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