Marley: A Dog Like No Other. John Grogan

thump-thumpa-thump! And when I cupped my entire hand over his head and massaged my fingers into his scalp, the beat exploded into a machine-gun, rapid-fire samba. Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump!

      “Wow! You’ve got rhythm!” I told him. “You really are a reggae dog.”

      When we got home, I led him inside and unhooked his leash. He began sniffing and didn’t stop until he had sniffed every square inch of the place. Then he sat back and looked up at me with his head cocked as if he were saying, “Cool house, but where are my brothers and sisters?”

      The reality of his new life didn’t really hit him until bedtime. I had set up his sleeping quarters in the one- car garage attached to the side of the house. The room was dry and comfortable, and it had a rear door that led out into the fenced backyard. With its concrete floor and walls, it was virtually indestructible. “Marley,” I said cheerfully, leading him out there, “this is your room.”

      I had scattered chew toys around, laid newspapers down in the middle of the floor, filled a bowl with water, and made a bed out of a cardboard box lined with an old bedspread.

      “And here is where you’ll be sleeping,” I said, and lowered him into the box. He was used to sleeping in a box, but had always shared it with his siblings. Now he paced the perimeter of the box and sadly looked up at me. As a test, I stepped back into the house and closed the door. I stood and listened. At first nothing. Then a slight, barely audible whimper. And then full-fledged crying. It sounded like someone was in there torturing him.

      I opened the door, and as soon as he saw me he stopped. I reached in and petted him for a couple of minutes. Then I left again. Standing on the other side of the door, I began to count. One, two, three… he made it seven seconds before the yips and cries began again. We repeated the exercise several times. Each time it was the same.

      I was tired and decided it was time for him to cry himself to sleep. I left the garage light on for him, closed the door, walked to the opposite side of the house, and crawled into bed. The concrete walls didn’t muffle his pitiful cries. I lay there, trying to ignore them. I figured he would give up any minute and go to sleep.

      The crying continued. Even after I wrapped my pillow around my head, I could still hear it. Poor Marley. Out there alone for the first time in his life. His mother was missing in action, and so were all his brothers and sisters. There wasn’t even a single dog smell.

      I hung on for another half hour before getting up and going to him. As soon as he spotted me, his face brightened and his tail began to beat the side of the box. It was as if he were saying, “Come on. Hop in. There’s plenty of room.”

      Instead I lifted the box with him in it and carried it into my bedroom. I placed it on the floor against the side of the bed. I lay down on the very edge of the mattress, my arm dangling into the box. There, my hand resting on his side where I could feel his rib cage rise and fall with his every breath, we both drifted off to sleep.

       3

       Mr Wiggles

      

For the next three days I threw myself into taking care of our new puppy. I lay on the floor with him and let him scamper all over me. I wrestled with him. I used an old hand towel to play tug-of-war with him. Boy, was he strong! He followed me everywhere – and tried to gnaw on anything he could get his teeth around.

      It took Marley just one day to discover the best thing about his new home – toilet paper. Five seconds after he disappeared into the bathroom, he came racing back out. As he sprinted across the house with the end of the toilet-paper roll clenched in his teeth, a paper ribbon unrolled behind him. The place looked like it had been decorated for Halloween.

      Every half hour or so I would lead him into the backyard to pee or poop. When he had accidents in the house, I scolded him. When he peed outside, I placed my cheek against his and praised him in my sweetest voice. And when he pooped outside, I carried on as though we’d just won the lottery.

      When Jenny returned from Disney World, she threw herself into him with the same utter abandon. It was amazing. As the days unfolded I saw in my young wife a gentle motherly side I had not known existed. She held him. She petted him. She played with him. She fussed over him. She combed through every strand of his fur in search of fleas and ticks. She rose every couple of hours through the night – night after night – to take him outside for bathroom breaks.

      Mostly Jenny fed him.

      Following the instructions on the bag, we gave Marley three large bowls of puppy chow a day. He wolfed down every morsel in a matter of seconds. Marley’s appetite was huge, and his poop was huger still. The giant mounds that came out looked an awful lot like what he’d eaten earlier. Was he even digesting this stuff?

      Apparently he was. Marley was growing at a furious pace. Each day he was a little longer, a little wider, a little taller, a little heavier. He was nine and a half kilos when I brought him home. Within weeks he was up to twenty three. His cute little puppy head had rapidly morphed into something resembling the shape and heft of a blacksmith’s anvil.

      Marley’s paws were enormous. His sides already rippled with muscle. His chest was almost as broad as a bulldozer. His little puppy tail was becoming as thick and powerful as an otter’s.

      What a tail it was. Every last object in our house that was at knee level or below was knocked in all directions by Marley’s wildly wagging weapon. He cleared coffee tables, scattered magazines, knocked framed photographs off shelves, and sent bottles and glasses flying. Gradually Jenny and I moved every item to higher ground, safely above the sweep of his swinging mallet.

      Marley didn’t actually wag his tail. He wagged his whole body, starting with the front shoulders and working backwards. He was like the canine version of a Slinky. We swore there were no bones inside him – just one big, elastic muscle. Jenny began calling him Mr Wiggles.

      Marley wiggled most when he had something in his mouth. His reaction to any situation was the same. He would grab the nearest shoe or pillow or pencil and run with it. Really, any item would do. Some little voice in his head seemed to be whispering to him, “Go ahead! Pick it up! Drool all over it! Run!”

      Some of the objects he grabbed were small enough to conceal, and this made him especially pleased. He seemed to think he was getting away with something. But when Marley had something to hide, he couldn’t keep it to himself. He would explode into hyperdrive. His body would quiver, his head would bob from side to side, and his entire rear end would swing in a sort of spastic dance. We called it the Marley Mambo.

      “All right, what have you got this time?” I’d say.

      Marley would waggle his way around the room. His hips swayed and his head flailed up and down like a whinnying horse. He would be so overjoyed with his forbidden prize, he could not contain himself. When I would finally get him cornered and pry open his jaws, I never came up empty-handed. There was always something he had plucked out of the bin or off the floor. As he got taller, he’d take it right off the dining room table. Paper towels, wadded Kleenex, grocery receipts, wine corks, paper clips, chess pieces, bottle caps. It was like a junkyard in there.

      Most evenings after dinner Jenny and I strolled together with Marley along the waterfront. Stroll is probably the wrong word. Marley strolled like a runaway locomotive strolls. He surged ahead, pulling on his leash with all his might, choking himself hoarse in the process. We yanked him back. He yanked us forward. We tugged. He pulled. He veered left and right, darting to every mailbox and shrub, sniffing, panting, and peeing without fully stopping. He usually got more pee on himself than on the intended target.