Should have called her Marley

Have you read the book Marley & Me? It's a true story about a family's journey with their pet...a yellow lab who destroys everything! The book was made into a movie last year but the movie just couldn't capture all of the humor from the book. There were too many funny anecdotes to shove into a 2 hour movie!

We've had a black lab named Jet for almost 7 years. I couldn't ask for a better dog. I could not relate to anything that was said about the dog in the book because Jet is such a perfect dog. He has been easy to train from the very beginning and minds so well.


Then comes that day in October 2008 when my husband decided he wanted to get another dog and we brought home this little devil jewel of a dog...Raven. I now completely understand what the author of Marley & Me was writing about!!


Praise the Lord she's not a full-blooded Labrador and she's not a BIG dog like Jet! We think she is mixed with pointer because of some of her characteristics and she is very small and petite. She hasn't grown much at all in the last few months so I guess she's at her full height/weight.

I could write a book about her antics and the things she has destroyed in the last 10 months around here! One of us better not dare go outside without taking her with us. She has a path she runs from room to room checking out each window looking for us...and she's crying and whining the whole time. In my room she has to jump up on my bed. Our bed is one of those really tall beds and she can almost clear the thing with one leap (like a mountain goat!!) But Heaven help whoever is laying on the bed when she decides to jump up on it to look out the window, she has no problem landing right smack on a person's body and it feels none too good.

She sleeps in Dakota's bed every night. She wakes up around 4:00 am and starts scratching on his door to get out. Either Greg or myself will let her outside to take care of her business and then she comes and gets in our bed...on MY feet. For the next 2 hours I have to fight with her and wrestle with my covers and fight for space on my side of the bed. She has a pen we can put her in (her doggy timeout pen we call it) but if we were to put here in there at that time of night/early morning she would cry for 2 hours! I have never had a dog so stubborn and strong willed!

Recently she has taken to chasing frogs and skinks around the back yard. She caught a toad behind our grill the other day before I could stop her. Greg grabbed her chain and made her drop it and I guess the toad had emitted something gross because she kept spitting and making blech blech sounds for the longest time! HAHA, it was so funny! She ran out to the birdbath, jumped up and started drinking water out of the birdbath. Do you think that was enough to stop her from chasing that toad? NO!! Everytime we let her out, she runs behind the grill and around and around it looking for that stupid toad. Ahhhhhh, I need patience with this dog!