My Main Fur Ball

I love my dog. 


Correction: WE love our dog.  (I'm sure Aaron will appreciate that I added him to the equation) :)


We really do love our dog. We may talk trash about him when he has an accident in the floor (for the millionth time) because he doesn't want to go outside because it is cold/rainy/dark.  We may even threaten to get rid of him (just to keep him on his toes), but we never would. 


Aaron and I got Marley back in 2006. (Whew! I can't believe it's been that long ago!)  We had been talking about getting a dog together for a while, even thought my parents weren't really for it.  I say my parents, because if we ever got a dog, my family had a fenced in backyard and let's be honest, the dog was really for me. Poor Aaron was just going along with my crazy idea to make me happy. He's always been really good about that... :)  


It was summertime and I had been looking online and in the newspaper at puppies for MONTHS.  My family had Labs for years, so I was looking for a smaller breed and something that didn't shed because I wanted a (mainly) indoor dog and my mom is kind of allergic.  I don't know how we decided on a yorkie, but we did. One day we were in Hot Springs at my grandparents house.  I was flipping throughout the newspaper classifieds, looking at puppies for sale by breeders. Then I saw it. There were 3 yorkie puppies for sale in Conway, AR. They were reasonably priced (still pricey!) but they weren't teacup size or bred to be >5 lbs so they weren't that bad.  I told my mom we were going to call about them, just to ask. We finally got around to calling them and they had ONE male puppy left. I begged Aaron to go see it! He was so in love with me that he just couldn't say no... ;) (ha!) I can't remember exactly how that went down, but the next thing you know, we had made an appointment with the people to come see this last puppy. The day we left, my mom knew what we were doing, and I didn't really consider how mad my dad might be (if he knew) because I was SO excited! Well on the way to the address (which was not IN Conway, btw) we got a little lost (it was kind of in the outskirts of Conway). I was almost in tears. Earlier Aaron had made a stop at a Wal-Mart because we realized we didn't have a collar or leash IF we ended up getting the puppy. I was about to cry because we were going to have to return the tiny little collar and leash and we had gotten our hopes built up so much. So we tried one last time to follow the directions we were given...sure enough, after some adjustments, a little bit of guessing, and probably a little bit of luck, we found the house.  We may have even called the owners for direction conformation. (I'm writing this without Aaron, so I don't really have my fact-checker)


When we pulled into the driveway, the owners came outside. They were a sweet couple, an older man and woman.  And by "older" I mean older than my parents at the time. They probably weren't that old. Anyways. They walked out holding the puppy. Aaron always says that when he saw my face looking at that little puppy, he knew that we weren't leaving that house without that tiny ball of fur. I don't remember much of our conversation with the couple...Aaron's more of the "talker" in our relationship ;) (hehe) I remember that "puppy's" dad was there and they made him do some tricks for us. His name was Tucker. They gave him some treats and "puppy" was wiggling and bouncing around so they gave him some treats too. We paid the couple, got his paperwork, and thanked them (over and over). When we got back in the car, we were ecstatic. 


That didn't last long. He threw up three times in the car on the way home to Searcy.


...yep.


Other than that, he was a pretty chill pup. We decided on the name Marley on the way home because that was our artist of the moment and little did we know it was the PERFECT fit. 


My dad was so angry. He thought it was irresponsible...and looking back, it was, but I really don't know what we would do without the little guy now.  BUT he was also feeding the little fur ball the next morning. Dog treats? No....Cheerios....out of his own cereal bowl.  He still grumbled for a few years about Jo-Jo (as he has called Marley since day 1--we don't know why...) but eventually everyone grew to love him. 


He's basically our extra-hairy child and has been for 5 years now. He's a character and has a stubborn personality, probably learned from his parents. He sleeps a lot. He does this weird thing where he dips his nose in water and slings it all over his food (that is not too hard for his teeth-btw) and then wipes his nose off on the kitchen floor. He burps after he eats. He licks everything within reach of his giraffe-like tongue. He lays completely flat on the floor (we call it "flat dog").  He has huge brown eyes that melt your heart. He thinks he is a Lab. He *tries* to sleep on the furniture and *tries* to use pillows...poor pup. He just knows what he likes. 

"Quit blogging & play with me!"

He has his good days and his bad days. Sometimes he just likes to be a rebel. You can see it in his eyes. Sometimes he likes to melt your heart into a big puddle of mush. I love those days. He just wants to love on everyone he meets and to be petted and talked to constantly. I catch myself carrying on conversations with him every now and then, and he just looks at me with his big brown eyes and his head cocked to the side. 


We had a sweet afternoon playing today. Aaron and I have had a busy and stressful week, so coming home from class today all I wanted to do was relax. Good thing Marley is good at that.

Marley was being extra sweet today :)

ttfn,
Holly