Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
by John Grogan
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Book Summary Information
Author: John GroganEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-11-01
ISBN: 0060817089
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: William Morrow
Book Reviews of Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
Book Review: Got a lab? You've got problems...
Summary: 5 Stars
Well, well, well. My wife went to visit her folks for father's day. They decided to take the dogs for a walk. We have three, all three are of the smallish mixed terrier breeds. All three were either abandoned or adopted or they adopted us. I can't remember which. So they are out for a lazy Sunday afternoon stroll and what do they find? The cutest little white puppy abandoned along the road. Think that dog was going to stay there? Not a chance. It was the cute and fuzzy part that did it...works every time. They did, allegedly, try to find who possibly dumped it out in the middle of no where. But they could just leave it there. And they just had to name it. They came up with the name Cotton to match the color of its fur and felt that sounded like a good name for a little boy puppy.
Eventually, my wife is going to have to come home. I hear the front door open and hollered something like "hello" down the stairs. In walks my wife to tell me Maggie (a little black Scotty mix) brought home a friend. I walk downstairs and she's holding Cotton up in the air in her two hands. I took one look at the pup, then at my wife, then back at the pup. I could tell it was young pup but it had big feet. I asked her if she had any idea what it was. She said she thought it was a lab puppy. I told her she better hope it's no bigger than a lab puppy because its feet were huge and she had better hope it is not a Great Pyrenees
Speaking of huge, my wife's heart is huge when it comes to little critters. I told her if she wanted to keep it she had better take it to the vet to get checked out. She did this the very next day. She had such good news, bad news, or so-so news. First, the vet felt it was a full blooded Yellow Lab, only about 7 to 8 weeks old. Second, the vet felt the reason it was dumped was because it was a little girl. Thirdly, we're going to keep the name Cotton.
So what the heck does that have to do with Marley? See that picture on the cover of the book? That could easily be Cotton. I refused to buy it a red collar. So my wife did.
As cotton gets older and bigger, it seems Cotton wants to do what Cotton wants to do. This is one intelligent dog. I am amazed at how smart she is and how quickly she figures things out. Now I can't trick her to get back into her kennel with any treat, toy, call, or noise. She just stands there and wags her tail. She is so smart she knows when not to pay attention to me. She just hasn't figured out how to close the door on me yet and lock me out.
The problem that I perceive is this...she is going to be a big dog. My wife doesn't want Cotton to get big, she wants her to stay puppy size or half dog size. My wife is a highly educated person but, still, I thought I better explain the laws of genetics to her. I have talked with three people I know of that all have labs. The general consensus is this; she's going to be big, she is going to be unruly, and she will act like a puppy until she settles down...in about 3-6 years. I better get used to it, they all said.
I tell my wife how disobedient, jumpy, rambunctious, and wild they can be, all based on first hand accounts by fellow lab owners. We better start training her now, I tell my wife. I used to train dogs in the Air Force. I trained dogs for guard duty, drug and bomb detection. It was repetitiveness, obedience, correcting bad behavior and rewarding good behavior that taught these wonderful soldiers how to behave proper. We rewarded them but never with treats. Just a simple pat on the side and a strong "Good Boy!" or girl if that was the case. But that's not good enough for Cotton.
Seems when I am away at work or late coming home, my wife has been watching Animal Planet. She just loves the cute little fuzzy shows. And she just loves the Dog Whisperer and Caesar Millan. Who? What? I asked. That's how Cotton needs to be trained, she insists. She needs to be trained with gentleness. You don't correct bad behavior, you ignore it, my wife tells me. What in the heck?
So I'm looking on Amazon.com for books and we buy the Dog Whisperer book, the DVD, and Caesar's Way, a couple of other books and, of course, Marley. What the heck, I tell them, just sent me one of everything you stock so I don't miss any thing.
She is reading from one of the books, I have no idea which. Remember, I am the dog training expert and I don't need no book to tell me how to train a dog. My wife starts reading excepts to me. "if your dog pees in the house, roll up a newspaper and smack yourself 10 times for not keeping an eye on your dog...". What? What the hell are you reading? "If the dog jumps on you or nips at your hands, turn your back on it. Do not correct it as this is giving it the attention it wants." My God, I've got shirts getting ruined from her claws and my hands are nothing but red lines from her little needle teeth. Even when I turn my back and put my hands in my pockets she is still all over me.
Did I mention that cotton was big when she was a pup? Yeah, I did mention that. Well now she is barely 4 months old and weighs almost 35 pounds. She'll lay on the floor and stretch and my wife will comment how cute she is. I tell her that she is not stretching...she's growing right before our very eyes.
Cotton is losing most of her white and getting more yellow (a tan really, not yellow per se). She still has white on her head and neck so I have taken to calling her Cotton Patch or just Patches. My wife doesn't see this as being humorous and will just confuse the poor thing.
What about confusing me? I was so confused I traded in vehicles to get something bigger to accommodate 4 dogs. The three terriers were never an issue fitting in any vehicles. But now that's a different story. I went back and talked to my co-workers and lab owners I knew. "Mine is 135 pounds", "mine's 115", "mine was 135 before we put her on a diet and exercised her".
My Cotton is more than 35 pounds and she is perhaps 4 months old.
I was confused. "Perhaps I should have bought a horse trailer to put on the back of the truck I already own. It would have been cheaper than trading in vehicles. Gee, then we could find more dogs and critters and haul them around with us where ever we go", I told my wife. She just grinned and turned her back to me. She was not encouraging my bad behavior. Damn books work on people, too.
So what does this have to do with the Marley book? Well, Cotton is beautiful, she's a pain in the butt, she is unruly, she is teething, she is destructive, she can be as sweet as can be, and she is smart...already sits on command and very close to staying when told. She is all the above.
What does this have to do with the Marley book? My wife is the one reading it, not me. I bought it for her after she saw it and read excerpts from it. "That looks just like Cotton!" she exclaimed. Yup, and the title fits also, I thought to myself.
But why is my wife reading the book, laughing out loud one moment and then crying...no...wailing out loud is more like it...the next moment? What kind of book is this? "You'll just have to read it for yourself," she tells me. Fat chance, I say. The dog has already made me laugh at her antics and made me cry having to pick up another new vehicle payment.
That's my book review. Perhaps I can get my wife to add to it later on. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures I am posting of cotton as she gets to be the big gorgeous girl I am sure she will turn out to be. And enjoy the other critters as well.
Summary of Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family in the making and the
wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life
John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.
Marley quickly grew into a barreling, ninety-seven-pound streamroller of a Labrador retriever, a dog like no other. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, flung drool on guests, stole women's undergarments, and ate nearly everything he could get his mouth around, including couches and fine jewelry. Obedience school did no good Marley was expelled. Neither did the tranquilizers the veterinarian prescribed for him with the admonishment, "Don't hesitate to use these."
And yet Marley's heart was pure. Just as he joyfully refused any limits on his behavior, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley shared the couple's joy at their first pregnancy, and their heartbreak over the miscarriage. He was there when babies finally arrived and when the screams of a seventeen-year-old stabbing victim pierced the night. Marley shut down a public beach and managed to land a role in a feature-length movie, always winning hearts as he made a mess of things. Through it all, he remained steadfast, a model of devotion, even when his family was at its wit's end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms.
Is it possible for humans to discover the key to happiness through a bigger-than-life, bad-boy dog? Just ask the Grogans.
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