Man's Best Friend Makes for Bittersweet Memories

It was only our second or third date when my husband, Cowboy, brought his best friend to meet me.

As I peered into the cardboard box nestled into the cab of his truck, I was greeted by a fuzzy brown and black face with a big wet nose looking back at me.

"This is Rush," Cowboy told me.

Rush, just a puppy at the time, was one-fourth lab and three-fourths pit-bull. I didn't know what to make of him at first.

Rush wasn't a pretty dog, at least not in the way that collies or poodles or dachshunds are pretty.

Rush was 100 percent dog -- and a Republican dog at that, named after the windy and rotund Rush of talk radio and television.

Being somewhat afraid of dogs with a reputation -- you know, Dobermans, rottweilers, and pit bulls among others -- I didn't take to Rush immediately.

Rush didn't seem to notice much or mind though. He'd pay me a polite nod or sniff, but he was Cowboy's dog in every sense.

As Rush grew up, I still feared him a little but was constantly impressed by the devotion he showed Cowboy.

You could tell easily by the look in his dog eyes that Cowboy was his world.

Maybe it had to do with the fact that when Rush was a pup, he contracted the Parvo virus and nearly died.

Cowboy set out with the determination of a miracle worker to nurse him back to health, caring for his friend day and night, feeding his tired body the electrolytes it needed to get better.

I think Rush was always grateful.

Cowboy was always proud of his dog, who followed his every step, every command. With wide shoulders and muscles that protruded like a weightlifter's, Rush was every bit a man's dog -- Cowboy's dog.

Though he had jaws strong enough to tear the limb right off a tree -- or I suspected maybe even a person -- Rush knew Cowboy was his master, and he would answer each command to sit, lay down, stay, with only the fierce wagging of his tail to show that he was eager to play.

I don't think any dog was ever happier than Rush, with Cowboy rough-wrestling with him in the grass.

While he would bark or emit a low growl to others who may tease him or try to take his food, with his master he was a pussycat.

Cowboy could take a piece of meat right out of Rush's mouth with Rush just waiting submissively for him to give it back -- never offering even a dirty dog look. He was Cowboy's dog completely.

The more I got to know Rush, the more I began to trust him. While I'd never bother his dinner dish or put my hand to close to his colossal jaws, I did begin to feel a little safer knowing Rush, a fantastic watch dog, could protect me from harm.

I knew I had come to care for Rush when one day, afraid he would follow me from the farm across a busy highway where my husband was working, I opened the car door and invited Rush in.

He didn't have to be asked twice. Rush sat in the passenger seat of my Pontiac polite as pie as we made the trip. In fact, once we arrived across the field, Rush decided he didn't want to get out. Cowboy had to call him before I could get his hefty body out of my car.

The only time I ever really got angry at Rush was a few weeks ago when my husband was working on our new house, ready to put the windows into our sun room.

He had them laid out on the floor, ready to install, when Rush strolled in the open door and made himself at home by walking right across the panes.

As soon as I saw him do it, I screamed at him to get off. CRACK! There went the first pane under a big hairy foot.

The more I screamed, the more Rush danced around, apparently confused, taking another window paine with him before Cowboy could get him back outside.

It wasn't a banner day for Rush in my mind.

But only a week or so later, with the angry wheels of a busy highway, Rush was taken from Cowboy's world.

Cowboy knew there was nothing he could do -- no electrolytes could save Rush this time. So he sat with him.

Though Rush was so badly injured, he still never offered to snap at Cowboy, as many hurt animals might have. He put his head on Cowboy's lap and looked up at him with the look that only a loved dog can reserve for his master.

And he died.

Only those who have had the God-given fortune of a cherished and loyal pet can understand how equally heartbreaking the loss can be.

Cowboy -- tough and ornery like his dog -- doesn't like to let his feelings show, but I know.

And if I could bring Rush back, I'd knock out all those sun room windows myself.

Show gives new meaning to "Go Soak Your Head"

People will do anything.

No matter if the boundaries of stupidity reach from here to eternity. Somewhere, somehow, there's at least one person harebrained enough to attempt the absurd.

This general lack of faith in the smarts of the human species was the result of too much time parked in front of satellite television last week.

Admittedly, that time spent doesn't say much for my own IQ. But I did learn something.

While flipping through the million channels of nothing on, I happened across the Discovery Health Channel. Folks, it's become my newest addiction.

You just never know what you're going to see.

Case in point. One of the episodes followed three seemingly normal people through their varied odyssies into the world of plastic surgery. Now I know that there are some very legitimate and medically necessary reasons for plastic surgery, but folks, this episode didn't include any.

I watched a woman get white hot acid poured all over her face (a chemical peel) to reduce her fine lines for her impending wedding. Her face literally was burned off. Of course after several weeks a new face grew back.

I sat in awe as a man with a dome as slick as a cue ball succumbed to hundreds of little needles being stuck into his head as he went under the knife for a hair transplant. He hoped it would make him more of a Don Juan.

The man had sections of hairy scalp removed from his head. Then, that section of skin was sewed shut. The hairs were extracted from the donor scalp area and poked under his unruly scalp. It was perfectly awful. The man was awake throughout the procedure and smiled as he pictured his future fortune impressing the ladies.

My eyebrow shot involuntarily up to the top of my head as I watched another young woman undergo a nose job and chin implant.

Doctors took some kind heavy metal implement, shoved it up the woman's nostrils, and then started banging away at it with a real honest-to-goodness hammer.

Crack!

Then, as pieces of bone and cartilage broke away, the doctor would reach down into the far recesses of her nose with the longest pair of tongs I've ever seen, pulling the unwanted nose debris out and depositing it nonchalantly into a metal pan.

Ping!

He turned her bottom lip inside out and cut a huge gash to implant her chin. When the operation was over, the woman's head looked like an old catcher's mitt that had been left out in the rain for a couple of seasons. However, when the cameras tracked her down again months later, she was grinning from ear to ear with her new nose sniffer and chin chopper.

A few nights later, the episode followed the trials and tribulations of teenage girls whoa re getting plastic surgeries as gifts. One 14-year-old girl got the birthday gift of liposuction from her mother.

And to think I was happy with a pair of jeans.

Another 18-year-old girl got what all teenagers need: a brand spanking new set of breast implants. These were a gift from her father. Now there's a conversation I could never imagine having with my parents.

"Mom, Dad... I have two little (well, make that two BIG) favors to ask."

What in the world goes through these people's minds?

Another Discovery health Channel program was all about men and women who undergo sex change operations. I won't even go there. Suffice it to say where there's a will, there's a way.

I thought by then I'd seen it all. There couldn't be anything stranger than that.

then I tuned in the other night to the episode on cryogenics. You know, freeze-drying yourself so you'll be fresh for the next lifetime.

Evidently, people with more money than sense have decided death is too much of a bummer, so they're just going to avoid it all together.

When it's their turn to croak, they're having themselves frozen. They figure they can remain in this state for how ever many years it takes for science to cure what killed them. The truly filthy rich are having their entire bodies frozen.

but for those on more of a fixed income or whose bodies have been mangled beyond further use, never fear. If you'd like to join the carefree world of the cryogenically preserved, you can just have your head frozen.

Yep. Believe it. Otherwise rational human beings are making plans for their own deaths that include beheading. That way, when scientists figure out how to do head transplants, they'll be the first in line.

Unfortunately, I fell asleep before I was able to learn where these heads will get their new body parts.

Maybe they will call the toe truck. Or, could be they'll ask for hand-outs. Maybe they let someone else give them a heads up. Someone should really put their foot down.

Either way, I don't think cryogenics is for me. I bet it costs an arm and a leg.