Boomer's Story

Owner Vicki J. Priegel

Boomer is a Great Dane/Shepherd and weighs about 120 pounds. He has the same problem with thunderstorms and fireworks that Marley had – he does not like them at all. The problem is that we live in Colorado where thunderstorms occur almost daily during the spring and summer months. I generally have to be home when we have the storms because Boomer is so terrified.

This “Marley Moment” occurred in August and the sky was clear when I left the house so I was not home when the storm moved in – one of the worst of the summer of course. When I finally got home and we walked in the house we could not believe what we saw.

The first thing I saw was the oven door wide open (I am not sure if he was trying to hide in there) and there was a huge chunk missing from my kitchen countertop (which he bit off). He had knocked over the living room tables and chewed the legs and moved the couches to the middle of the room. We saw that the plants had also been knocked over but still did not see Boomer anywhere. And then we heard it – water running from the lower level bathroom. My first thought was that he did not know how to turn on the shower… he came running out as I went down the stairs into the bathroom. The floor was covered with water and I could not believe what I saw. The toilet had been totally pulled out of the wall and twisted sideways. The pipes and valve to turn off the water had been chewed and broken off. The wall behind the toilet was completely ripped open where the pipes and tubes were still connected to the toilet. I just stood there looking at the mess – it was just so unbelievable.

There are many other “moments” where Boomer tore the siding off the house, ripped off the frame around the doors, etc., but this one really made I to the top of the list.

These times for Boomer are very terrifying and it is hard to see him so upset – we have tried medication but the fear overcomes the effects of the medicine. I stay home most days now just to make sure he is okay when the storms come.

Brinkley's Story

Owner Heather Barrett

I received Brinkley as a gift from my best friend for Christmas one year. He was a little black fluff ball mutt (who later grew into what appears to be some sort of cross between a Newfoundland and a Border Collie).  I didn't really want a dog, and I didn't really know how to take care of him, but with the help of several books, advice from a plethora of dog owning friends, and my own 'pull up my sleeves' attitude, I thought I had managed to survive puppyhood with only a few small issues. Once, he ate an entire collection my best friend's designer handbags. Then he peed on my Dad's brand new crocodile loafers in a happy pee extravaganza. And he also managed to delicately mangle my boyfriend's very precious and expensive cell phone (mind you he left it unattended for several hours on the coffee table, what did he expect? It looked tasty to Brinkley :) ). 
     
But perhaps his most notorious escapade was one he managed after about a year of age and he did it: 1) without my knowledge, 2) not even to someone I knew, and 3) not even in my house. I was taking a nice luxurious bath one Saturday morning when I heard a fist slamming repeatedly on my front door. I sighed and with much regret set down my book and got out of the tub and into a bathrobe. I answered the door only to find a very frizzy haired and obviously irritated woman holding Brinkley by the collar.
 
"Is this your dog?" she asked with disdain.
 
"Yes," I said. "Brinkley, how did you get out buddy?"
 
"Well, apparently there is a loose board between our fences because he was in MY house!" She declared angrily (as if I can control the actions of said loose board).

Apparently there was a loose board in the fencing in between our houses (the board was loose on their side I might add). How Brinkley discovered one loose board in all that fencing I will never know. But he did, and from there he became Hurricane Brinkley and proceeded to continue on his path of destruction. He dug up her flowers, ate all of her lovingly tended tomatoes, and then.... he discovered the doggie door. Apparently they had a small poodle, and how an 85 lb dog managed to squeeze himself through that door is beyond me, but I guess necessity is the mother of invention. He wrought a path of destruction through their house, he tore into several garbage cans, spreading detritus throughout their house. He rolled on all of the sofas, and then tuckered out from such gleeful naughtiness, was eventually found peacefully asleep on their bed.

Of course, when they came home, they thought their well-behaved and much loved poodle had created the havoc. So, after a litany of "bad dogs" and "how could you's" they found the piece de resistance in their bed, namely Brinkley dreaming his little doggie dreams and drooling on her husband's pillow. I heard the story in every minute detail, (while wondering if it was truly possible for a dog to drape a banana peel over the ceiling fan on purpose) and trying very hard not to break a smile because I thought if I did, the neighbor might reach apocalyptic anger levels. I apologized profusely and promised to discipline him right away. I offered to come over and clean her house, which only got me an angry sniff along with an upturned nose. Apparently someone who has such a naughty dog couldn't possibly clean to her standards. So, I apologized once more, and then slowly shut the door on her furiously stomping backside as she trudged back home. And then I knelt down beside him with his big brown puppy dog eyes, and I said simply, "Good Dog."

Sunshine's Story

Owner Elena Flyer

Where do I begin?  Sunshine (May 1, 1991-January 4, 2006) gave us Marley moments from Day 1.  She began with shredding her new bed and eating the wicker basket.  She figured out how to roll the kitchen chairs up to the counter to climb up on the kitchen counters.  We came home once to find every single apple in the fruit bowl scattered on the floor, each one bearing a puppy bite.  She figured out how to open the drawers and pulled out all the table cloths, napkins and kitchen towels and ate some of them.  She ate 6 feet long of microphone cord and all the silk plants in the living room.  She ate part of a cotton blanket (she was jealous I think of the toddler we were fostering at the time.  Sunshine had always been the "baby" in the house and suddenly there was this new "baby" taking attention away from her),  and a chunk off of the Persian rug.  She ate the couch.  She ate the wallpaper.  She ate the kids food right out of their mouths if they weren't careful!  (Like spaghetti hanging out of their mouths).  She broke all the sprinkler heads and the gas pipe to the BBQ.  She ate the kids' backpacks and their homework, for real.  She ate library books my kids brought home from school, so we had to pay "$25.00 per book!!  The school staff started joking that they were taking collections to buy my dog food since she was so hungry we must not be feeding her she had to go eat the books!  She ate the Grandma's glasses.  She ate the candles that were on the candlesticks  and once she ate all the Chanukkah candles off of the menorah that I had left on the table.  

Once when we had visitors, one of the ladies hanged her purse on the chair.  While nobody was looking she took everything out of the purse to get to the mints inside, leaving a trail of the purse contents all down the hallway, including tampons and panty liners to the great embarrassment of our guest.

One of the favorite stories of all is when she ate $268.00 in cash that I had just counted from a raffle sale  from a sisterhood fundraiser at our temple.   I had just counted all the money and the checks and left them neatly stacked on the kitchen table.  I got sidetracked doing other things and when I came back to the kitchen I found one check sitting on her bed.  Luckily it wasn't eaten, just a little wrinkled and all the other checks were still on the table.  But the cash..... it was all gone!!!!   From all the times she had eaten bad things the vet had told me what to do if I had caught her early to make her barf it out.  So I gave her the teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide and she threw up all the torn pieces of paper money.  All mixed in with semi digested dog food.  Euwww!!!!   I hosed the mess on the grass and picked up every single little shred of paper money and soaked them in water with bleach.  After rinsing and drying I had to iron it and match all the serial numbers and tape the money back together.  The bank told me that as long as the serial numbers were legible and matching, they would accept the money for deposit to the sisterhood's bank account and then just mark it as mutilated currency.  Phew!!!  What a relief!!!  

Sorry it's not just one Marley story. There are too many to tell.  I could go on for pages and pages with all the stuff Sunshine did.  But in spite of all the naughty things she did, we loved her with all our hearts and when she died, she left the biggest hole in my heart that could never be filled.   I realize now that I know more about dogs, it was really us, her humans, who were at fault for not having trained her properly as a young pup, for not providing her with proper supervision and attention and leadership.  She was as Dog Whisperer would call an "unstable" dog.  

After a long period of mourning we got another yellow lab we named Sugar.  Her mother's name happened to be "Sunshine" so we had to get her.  When Sunshine passed away and it was so difficult to get through the day, people always tried to offer us dogs to adopt.  But I knew that when the time was right, Sunshine would send me my new dog.  Sure enough, it was a sign I couldn't ignore, when my neighbor sent me the newsletter from a breeder that his dog Sunshine had a litter.  And she looked like MY Sunshine so we had to get one of the pups.  We named the new dog Sunshine's Sugar Baby.  And she has turned out to be the perfect dog, like a Sunshine in her old age when she was finally mellow and good, but in a young dog's body.  

I love yellow labs!

Thor's Story

Owner Francis Visconti

I have a 110 pound male Doberman named Thor. Who is as bad or worse than Marley. That dog has cost some serious money in repair and replacement. He has no "worst" moment because they are all worse. But, I will tell one that really got me, it goes like this...
 
Just this past Christmas we had all our family over, on Christmas morning. We made the decision to have a Christmas dinner. So out comes the turkey and the broiler. By mid afternoon the turkey was done and on the counter, as well as the rest of our food prepped and ready. A few of the family members wanted to go see our horses so, what do we do, go visit the horses; leaving Thor in the house because he terrorizes them chasing and barking at them. We were probably out for an hour/hour and half because we ended up letting the children ride them bareback. So... I walk into the house to get some apples for the horses and I walk in to be greeted by a exuberant Thor. He was acting extremely happy, which is not unusual but it usually means he has done something bad, and is happy he got away with it. I check the Christmas tree, and all is in tacked (he has a habit of pulling the lights and ornaments off and shredding presents). Then I walk into the kitchen and about dropped dead. He cleaned out EVERYTHING, the green beans, stuffing, sweet potato, mash potatoes and the entire turkey. That was not the worst part, however, he managed to make it look like he never touched it. Everything was right were we left it, just empty. The bowls were in place and the turkey skeleton was in place, without a lick of meat left. To make it worse Thor was just overjoyed with this deed, bouncing around. I broke the news to the family, we had no Christmas dinner. We ended up eating subs from Publix...

Choko's Story

Owner Tiffany Simonsen

We have three dogs. Two are rescues from the Humane Society and the third is a retired sled dog who spent the first 8 years of his life pulling freight sleds in the Arctic (no kidding).

Our two humane society angels both have horror-stories to tell from their first homes and thus live a pampered life with us in their second and now forever home. As for our sled dog, well, becoming a house dog requires a bit of a transition period. Unlike the Arctic, the house is not your personal urinal. People food is not something you need to steal. And when you get bored, you do not need to destroy the house.

Sure at first it was funny to come home to the carnage of a 10x10 feather-filled pillow strewn around the living and dining room (this was back before cell phones came with cameras and before we had a digital). Then it was sort-of funny to learn that you figured out how to open the freezer. We can understand how it may seem like a window to the Arctic. All your trail food was frozen... so this was just a yummier version (if only you would have closed the door after the raid). And yes, thank you for reminding us why it is important to always take the trash out Monday morning before leaving for work. Especially after preparing 3 pheasants Sunday night. Yes, yes, we deserved to find coffee grounds mashed into rugs and stuck between the wooden slats of our 85 year old hardwood floor (you'll have to trust us, the resulting farts are something you will never forget). Lesson learned.

The prize winner though was Choko's (chalk-o) hunt under kitchen sink. After all, the freezer and refrigerator handles have been removed and both doors now have locks and the trash can has been moved and is emptied upon leaving the house daily.

So what does a dog with mischievous tendencies and owners with questionable lapses in judgment do? He looks under the sink! And what does he find? A half gallon can of olive oil!

Here is the crime scene reconstructed upon our return home:

The half gallon can came out from under the sink… and was quickly cast aside. Whew! The glass olive oil dispenser was taken out, this is a tall slender bottle with a spout on top. With the glass bottle firmly clenched sideways in his jaw Choko ran off through the house. Wait! How do you know Choko had it sideways in his mouth?

Ahhh, because the olive oil was glug, glug, glugging all over the floor! Through the living room, dinning room and up the stairs to his bed where he snapped the glass neck off the bottle drank what was left, and then ran downstairs for more. (no worries, nothing was cut by the breaking and then resulting broken glass)

Oh no! The half gallon can! Nope… he passed that again and went for the half gallon of vinegar. What!?! Half a gallon of vinegar? You save money buying bulk. Sure it is rarely uses it for cleaning... but we feel like we save every day!

Choko grabbed the plastic jug, punctured the top and ran around glug, glug, glugging vinegar all over the place. So of course you’d think the house would be sparkling after he took a dozen victory laps around the dinning room. Nope, we still had to clean up the house after his big adventure… which leads us to the punch line of this escapade….

After dumping out the first mop bucket in the kitchen sink, I felt something very cold on my feet which was strange because I still had my boots on… it was the dirty mop water I poured in the sink. But get this… I didn’t miss the sink. (Figure it out yet?)

Yes! Choko also ripped the drain system out from under the sink… oh yeah and the top off the fire extinguisher which thankfully did not discharge. So any water dumped in the sink went down the drain, which dumped out under the sink and then flooded the kitchen floor. Well some of it, the rest ran down the back wall and into the basement.

It was a long night.

We have since learned that you can clean a hardwood floor with olive oil and vinegar. It is true! If only the boy buffed it with his tail! And today, almost four years later, on very warm summer days like today, our basement laundry room still smells of oil and vinegar.