Old(ish) Dog, New Tricks!

It is just 3 more sleeps till Christmas and Marley is going through an ULTRA annoying stage!  Where do I begin this week!!!!!!

How does he know the sound of the wrapper on a block of cheese!!!!  He can be fast asleep in the front room and as soon as I get the cheese out he is there beside me waiting for his tasty morsel!

How does he know when it's 6.30 am EVERY morning!  How does he know that if he comes to me beside the bed and barks he knows I will shout at him, so instead he thinks it is really clever to shake his head from side to side so that his lips clap together in the hope that this will rise me from my slumber!  I have taken to laying really still with my eyes closed pretending to be asleep until he gives up and slopes back downstairs!!

Marley watching a very interesting documentary about snow foxes!

But this morning was the piniccle of his annoying behaviour!  My elderly cat Maisie got shut in yesterday while I was out at work and did just a little wee on the (new) landing carpet, I couldn't be cross with her because she is 16 years old and they haven't invented tenna ladies for cats yet!  So I mopped it up and then today I will scrub it with biological washing powder because this will prevent any of the cats re-offending!  So there I was at 6.30 this morning comatose after a particularly hellish week, when I was woken to the sound of what sounded like water leaking on the floor somewhere, I shot out of bed to catch Marley with his leg cocked weeing up the landing wall and all over the carpet!  "I am speechless you bastard dog" I whispered venomously in an attempt not to wake the boys up!!!!!!  WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He went quietly downstairs with his ears down!  Apart from marking his scent where the cat had weed I can only think that the WHOLE packet of willy wonka gobstoppers he consumed contributed to his out of control weeing episode as this is not something he has done since he was a cute NOT annoying puppy!!!

So with Christmas just a few days away I am unable to put ANY presents under the tree until the day because we all know they will be consumed over night, and on Christmas eve he will have to bunk in with me in my bedroom so that he doesn't attack Father Christmas in the night and eat all the presents that are left!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

The REAL Marley and Me xxx

Wellard!!

This is not a word I would use to describe Marley, he is a big lovable giant, but I feel safe in his presence!  He is a pretty good guard dog at home although I worry that he would lick a burglar to death rather than bite them!

wellard - yeah right!!!

So there we were today over the field with Natalie and Flash.  Flash has a tendency to take herself off out of sight while Marley mills along, but when Natalie calls her back Marley gives her a right good telling off!  We have decided that whilst they are the best of friends they are pretty grump with each other!  Then appear a pack of 3 springer spaniels giving it large!  They were barking at Flash and Marley and you should have seen them both!  Tails between their legs and hackles up, it was a pathetic sight, they looked like a right pair of pussies!!!!

Speaking of pussies, the adorable Busta went to the vet today for his annual booster.  The vet asked Belinda what she was going to do about having his balls chopped off assuming that being over a year old now he is humping everything in sight!  When Belinda told her that he has no idea what to do with it and doesn't even attempt to clean it himself (ewwwww!!!) she said it probably wouldn't be worth studding him and that he is probably a jaffa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Whilst vets always encourage male dogs to be neutered (she told me to get Marley done early at 5 months) she said not to worry too much about Busta!  He also has 4 ingrowing eyelashes, he is such a TART!!!!!!!!!

Busta and Marley in the summer

And this weeks victim was.....

My beloved doorstop!

I loved my doorstop!  I bought it in the summer and up until the other day Marley hadn't bothered with it!  But he was shut in the front room with Bobby while my dad and his mate were fitting a new front door for me and i could hear Bobby laughing saying that Marley was burping and when I went in there to join in the laughter this is what greeted me! Don't you love that Bobby was completely unaware despite the carnage in front of him!  Luckily Natalie (who has a fab crafting blog the link to which is on here) is a dab hand with a sewing needle and I have therefore give it to her as a repair job!

Marley asleep nestling into the (fake) Christmas Tree!

TTFN

The REAL Marley and Me xx

He's in the doghouse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Marley really is my soulmate and I try to give him unconditional love but seriously some days he just makes it impossible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's take today for instance!  He gets fed as soon as I get up in the morning and today was no different.  I then shut all the kitchen doors and went upstairs to start the day!  Then I heard it THE FOODWASTE BIN!!!!!!!!!!  Marley had opened the kitchen door (I have yet to see how he does this, I'm assuming he lifts the latch with his nose unless he is hiding a freak opposable thumb!!!) and gone straight for the kitchen cupboard door!  I raced downstairs shouting his name at the top of my voice like a she-devil and was met with mouldy onions, banana skins and avocado skins all over the floor, he had also consumed a fair bit of food from inside the bin too!!!

So then I am treated to manlike nuclear farts!  You have never smell anything like it, and as they leave his back orifice he is always puzzled as to where the noise has come from!!!!

So we get to our usual 2pm slot for walking over the field and Natalie decided she would walk flash to my house where the dogs could play whilst we drank coffee to save us from the bitter cold out there today!

Now Marley has this odd anxiety when people come over or when he goes to their houses!  He drinks like a fish, I have no idea why he does it because he drinks normally when he's at home with just me and the kids!  So he drank and drank and drank in between chasing flash round the house and her telling him off for it!  I nip upstairs to the bathroom while Natalie is on the phone and when I come to go down the stairs Marley shoots in front of me and proceeds to vomit water and undigested carrots all over the stairs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So what did I do?!!!!  Well I shut him in the stairwell while he re-ate it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Marley sat in the back of the car like the human that he thinks he is!!!

He slept like this on Charlie for hours the other night!!!

I found this lovely photo of my boys and one of Belinda's girls with Marley and Busta in the summer!  

I love Christmas but oh how I long for the summer!!

Marley and Me!!!!!

TTFN

The REAL Marley and Me xx

It wasn't me!!!

I always think I have been quite lucky because Marley has never chewed furniture!  He does however eat everything in sight, he will often vomit what he has eaten and then re-eat it just for good measure!!!  I was looking through my phone at the weekend and found the photo of the chewed cat food tins that I talked about in my first post - this is what was left of them by the time I got home!!

He has done this on more than one occasion and so the tins are now barricaded in a kitchen cupboard along with the food waste bin and the washing powder - yes he had this off the side once, not sure if he ate any!!!!!!

Marley will also eat inanimate objects too!  He doesn't just chew, he EATS EVERYTHING!!!!  This is a picture of the latest victim - look at the innocence on his face!!

This was a toy dog that he stole from Bobby's bed, thankfully it was not precious and in fact Bob has not even realised it has gone!!!

I eventually realised (after 2 years) that the only way to save everything in my house is to make sure he can't get it, there is just no stopping him, he is nearly 5ft tall on his back legs and can reach everything and now that he has learnt how open the internal doors I have no choice but to block all the entrances and exits!!!

In fact as I sit here writing this, Marley is next to me dragging items of washing from basket that I have to keep retrieving from him to stop him from consuming any!!!!

My sunday morning wake up call!

Charlie walking Marley for the first time this weekend (will talk about anti-pulling training tomorrow!!)

TTFN

The REAL Marley and me xx

Poo!!!!!!!

Dog poo, fox poo and cat poo (thankfully not human poo now my children are much older!!!), I have to deal with them on a daily basis!

Mr Foxy and his family visit every night and wee and poo in my porch, I am aware that it doesn't help that the empty cat bowls are out there but seriously I have other things to think about of a night than bringing in the cat bowls!  The cats (my cats) like to poo anywhere in the house that might possibly upset me, which is just about everywhere!  I told you previously that Dotty likes to poo in Marley's bed, so this is now dumped in the shed and Marley happily sleeps on the sofa of a night!  They also like to poo every time there is a bath mat on the bathroom or en-suite floor!  Imagine my surprise when sitting on the toilet one day minding my own business when Poppy wanders in (yes I leave the door open) jumps in the bath, positions her bottom over the plughole and does a wee!  Very hygienic I know and much preferred than the carpet but seriously I have never seen anything so extraordinary!!!!

Fox poo over the field is a real problem, especially in the summer, but Marley and Flash bloody love it!  They are never happier than rolling in the stinking sticky stuff, I have on many occasions driven Marley home after a rolling session with my head stuck out the window gagging all the way home!!!  Busta doesn't really seem to get Fox poo, but this is Busta we're talking about so it's not a surprise!!  Whilst talking about Busta a found a gorgeous picture of him when he was a puppy.....

Couldn't you just eat him!!!

So back to the poo!  Yesterday over the field, Marley had his daily lunchtime deposit!  Now for some reason it is never particularly solid this time of day (I am soooo sorry to be talking about this!!!!) but I pick it up nevertheless!  So there I am nattering away to Natalie waiting for Marley to finish his business when he proceeds to put his foot straight in it (on purpose do we think?!!!), it was lovely all between his toes and I am sure he was smirking knowing that he would be getting in the back of my car within minutes with his now pooey foot!!!  So here's what I did......

So to clarify that is a plastic bag tied around Marley's foot!!  Can you can see that he is totally oblivious to the whole thing and probably still laughing at me!  Alas it didn't work and the bag kept coming off but by then his foot was ok so I don't have a poo covered back seat!!!

Marley asleep on the sofa with Dotty and my friend Sue!

Such a handsome boy!!

TTFN

The REAL Marley and Me xx

Food Waste Bins!!

Do any of you own these delightful contraptions?!!!  In our house they are Marley's favourite thing!  This larger one lives outside with the other bins and is collected by the bin men every week and the smaller one lives indoors!  Where the hell am I supposed to put the smaller one to guarantee Marley can't get it?!!  He can reach all the kitchen surfaces and can open the kitchen cupboards!!!  So my only choice is to put it into the kitchen cupboard and make sure the kitchen (not the cupboard) doors are barricaded when I am not in the vicinity as Marley can OPEN internal doors seriously!!!!!!  The other day I turned my back for about a tenth of a second and he had a WHOLE chicken carcass out of the bin and I swear he swallowed it whole!

Now the outside food waste is not too much of a problem unless Marley decides to take himself for a walk! I live in a lovely courtyard that contains my house, a barn and several other cottages all of which have their own outside food waste bins!  So imagine my surprise when not long after we were given them, I opened my  front door one morning to find EVERYONE'S food waste bin in my front garden!  It would appear that the previous evening (which was a summer one and therefore the patio doors had been open) Marley had gone for a lovely evening walk and dragged every single bin into the front garden!  Luckily it was only mine that he had chewed open, let me say his toilet situation was not good for several days!!!!

How does he get out I hear you ask!!  Well he can jump the fences but seems to only be inclined to do that if he is chasing a ninja animal!  Our fences are old fashioned and have chicken wire over them to stop him being able to step through them but over the months he has done his best to force his way through them!  I had one particular area of the fence by the back gate that wasn't secure so I blocked it up with heavy logs and so couldn't figure out how he was escaping until I caught him one day dragging the logs away with his mouth so that he could get through!!!!!!

Marley's BRANCH of choice over the field!

Marley in the summer in a lovely park where they have a dog dipping pond that he refused to go in!!! 

At the same park

I'm sorry I couldn't resist this photo I'm really sorry for his indecency here but how hilarious is it!!!!!

TTFN

Love the REAL Marley and Me xx

Ninja Squirrels!

Not only do we have ninja cows in Surrey we also have ninja squirrels and their one and only mission is to torment Marley purely for their own pleasure!

I'm not joking they are EVERYWHERE! Wherever we walk you can guarantee one will be lurking somewhere and it literally drives Marley mad!  They stalk our garden on a regular basis and when the patio doors are permanently open in the summer, if Marley spies one there is no stopping him, he scales the fence and just keeps running!  I have no idea what he would do if he actually caught one but I reckon they are in cahoots with the cows and would do a few ninja moves on him, in fact that's probably why he always comes back!!!!

My theory is that when he looks out of the patio door windows they are in the bushes somewhere tormenting him and wiggling their grey furry bums at him!!

Other creatures that torment Marley on a regular basis are cats, our 3 and any others that are in the public domain!  He once slipped his collar and chased a very brave burly cat that had been giving him eyes every day on the walk to school! I ran after him because I thought he would  kill him if he caught him (or maybe they are ninja cats too!!!) but luckily the cat managed to jump a fence!  Funnily enough following this incident the cat would scarper every morning as soon as Marley was in sight!!!  Marley is cool with our 3 cats but loves to give chase round the house!!

My Cats (Left to right) Dotty, Poppy and Maisie

And finally the other things that are the bane of Marley's life are foxes and our resident hedgehog whom I have named George!

Mr Foxy in my back garden!

George the hedgehog outside the front door!

They are in cahoots with the squirrels and just their presence is enough to send Marley wild!

My last photo of the day is one I took this afternoon of Marley sat (literally) on Charlie when he got home from school, I think this photo demonstrates his size!!!!

TTFN

The REAL Marley and Me xx

Meet Marley's Friends!

Marley has lots of friends in the animal kingdom!  His first friend was Flash a 3 year old Beagle belonging to my best friend Natalie....

Natalie and Flash!

When Marley first joined us he and Flash became instant friends, she tolerated his puppiness and she taught him a lot about socially acceptable behaviour (yeah right!!!!)  However she quickly became quite possessive of him and she now refuses to allow him to speak to any other canines whilst he is in her company, and should he dare she tells him off immediately, he definitely knows his place!!!!!!!

Then a year ago my other best friend Belinda (I also have a forever best friend called Emma but she is not Marley related - sorry Emma!!!) introduced Busta to the world, a beautiful blue staffy!

Belinda and Busta (she's gonna love me for this one!!!!)

Busta is the most adorable dog you will ever ever meet, he completely dispels all the myths about Staffs!  He has the temperament of a gay teddy bear!!!  Bee hasn't even bothered having his balls chopped off because there is not an ounce of aggression in him and he has no idea what to do with them!

So now we have our very own PACK!  Flash is the leader, Marley has no idea what is going on and Busta is the baby!!

Marley has one other friend in the form of our 6 month old kitten Dotty who was born to our 2 year old cat Poppy!  We ended up keeping her because no one wanted to buy her and so she joined our clan for good and her and Marley are the absolute best of friends!

Dotty whilst very lovable is also evil, should you happen to walk past her she will pounce on you and try and eat your feet, she climbs the curtains and often goes to the toilet in Marley's bed - that's how much she truly loves him!!!!!

So there's Marley's friends!

I have one funny story to retell today!  Back at the beginning of the year I met Natalie and Flash over the field we walk in every day and was met by a stray cow that had come through the fence of the adjoining field!  Marley was in heaven, not put off by the cow's size or demeanor he gave chase!  Marley is not the fastest of runners because he had to have an operation on his legs when he was a few months old and now has the beginnings of arthritis but he gives it a good go!  So there we are with Marley chasing this cow whilst I am on the phone to my friend who knows the farmer and Natalie and I trying to somehow stop the cow from running towards any roads!  By this time Marley had chased the cow right to end of the field and they both disappeared behind some bushes!  I am still running and then suddenly Marley appears from the bushes running away with the cow following behind him!  God knows what went on behind the bushes I reckon the cow did a few ninja moves on Marley and he thought "bugger this"!!!!

Why do you never think to pull the camera out at a time like that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TTFN
The REAL Marley and Me!!!

Let me introduce the REAL Marley!

So here's Marley! 

(and my son Charlie!)

He is my 2 year old labrador cross, he is hell to live with but the absolute love of my life!  I wish I had started blogging about him 2 years ago because I have so many stories to tell but I am going to try and tell them bit by bit so as not to bore you!

Marley's story is that at 12 weeks he appeared at a client of mine's house as her new addition!  She already had an older staffy puppy and wanted a companion for him!  When I got to her house Marley was locked in a room and he was ADORABLE!  But she said that they couldn't keep him because he didn't get on with her other dog!  My immediate reaction - I'll take him!!!!!  So there I was completely unprepared with this cute little black puppy in the back of my car along with his bed, food and toys!  The boys and I were delighted (my then husband was not!!!) "what shall we call him" I said, the list was endless, rocky, felix, bunkus, and then I had a lightbulb moment and thought back to one of my favourite hilarious films and said "Marley"!!!!!  IT'S ALL IN THE NAME!!!!!!!!!

Marley was beautiful and he slept for the first few days, he had already had 3 homes by the time he came to me and I think he was exhausted!  He was playful and very mouthy but we loved him, suddenly I was having to wake up in the night to let him out for a wee (my baby days were long gone so it was a bit of a shock!) and getting up with him at 6am to play for hours on end!  My life felt complete!

Then came the first incident, he managed to get the kitchen cupboard door open about a week after he arrived which contained his bag of food and he ate the whole damn lot!!!!!  And he has not stopped eating since!  I mean he eats EVERYTHING he can get his hands one, here is a list to name a few:

1. 4 whole cans of cat food, I mean he demolished the lot, all that was left was the remains of the steel can
2. A WHOLE jar of nutella, I came home and he was running around the whole circuit of the house on a complete sugar high, he crashed into my ironing board and cut his eye, which still did not stop him!
3. Several books
4. A WHOLE pot of doggy painkillers, he had just had an operation (which I will tell you about another time) and I came down in the morning to find an empty container of the pills, blind panic sent me roaring to the vets which was shut on a Saturday so after lots of consideration I realized he had not shown any side affects and he lived to tell the tale!!!
5. Countless shoes and slippers
6. Several dinners off our plates
7. 12 Banana muffins which were strategically placed where I thought he could not reach - how wrong I was!

Am I painting a picture of the REAL Marley?!!!

Another story to tell is his size!  When he fist came to live with us everyone commented on how huge his paws were which apparently meant he would grow to be quite big!  We were told he was a lab/rottie but I think he is probably more lab/great dane!  He is huge, he weighs 40 kilos and stands as tall as me (a petite 5'1") on his back legs!  He of course doesn't know his size or his strength and has had me and friends off our feet, mine was a spectacular incident of sweeping me off my feet into the snow we had last year!  I have figured out that he actually does it on purpose, he runs full pelt looking away and therefore crashes straight into you!

So that is Marley!  I have lots to tell about him, I have to introduce you to his best friends Flash and Busta and my best friends Natalie and Belinda but there is plenty of time for that!

In the meantime Marley has been for a very muddy walk today and braved the huge flooding in the field which was deeper than he thought and cause him to prance around like a dressage horse trying to figure out how to get out!!!!!

Marley's favourite sleeping position in the biggest dog bed in the world!!

TTFN

The REAL Marley and Me! xxx