big-Headed Baby Bixby 

PERFECTLY SIZED.

Still appropriately large from this angle.

I do love it when he naps with his head on my chest. (Especially if he doesn't have any elbows digging into me.) And it was very sweet to share the pillow with him all night. (Especially since it was more comfortable than having his head on my shoulder, cutting off circulation to my arm, or his chin on my chin, which doesn't work for a number of reasons.) And his head is magnificently large. Just not quite THAT large. — Staff

January 20, 2023

I have a sad story for you, my friends. As you can see, I have this very excellent octopus. It's got a squeaky body and crinkly legs and it fills my mouth very nicely. Staff gets 500 demerits for not letting me have my octopus with me at all times because some nonsense about "stashing toys" and "resource guarding." Of course I'm going to growl at Nala if she comes near my excellent octopus! It is the right of Bixbys to be the sole possessors of any household cephalopod! But that is not the real issue here. The other evening, I got my octopus out of the cupboard for my post-dinner game where Staff makes the octopus swoop around through the air so I get to jump after it, hides it and then makes it pop out behind her so I get to pounce on it, tosses it so I get to fetch it, and if I get the legs in my mouth just right, we get to play tug with it. Sounds fun, right? It was! UNTIL STAFF SPUN THE OCTOPUS REALLY FAST BY THE TENTACLES AND HIT ME IN THE FACE WITH IT. Eight million billion demerits! It STUNG. Those pelting, whirling legs smacked me in the eyes and the nose and whapped against my magnificent Bixby head. Bixbys are very stoic—the vet is always impressed by how I don't flinch or cry even when he does stuff that is pokey—but even Bixbys have a limit and getting stung in the face by an octopus is OVER THE LINE. Also, my heart was crushed because it was my beloved octopus, the one I thought was my dearest friend, that wounded me. And Staff... Staff hurt me. Oh, it was a sad day. And then when she next invited me to play with the octopus, I found that I didn't trust either one. I flinched and cringed and shut my eyes when she made the octopus swoop and dance and fly. I couldn't help it. My tender Bixby face might get stung by the tentacles again! So we were all very sad, me and the octopus and Staff, too. The next evening, Staff let me carry my octopus around so we could bond and even let me take it outside, where I set if very carefully on the deck to wait for me while I did my business. Then she sat on the floor with me and made my octopus do a little bit of dancing and hiding, but always touching the ground so there were no airborne tentacles threatening to whip this Bixby in the face. Staff does get a few merits for being sensitive about my trauma, but she is the reason I was traumatized in the first place. Eventually, I did get into it. But I am still recovering from this terrible betrayal and while those whirling tentacles may not have left visible marks on my face, they tore deeply into my soul.

— The Tragically Attacked Mr. Bixby

I felt SO bad. He cringed every time I moved the octopus when I tried to do the usual game with him. My poor, poor buddy. The photo is of him carrying around the octopus yesterday before we played gently together on the floor. Doesn't he look pathetic? I hope the octopus and I are able to repair the trust that was so badly damaged by my actions. 💔 — Staff

February 2, 2023

I'm too sexy for my (sweat)shirt.

"Hey, girl."

It's a truth universally acknowledge that Bixby are very sexy and nigh-on godlike, so I don't know why Staff is complaining about having to squeeze green goop out of my 🍆 so that it "doesn't drip on the floor." I'm neutered, so I'm not SURE (I'll have to ask Nala, she's had LOTS of sex), but *cues up Joan Jett & The Blackhearts "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)"* don't people usually want to lay hands on the 🍆 of sexy, godlike dudes? But that doesn't actually matter—she's STAFF, and pibble maintenance is staff's job. Because Bixbys are very conscientous, I'd be happy to take care of my own hygiene, but then she's all, like, "Bixby, stop licking yourself!" MAKE UP YOUR MIND, LADY! And it's Staff's fault that I'm HAVING a goopy dripping issue (and rashy breakouts) in the first place, since she's the one who gave me a Kong with Greek yogurt in it (eleventy million merits! so yummy!) to make up for having to give me my lunch in installments (eleventy thousand demerits!) because she forgot to defrost my food beforehand. So maybe neither of us were expecting the allergy flare, but since Bixbys are perfect, it's obviously a staff problem. Staff ALSO grumbles about having to pick pine needles out of Nala's 🍑, but that's very much a NALA problem—if Nala didn't have such a low squat, she wouldn't be getting yard debris in her hot pocket. Lift the bits, old lady! 

— Bixby "Hey Girl" Apollo

The things you do for love... But not that kind of love! — Staff

February 13, 2023

Bixbys are VERY sensitive creatures and it is VERY rude of the outdoors to make booms and dump sky gravel all over the roof and yard, so I had to comfort Staff by insisting she get down in the dog bed with me where she'd be more comfortable. I did some deep pressure therapy for her by getting in her lap and recommended she put on some Beethoven to help her relax even more. Bixbys are very giving in this way and wouldn't want Staff to feel concerned about that spooky-sounding sky gravel. She says it's called hail. I say it's called scary. So yes, we are chilling on the dog bed, listening to some tunes, and Staff is feeling much safer. That's why everyone should have a Bixby!

— Bixby the "I Need to be in Your Lap for YOUR Sake" Pibble

February 23, 2023

It's a Quiet Time party!

Sigh... I got "invited" by the People Puppy to his Quiet Time party, and by "invited" I mean "invaded." I was having my post-lunch snooze when here he comes with an avalanche of blankets and books and accoutrements and he was VERY wiggly and then Staff sat on the floor and read to us, which wasn't so bad, but I'm really going to miss the People Puppy taking a nap and allowing an older lady some peace and REAL quiet after lunch! Sigh...

— Nala

"Sigh..."

Sigh... I DIDN'T get invited by the People Puppy to his Quiet Time party, so I invited myself and by "invited" I mean "invaded." I ran up to the PP and stuck my nose right in his ear to show him how excited I was that we were all going to be crashing in the dog beds together with an avalanche of blankets and books and accoutrements! I was hoping for some wiggles and maybe even some nibbles, but the People Puppy NIXED my participation and I got put in my crate. Staff sat next to me while she read to the PP so I could hear the story, too, but I curled up in a ball and wouldn't even look at anyone. Nala was SO lucky she got to be part of the action. After the People Puppy's Quiet Time was over, I made sure I got to enjoy the blankets, at least. Sigh...

— Bixby

"Sigh..."

My nephew has outgrown having a nap and now we're doing Quiet Time after lunch. He came up with the idea of spending Quiet Time in the dog beds. — Staff

March 17, 2023

Friends, I am SO sorry that Staff has been denying you the sight of my beautimous visage and the delight of my pithy observations! She said that I haven't had anything to complain about. I think we can all agree that she deserves MANY demerits for that—do you think 314,159,265,359 would be sufficient? I didn't get any pie for Pi Day—see, that's a legitimate complaint! Also, while Nala is now sometimes playing with me when I pounce with all my weight right where she has arthritis in her back, she mostly tells me to heck off. Staff says I derserve it and she might play with me more often if I were to approach more gently, but Bixbys should not have to be gentle or told to heck off, not even by elderly pibble queens! Also, one day Nala got her lick mat but I did not get my Kong, which is an unfairness of soul-wounding magnitude! AND, I chewed my old Kong apart and while I DID have my Kong bone, I didn't get a new classic Kong until today! Furthermore, Staff does not want me to rip up her pillows. Rude! One thing that IS going right with my life is that, after weeks of therapy, my octopus and I are besties again! I no longer fear that the octopus will sting me in the eyes and Staff and the octopus and I have developed THE best game ever with so much swooping and pouncing and we play it every evening! Anyway, it's sunny today, so I'd better do some serious basking in order to tolerate Nala's crabbiness about being tackled by 70 pounds of high-speed Bixby and Staff's crabbiness about my attempts to liberate her pillows from their suffocating cases and to get all charged up for tonight's game with my eight-armed BFF!

— Bixby "I'd Talk More But It's Time For My Three-Hour Afternoon Nap" Bond

March 21, 2023

I'd scheduled a photoshoot with Staff after my bath but while I was still naked because, when I'm nude, I can't help but assume my "Apollo" form, making me THE sexiest pit bull sun god to have ever graced the universe. So there I was, in all my golden glory, and here comes NALA, who is a grizzled old frump, but Staff lets her join in on the photo sesh anyway!! AND, in the photo of the two of us, Nala is slightly closer to the camera, which makes it look like my head is smaller than her head, but my head is MUCH larger and MORE magnificent. Like, hello, I am a GOD. Worse yet, Staff brought only THREE TREATS to the photoshoot and Nala expected to get treats, too, so Staff tried to break a treat in half—a treat that is already too small—and couldn't, so, knowing that she had to be fair and pay her models (a couple of merits for that, at least), she called the photo session to a halt even though she hadn't got a shot of me in profile yet. So demerits to Nala for crashing my sexy Apollo modeling gig and demerits to Staff for coming without proper remuneration for her pibble god! (And pibble frump.) Sheesh. 🌞 

— Bixby "Yes, I AM a 'Handsome Pants,' Thank You for Noticing!" Apollo

"Yes, hi, I am the sun god."

"What does that make you, Nala—the goddess of leftover ashy barbecue briquettes?"

April 2, 2023

Listen, I know I called Nala a grizzled old frump the last time I posted here and said that her hot mama days were long in the past, but I think I'm going to take that back. She's started wearing this new fragrance and she smells SO GOOD and, like, really fascinating and I can see how the whole "older woman" thing might have some merit—she IS kind of a silver fox, right?—and even her PEE smells amazing. And she's letting me sniff her butt! She never lets me sniff her butt—the moment I poke her with my nose, she sits! But the last couple of days, I can sniff her all I want. Well, I'm not actually sniffing her BUTT butt, I'm sniffing her, like, lower butt. And I'm not LICKING her there or anything, but, like, having my mouth there really helps me appreciate her new perfume? So, yeah, it's kinda gone to my head and I TOTALLY want to pounce on her and give her a big hug. I know I've said Nala's like my mom, but she's not my MOM mom, she's just LIKE a mom, so it's okay that I think she's actually pretty sexy, right? So it's kind of confusing but also kind of exciting here right now.

— Bixby "Let Me Be Your Boy Toy" Bond

Heyyyy 😉 

— Nala

Ovarian Remnant Syndrome strikes again! When Nala got spayed, apparently some little bit of tissue got left behind and every once in a while, it starts pumping out hormones and she sorta goes into heat. Naturally, Bixby thinks she smells extra interesting during this time and Nala doesn't mind the extra attention. Bixby is moving Nala's pheromones across the Jacobson's organ in his mouth when he's sniffing her beguiling lady parts—this is called the Flehmen response for those who are wondering. You'll see dogs chatter their teeth to help move the scent around. The other time Bixby will do this is with barbecue-flavored potato chips! — Staff

April 8, 2023

As a Gentleman and a Scholar, I often find myself pondering the bigger questions in life. Like, why did Nala suddenly start wearing some startling sensual perfume and should I be sad or glad that after a few days she stopped? If Train A leaves Chicago heading toward Toledo at 70 mph and Train B leaves Toldeo traveling to Chicago at 60 mph and the distance between the two cities is 260 miles, when will they meet? Is it better to have eaten something and thrown it up and then eaten it again or never eaten it at all? Also, magnets: how do they work? And finally, WHY ARE YOU OUTSIDE WITHOUT ME????? 

— The Philosophical Mr. Bixby

"What is the nature of dark matter? Is time an illusion?
If a triangle was a perimeter of 50 cm, two of its sides are equal, the third side is 5 cm more than equal sides, what is the length of the third side?
Are we alone in the universe?

"Why are you outside without your Bixby?!"

April 13, 2023

OMD OMD OMD OMD OMD MERITS MERITS MERITS!!!!!!!!! Staff took me back to Agility!!!!! I guess I could give Staff massive DEmerits for NOT taking her Bixby to agility while she "had surgery" and "recovered" and "rebuilt her strength," but that's behind us now, the jumps and tunnels and the A-frame and all the fun equipment are before us, and it's all fun fun fun for MONTHS to come—Staff has promised me she's already signed up for more! So yay! Trainer Staff (I ADORE Trainer Staff) was happy to see me and Lorelei the German Shepherd That Doesn't Like Me presumably was not, though she didn't actually growl at me this time, so maybe she missed me? And I was SUCH A GOOD BOY. I mean, OF COURSE I remembered how to do all of the equipment, hello, I am very intelligent, and OF COURSE I wanted to do it "the right way" instead of just having zoomies, so I don't know why everyone was like, oh, wow, he's so focused! FOCUSED GOOD BOYS GET TURKEY. So yay yay yay I am the best agility Bixby!!!

— The Bouncy, Trouncy, Flouncy, Pouncy Mr. Bixby 

We're back at agility! Yay! I've been looking forward to it so much. I was almost sorry Bixby didn't have more zoomies on his first run, since Bixby zoomies are a thing of pure delight! But he was eager to start right back in where he left off. — Staff

TIME FOR ZOOMIES!!!!!

GIANT MOUTH TURKEY CHOMP

Bixbys are excellent jumpers!

"I mean, look at my powerful form! So, yeah, maybe my timing was off and I crashed through the next jump instead of over it, but I was excited, okay?"

"Look at my powerful Bixby ascent!"

"Wheee! Over the top and down I go!"

May 17, 2023

The huge owie.

My dear friends, I am SO sorry that you have had to go without your recommended daily allowance of Vitamin B(ixby), but things have been pretty chaotic here. First, you must understand that because Bixbys are incredibly sensitive creatures, when the trees are breeding, Bixbys suffer skin breakdowns and this year I got lots of owies on my undercarriage and even though Staff put lots of oinment on them, they didn't heal. So she and the vet agreed that I had to take some pills, hoping that my gut had sufficiently healed from my last IBD flare that I could tolerate an antibiotic and antifungal.

The less extreme owies

Well, I started getting pudding poops and skunky farts and then had one of my Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Tummy Aches. I threw up on the bed, I threw up a second time on the bed while giving a little squirt out the back at the same time (which was very embarrassing), I had major squirts out the back end in the back yard, I threw up the anti-diarrhea medicine even though Staff had given me a shot that usually makes me not need to puke anymore, and so on. (Nala thought it was hilarious that we kept going outside during the wee hours of the morning, but IT WAS NOT FUNNY, NALA.) Finally, I was able keep down the diarrhea medicine and a pain pill and went to sleep and had a day of feeling very fragile and then had a setback when the EAR-SPLITTING CHIRP THAT COMES BY NIGHT startled me awake at 4 a.m. the next night and had to have another shot and THEN I was very hungry and I did not get nearly enough to eat—and most of it rice—for YEARS. Also, Staff STOPPED SPEAKING TO ME. She'd disturb me at night with all her barking and snorting and honking and spitting out interesting-smelling globs of brown and green stuff, but not a word FOR A WEEK. And she's still making her voice all weird! And SHE DIDN'T TAKE ME TO AGILITY. I had to miss TWO AGILITY CLASSES. So, yeah, maybe I can understand her being out of sorts after being up all night with her puking and squirting Bixby, but the silent treatment for a week? And skipping agility? That's taking it TOO FAR, Staff!

So sick. So sad.

Fortunately, she saw the error of her ways and took me to agility last night and I was so excited I got super gassy and she put a pillow over my butt to absorb the farts because, she claimed, she and Nala "might suffocate" otherwise. Rude! Oh, and the owies on my undercarriage didn't heal at all and now are worse and "ulcerated" and the vet says that I get another week off for my tummy to feel better while Staff puts a different ointment on me, but then I'm going to have to take more pills. Hopefully, Staff won't stop speaking to me even if I DO have another round of urps and squirts.

— Bixby the Barfer 

"Yay! Finally! Bixbys should get do agility all the time! 'Laryngitis' is not excuse, Staff!"

Why does the gastrointestinal mayhem always start after midnight? (And why does the smoke alarm always go off at 4 a.m.?) I was up all night with my sick Bixby, finally feeling like he was settled enough to hand off care to my parents at 6:30 a.m. This was all while I was sick with an upper-respiratory virus that developed into the worst case of laryngitis I've ever had. I couldn't even make a croak! So I was in bed for two weeks and that meant no agility. Sigh... The vet says the next antibiotic he's going to try is usually well-tolerated by dogs with sensitive guts, but I'm still nervous. Those sores aren't healing, though, and the biggest one is easily two inches across. Poor B! And poor me! — Staff

May 21, 2023

OMD OMD OMD!!! STAFF GOT ME UNDERPANTS WITH SHARKS ON THEM!!! MERITS MERITS MERITS MERITS MERITS!!! I'd been SO jealous last year that the People Puppy had shorts with sharks on them while I was stuck wearing Mr. Senior Staff's old underpants. And STAFF REMEMBERED! I hadn't been licking my belly sores until just a couple days ago and then they gave me in a nice neck pillow to wear, but I figured out I could still reach my belly sores even WITH the nice neck pillow since I am very clever and also have a long neck. So today I'm sporting my underpants with sharks on them, looking fly as heck. Bixbys, of course, look fly as heck in everything because Bixbys are very handsome and it can't be helped, but...sharks! YAY!!!!

— The Sharkilicous Mr. Bixby

June 1, 2023

No, we do not "look cute," we "look very disappointed that you are choosing to leave the house without us." (Though we also look cute.)

— Blue Boy Bixby & Frosty Mama Nala

June 11, 2023

I am sorry to report that not all has been well in the Bixworld. For example, the other day the People Puppy got to play pickleball out in the front yard and I WAS NOT INVITED. Also, the owies on my tummy are taking forever to get better and Staff keeps touching them and putting gooey things on them and I've just about had enough. It's called a STAFF infection—put that gooey stuff on yourself, not me! And last night, I found the PERFECT spot on the bed, smashed hard against Staff's shoulder, and then she wanted me to move! She kept shoving me, but I was able to increase my weight tenfold so she couldn't move me. She was being so annoying that I finally moved, but then she was all worked up about me draping myself across her stomach! I only weigh 70 pounds, sheesh. But there HAS been agility and everyone cheers and laughs when I do it the right way, which is the Bixby way! So merits for that!

— Zoomie King Bixby Who Would Probably Also Be A Champ At Pickleball If Given The Opportunity

 

The People Puppy stayed over for a few days while my sister was out of town and Bixby was definitely sad that the other little boy got to do so many fun things and he did not! Bixby's major undercarriage staph infection is getting better, but very very slowly. He's had to have a third round of oral antibiotics and he's getting pretty fed up with having either antibiotic ointment or zinc diaper cream (thank you SO much to the person who recommended it!) put on multiple times per day. Also, how is it that dogs can make themselves so heavy when they are sleepy?! But his antics made everyone happy at agility! — Staff

June 29, 2023

Nala says that I'm being rude, but I say that if she is going to hover over me, casting a shadow while trying to pressure me into giving up my prime sunning spot, SHE'S the one being rude and I DESERVE to get a good sniff in. 

— Bixby the Peachy-Keen Whiffer-Sniffer

┉

This was "Bixby's" final post. On July 7th, I had the heartbreaking task of breaking the news to his many fans that he had suddenly passed away the night before. The entire community mourned him. I received hundreds of messages of condolences and people found themselves crying for a dog they only knew on the internet. It helped for me to know that Bixby had brought so much delight to people and that so many of them grieved along with me. I had a ton of fun writing the posts and I felt like the voice I gave him really reflected the dog he was.

It was a member of the WOLPBPT community who wrote one of the most moving tributes to my golden boy. I can think of no better words to end on than these from one of his many fans:

A Bixby doesn't die. 

A Bixby puts on his coolest tank top, his manliest boxer briefs, 

And stands in front of the obstacle course. 

First up is a weird see-saw thing -- nails it. 

Next is a bunch of posts, run between them, no problem. 

Jump over a thing? And then some more things? Done. 

And so on, and then there's tunnel. 

And a Bixby goes into a tunnel and goes and goes and goes, 

And then a Bixby comes out on the other side. 

Absolutely perfect run. 

Absolutely perfect. 

A perfect Bixby.

┉

A Dog Named Bixby

Now Cracks a Noble Heart: Thoughts on Loss and Bixby