Dog is awful for everyone, not just me!

Now that I wasn’t the one being made the fool, I

had to admit, the scene was pretty hilarious. The

two of them, having reached the end of the park-

ing lot, turned and came lurching back toward us

in fits and starts, Miss Dominatrix scowling with

what clearly was apoplectic rage, Marley joyous

John Grogan

beyond words. She yanked furiously at the leash,

and Marley, frothing at the mouth, yanked back

harder still, clearly enjoying this excellent new

tug-of-war game his teacher had called on him to

demonstrate. When he caught sight of me, he hit

the gas. With a near-supernatural burst of adren-

aline, he made a dash for me, forcing Miss Domi-

natrix to break into a sprint to keep from being

pulled off her feet. Marley didn’t stop until he

slammed into me with his usual joie de vivre. Miss

Dominatrix shot me a look that told me I had

crossed some invisible line and there would be no

crossing back. Marley had made a mockery of

everything she preached about dogs and disci-

pline; he had publicly humiliated her. She handed

the leash back to me and, turning to the class as if

this unfortunate little episode had never occurred,

said, “Okay, class, on the count of three . . .”

When the lesson was over, she asked if I could

stay after for a minute. I waited with Marley as she

patiently fielded questions from other students in

the class. When the last one had left, she turned to

me and, in a newly conciliatory voice, said, “I

think your dog is still a little young for structured

obedience training.”

“He’s a handful, isn’t he?” I said, feeling a new

camaraderie with her now that we’d shared the

same humiliating experience.

Marley & Me

“He’s simply not ready for this,” she said. “He

has some growing up to do.”

It was beginning to dawn on me what she was

getting at. “Are you trying to tell me—”

“He’s a distraction to the other dogs.”

“—that you’re—”

“He’s just too excitable.”

“—kicking us out of class?”

“You can always bring him back in another six

or eight months.”

“So you’re kicking us out?”

“I’ll happily give you a full refund.”

“You’re kicking us out.”

“Yes,” she finally said. “I’m kicking you out.”

Marley, as if on cue, lifted his leg and let loose a

raging stream of urine, missing his beloved in-

structor’s foot by mere centimeters.

Sometimes a man needs to get angry to get seri-

ous. Miss Dominatrix had made me angry. I

owned a beautiful, purebred Labrador retriever, a

proud member of the breed famous for its ability

to guide the blind, rescue disaster victims, assist

hunters, and pluck fish from roiling ocean swells,

all with calm intelligence. How dare she write

him off after just two lessons? So he was a bit on

the spirited side; he was filled with nothing but

John Grogan

good intentions. I was going to prove to that in-

sufferable stuffed shirt that Grogan’s Majestic

Marley of Churchill was no quitter. We’d see her

at Westminster.

First thing the next morning, I had Marley out

in the backyard with me. “Nobody kicks the Gro-

gan boys out of obedience school,” I told him.

“Untrainable? We’ll see who’s untrainable.

Right?” He bounced up and down. “Can we do it,

Marley?” He wiggled. “I can’t hear you! Can we

do it?” He yelped. “That’s better. Now let’s get to

work.”

We started with the sit command, which I had

been practicing with him since he was a small

puppy and which he already was quite good at. I

towered over him, gave him my best alpha-dog

scowl, and in a firm but calm voice ordered him to

sit. He sat. I praised. We repeated the exercise

several times. Next we moved to the down com-

mand, another one I had been practicing with

him. He stared intently into my eyes, neck strain-

ing forward, anticipating my directive. I slowly

raised my hand in the air and held it there as he

waited for the word. With a sharp downward mo-

tion, I snapped my fingers, pointed at the ground

and said, “Down!” Marley collapsed in a heap,

hitting the ground with a thud. He could not pos-

sibly have gone down with more gusto had a mor-

Marley & Me

tar shell just exploded behind him. Jenny, sitting

on the porch with her coffee, noticed it, too, and

yelled out, “Incoming!”

After several rounds of hit-the-deck, I decided

to move up to the next challenge: come on com-

mand. This was a tough one for Marley. The com-

ing part was not the problem; it was waiting in

place until we summoned him that he could not

get. Our attention-deficit dog was so anxious to be

plastered against us he could not sit still while we

walked away from him.

I put him in the sit position facing me and fixed

my eyes on his. As we stared at each other, I raised

my palm, holding it out in front of me like a cross-

ing guard. “Stay,” I said, and took a step back-

ward. He froze, staring anxiously, waiting for the

slightest sign that he could join me. On my fourth

step backward, he could take it no longer and

broke free, racing up and tumbling against me. I

admonished him and tried it again. And again and

again. Each time he allowed me to get a little far-

ther away before charging. Eventually, I stood fifty

feet across the yard, my palm out toward him. I

waited. He sat, locked in position, his entire body

quaking with anticipation. I could see the nervous

energy building in him; he was like a volcano

ready to blow. But he held fast. I counted to ten.

He did not budge. His eyes froze on me; his mus-

John Grogan

cles bulged. Okay, enough torture,I thought. I

dropped my hand and yelled, “Marley, come!”

As he catapulted forward, I squatted and

clapped my hands to encourage him. I thought he

might go racing willy-nilly across the yard, but

he made a beeline for me. Perfect!I thought.

“C’mon, boy!” I coached. “C’mon!” And come he

did. He was barreling right at me. “Slow it down,

boy,” I said. He just kept coming. “Slow down!”

He had this vacant, crazed look on his face, and in

the instant before impact I realized the pilot had

left the wheelhouse. It was a one-dog stampede. I

had time for one final command. “STOP!” I

screamed. Blam!He plowed into me without

breaking stride and I pitched backward, slamming

hard to the ground. When I opened my eyes a few

seconds later, he was straddling me with all four

paws, lying on my chest and desperately licking

my face. How did I do, boss?Technically speak-

ing, he had followed orders exactly. After all, I had

failed to mention anything about stopping once he

got to me.

“Mission accomplished,” I said with a groan.

Jenny peered out the kitchen window at us and

shouted, “I’m off to work. When you two are

done making out, don’t forget to close the win-

dows. It’s supposed to rain this afternoon.” I gave

Marley & Me

Linebacker Dog a snack, then showered and

headed off to work myself.

When I arrived home that night, Jenny was wait-

ing for me at the front door, and I could tell she

was upset. “Go look in the garage,” she said.

I opened the door into the garage and the first

thing I spotted was Marley, lying on his carpet,

looking dejected. In that instant snapshot image, I

could see that his snout and front paws were not

right. They were dark brown, not their usual light

yellow, caked in dried blood. Then my focus

zoomed out and I sucked in my breath. The

garage—our indestructible bunker—was a sham-

bles. Throw rugs were shredded, paint was clawed

off the concrete walls, and the ironing board was

tipped over, its fabric cover hanging in ribbons.

Worst of all, the doorway in which I stood looked

like it had been attacked with a chipper-shredder.

Bits of wood were sprayed in a ten-foot semicircle

around the door, which was gouged halfway

through to the other side. The bottom three feet

of the doorjamb were missing entirely and

nowhere to be found. Blood streaked the walls

from where Marley had shredded his paws and

muzzle. “Damn,” I said, more in awe than anger.

John Grogan

My mind flashed to poor Mrs. Nedermier and the

chainsaw murder across the street. I felt like I was

standing in the middle of a crime scene.

Jenny’s voice came from behind me. “When I

came home for lunch, everything was fine,” she

said. “But I could tell it was getting ready to rain.”

After she was back at work, an intense storm

moved through, bringing with it sheets of rain,

dazzling flashes of lightning, and thunder so pow-

erful you could almost feel it thump against your

chest.

When she arrived home a couple of hours later,

Marley, standing amid the carnage of his desper-

ate escape attempt, was in a complete, panic-

stricken lather. He was so pathetic she couldn’t

bring herself to yell at him. Besides, the incident

was over; he would have no idea what he was being

punished for. Yet she was so heartsick about the

wanton attack on our new house, the house we

had worked so hard on, that she could not bear to

deal with it or him. “Wait till your father gets

home!” she had threatened, and closed the door

on him.

Over dinner, we tried to put what we were now

calling “the wilding” in perspective. All we could

figure was that, alone and terrified as the storm

descended on the neighborhood, Marley decided

his best chance at survival was to begin digging his

Marley & Me

way into the house. He was probably listening to

some ancient denning instinct handed down from

his ancestor, the wolf. And he pursued his goal

with a zealous efficiency I wouldn’t have thought

possible without the aid of heavy machinery.

When the dishes were done, Jenny and I went

out into the garage where Marley, back to his old

self, grabbed a chew toy and bounced around us,

looking for a little tug-of-war action. I held him

still while Jenny sponged the blood off his fur.

Then he watched us, tail wagging, as we cleaned

up his handiwork. We threw out the rugs and

ironing-board cover, swept up the shredded re-

mains of our door, mopped his blood off the

walls, and made a list of materials we would need

from the hardware store to repair the damage—

the first of countless such repairs I would end up

making over the course of his life. Marley seemed

positively ebullient to have us out there, lending a

hand with his remodeling efforts. “You don’t have

to look so happy about it,” I scowled, and brought

him inside for the night.

C H A P T E R 9

The Stuff Males Are Made Of

❉

Every dog needs a good veterinarian, a trained

professional who can keep it healthy and

strong and immunized against disease. Every new

dog owner needs one, too, mostly for the advice

and reassurance and free counsel veterinarians

find themselves spending inordinate amounts of

their time dispensing. We had a few false starts

finding a keeper. One was so elusive we only ever

saw his high-school-aged helper; another was so

old I was convinced he could no longer tell a Chi-

huahua from a cat. A third clearly was catering to

Palm Beach heiresses and their palm-sized acces-

sory dogs. Then we stumbled upon the doctor of

our dreams. His name was Jay Butan—Dr. Jay to

all who knew him—and he was young, smart, hip,

and extraordinarily kind. Dr. Jay understood dogs

like the best mechanics understand cars, intu-

John Grogan

itively. He clearly adored animals yet maintained a

healthy sensibility about their role in the human

world. In those early months, we kept him on

speed dial and consulted him about the most inane

concerns. When Marley began to develop rough

scaly patches on his elbows, I feared he was devel-

oping some rare and, for all we knew, contagious

skin ailment. Relax, Dr. Jay told me, those were

just calluses from lying on the floor. One day Mar-

ley yawned wide and I spotted an odd purple dis-

coloration on the back of his tongue. Oh my God,

I thought. He has cancer. Kaposi’s sarcoma of

the mouth. Relax, Dr. Jay advised, it was just a

birthmark.

Now, on this afternoon, Jenny and I stood in an

exam room with him, discussing Marley’s deepen-

ing neurosis over thunderstorms. We had hoped

the chipper-shredder incident in the garage was

an isolated aberration, but it turned out to be just

the beginning of what would become a lifelong

pattern of phobic, irrational behavior. Despite

Labs’ reputation as excellent gun dogs, we had

ended up with one who was mortally terrified of

anything louder than a popping champagne cork.

Firecrackers, backfiring engines, and gunshots all

terrified him. Thunder was a house of horrors all

its own. Even the hint of a storm would throw

Marley into a meltdown. If we were home, he

Marley & Me

would press against us, shaking and drooling un-

controllably, his eyes darting nervously, ears

folded back, tail tucked between his legs. When he

was alone, he turned destructive, gouging away at

whatever stood between him and perceived safety.

One day Jenny arrived home as clouds gathered to

find a wild-eyed Marley standing on top of the

washing machine, dancing a desperate jig, his nails

clicking on the enamel top. How he got up there

and why he felt the urge in the first place, we never

determined. People could be certifiably nuts, and

as best as we could figure, so could dogs.

Dr. Jay pressed a vial of small yellow pills into

my hand and said, “Don’t hesitate to use these.”

They were sedatives that would, as he put it, “take

the edge off Marley’s anxiety.” The hope, he said,

was that, aided by the calming effects of the drug,

Marley would be able to more rationally cope with

storms and eventually realize they were nothing

but a lot of harmless noise. Thunder anxiety was

not unusual in dogs, he told us, especially in

Florida, where huge boomers rolled across the

peninsula nearly every afternoon during the torpid

summer months. Marley nosed the vial in my

hands, apparently eager to get started on a life of

drug dependency.

Dr. Jay scruffed Marley’s neck and began work-

ing his lips as though he had something important

John Grogan

to say but wasn’t quite sure how to say it. “And,”

he said, pausing, “you probably want to start

thinking seriously about having him neutered.”

“Neutered?” I repeated. “You mean, as in . . .”

I looked down at the enormous set of testicles—

comically huge orbs—swinging between Marley’s

hind legs.

Dr. Jay gazed down at them, too, and nodded. I

must have winced, maybe even grabbed myself,

because he quickly added: “It’s painless, really,

and he’ll be a lot more comfortable.” Dr. Jay knew

all about the challenges Marley presented. He was

our sounding board on all things Marley and knew

about the disastrous obedience training, the

numbskull antics, the destructiveness, the hyper-

activity. And lately Marley, who was seven months

old, had begun humping anything that moved, in-

cluding our dinner guests. “It’ll just remove all

that nervous sexual energy and make him a hap-

pier, calmer dog,” he said. He promised it

wouldn’t dampen Marley’s sunny exuberance.

“God, I don’t know,” I said. “It just seems

so . . . so final.”

Jenny, on the other hand, was having no such

compunctions. “Let’s snip those suckers off !”

she said.

“But what about siring a litter?” I asked. “What

Marley & Me

about carrying on his bloodline?” All those lucra-

tive stud fees flashed before my eyes.

Again Dr. Jay seemed to be choosing his words

carefully. “I think you need to be realistic about

that,” he said. “Marley’s a great family pet, but

I’m not sure he’s got the credentials he would

need to be in demand for stud.” He was being as

diplomatic as possible, but the expression on his

face gave him away. It almost screamed out, Good

God, man! For the sake of future generations,

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 650