Flattery will get you everywhere

ME: Even astoundingly beautiful people can be comfortable to be around.

ADAM: Like you?

It never ends

Dogs, dogs and more dogs. Dead dogs. Dogs walked to their death, tails wagging because it's attention and they don't know what's waiting, except they do, they can smell it, can't they? Dogs without names, only faces, eyes, open, trusting, expectant.

My new crush -- don't tell Adam!

My sweet Maizie at The Pub

Jack was at the dog park with Daddy ...

Ups and downs

Three years ago yesterday, I had the Lap-Band procedure done. In the following months, I lost a bunch of weight and got to the point where I couldn't even keep water down. I wound up in the emergency room getting the whole damn thing unfilled.

Then we moved to Missouri for four months and I ate like a bitch. I gained the weight back, and then some.

I'm back on the train.

I find myself writing really fast and vaguely about all this, because it's hard to talk about. I hope to be able to talk about it more in the future.

Appropriate for today

This will likely make you cry

Posted on Facebook:

We say “Hello” and show comfort at the time of need, as the doors of Diamond Cut Loyalty Rescue open to save another when they are cornered to the wall of a shelter, with no thought left of where to go or what tomorrow will hold for them. They fall with illness, beaten and scared; fought and left to strive on their own; shot and killed by police to lay dead on the street. How does that make you a man? Fought by dogfighters and slain if there is a loss. How are they called humans?

I bow my head in remembrance of JACK, a mixed breed young man who left this rescue to Rainbow Bridge. When all failed Jack, and no one else stood by his side, a man walked to him and reached out his hand. Signed on the dotted line and walked out of the shelter, just hours before his life would end. The man put Jack in the car and left the old world behind. On the road to a rescue where his head was held, with prayer from the voice of the man who cared for him at the hour of need and cried the tears of thousands who suffer alone. Then on a trip to a new foster home, for someone to care all hours of the day and into the night. To a small little family of many cats who welcomed Jack, and 5 other canine companions who showed no discomfort to a boy in need of friendship and love.

Jack had many friends in the few months since April 29th, when he was saved from death in a shelter. My heart is heavy because Jack, 11 years old, left to the entrance of the Bridge because of an illness he fought so hard, but could not overcome. He will return and this time, he will be carried to the doors of this rescue, Diamond Cut Loyalty, where his ashes shall be placed in the view of the final “second chance.”

Thank you to the one person who cared for Jack with gentle hands, great love and with no concern for personal sacrifice at all hours of the night and the day. Thank you to the one person who was with him as he closed his eyes and who spoke softly to him, telling him that he was “going home.”

Farewell to you, boy. On the day that I leave this world and stand before the Almighty, may the ashes return to dust of the earth, and I will hold you in my arms as Judgement is before me. I shall cry no more.
Rest In Paradise, Jack. July 10, 2013.

Ronnie Lucero
Diamond Cut Loyalty Canine Rescue & Pit Bull Rehabilitation
Portland, Oregon