Wreaking Havoc

I think it’s time for me to share some of the things that Marley has destroyed. Not only does he piss me off, but he shocks me that he is still alive…let me explain.

On our coffee table, I have a centerpiece with decorative candles, stones, and little wicker balls. Marley has eaten all of the wicker balls and a couple of the little stones. He’s torn up decorative pillows and left the stuffing strewn about the living room, chewed on the legs of antique china cabinets. Chewed up just about every corner wall in this apartment, ripped up the wall paper in the bathroom…

Outside he has dug numerous holes.  He somehow managed to jump onto the glass table outdoors and tear apart its umbrella, leaving it tattered. Marley has eaten Christmas lights that were being used as decoration around the outside table, ate enough toilet paper to probably produce 12 good sized rolls, eaten dirty Kleenex, q-tips…

He has eaten the heels off my favorite pair of high heels. Chewed shoe laces in half on new shoes, chewed up other shoes, etc.

I do have photos to prove that he is a demon seed that tears up everything he can get his little teeth and paws on. Although I do not have pictures of the Christmas lights or the other things he has eaten. But if you want to dig around in his feces to find those things, be my guest I will post these photos tomorrow, so watch for them

Don’t let this cute little face fool you…

He IS mischievous.

Wild Marley

I was going through my collection of Marley photos and I noticed that he looks wild in almost all of them. Either I’m good at catching him when he looks wild, or he’s just wild all the time. Either way, I have decided to share some of these photos with you.

In the last one, I caught him mid-yawn. The one before that really shows off his pouty lip. The other photos…well…that’s Marley for you…always wild looking. When he’s not up to something, it’s only because he’s planning his next move.

Marley; The Bat Out of Hell.

I have decided to post a video that will show you just what I meant in the previous blog about Marley loving to zip around the apartment like a bat out of hell.

The video starts off a little dark but after a few seconds, I follow Marley into a better lit room.

And so the adventure began…

It took a lot of convincing, but Tony, my boyfriend, finally caved in and said we could keep the puppy. The one condition was that he would get to pick the name. Tony likes Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix so the first name he chose was Jimi, but I told him I didn’t like that name for a dog. Next came Bob, and again, I told him I didn’t think it was too fitting for a dog. So after a moment of silence as Tony thought of a name, a smile came across his face. “Marley.” He said. I rolled my eyes and sighed, but agreed. It was a hell of a lot better than Bob. Now, just so you know, neither of us had ever heard of that movie or book, “Marley & Me”.

So a few days after rescuing the puppy, we took him to the vet and found out that Marley was about 6 months old and at least 3/4 pitbull. He had worms and fleas so naturally we had the vet give him a flea dip and send us home with medication that would take care of his worms. For days Marley had trouble going to the bathroom, partly because he had gone so long without food that his body had started eating away at his muscles. But after his worms disappeared and after he gained some weight back, things were looking good for him. Then one day I noticed him gnawing at himself and constantly scratching. My first thought was that the fleas had returned, so again, we hopped in my car and headed to see the vet. Well, it wasn’t fleas, ticks, etc. Turns out, Marley has a food allergy and can only eat special kinds of food [and NO human food. Period].

So what started off as a cute little puppy in need of rescuing, turned out to be a dog who’s food cost over $30 for a good sized bag, and who likes to fly around the house like a bat out of hell, destroying everything he can get his teeth or claws onto. Oh yes, at first I thought people were crazy when they would ask if we had named our puppy after the dog in that book/movie. But one day at Wal-Mart, I noticed a book with “Marley & Me” on the front and showed Tony, saying “This must be what everyone was talking about.” For months, we didn’t read the book or see the movie, but the more damage our dog did around the apartment, the more curious I got. So about a month ago, Tony and I sat down to watch “Marley & Me”, and although our dog isn’t that bad [yet; knock on wood], we felt that we could relate a lot to the movie. So this blog will tell the ironic tale of my dog, Marley and his little adventures.

What started off as a normal day…

I remember it was November 23, 2008…my stepfather’s birthday. My cousin and I desperately needed to drive to the nearest store for a birthday card because we are known for doing things last-minute.

Not too long after we had pulled out of our place of residence, we noticed something small wandering along side the road. At first, I thought that perhaps it was a baby deer, though they aren’t really known for wandering around in broad daylight. Especially so close to a busy street. Once we neared the small animal, we could tell, but barely, that it was a puppy that had been abandoned and starved. Me, being the animal lover that I am, pulled over and decided to pick him up because there was another one dead in the road and I couldn’t live with myself, thinking that if this one got hit, it would be my fault.

Up close, the puppy was the saddest thing to lay eyes on. His spine and hip bones were protruding and it looked as if he hadn’t eaten in months! The poor thing was too weak to really get into my car so I lifted him into the backseat, along with the millions of ants crawling all over him.

Forgetting all about buying a birthday card, we went straight to my mom’s to see if there was anything she could do because where I lived, we weren’t allowed to have pets. My mother brought food to the dog and he ate like he’d never eaten before.

Long story short…we decided to break the rules and take him into our apartment. Mom didn’t want another dog and I couldn’t just give up on this little guy. So we packed him back up into my car, still no name picked out, and drove back to my place to convince my boyfriend that we MUST keep him. When it was decided that he could stay, we made a bed for him on the couch to keep him warm since he didn’t have any fat to help him stay warm, and we watched him sleep night and day for almost a week straight. We thought he was going to be the laziest, calmest puppy ever, but boy were we wrong. This puppy was just waiting to gain his strength back to show us just how energetic and troublesome he could be.