Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan shared by hujul

The bookI read was Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan. This book is about a dog that is very dopey and not that bright, but he ends up stealing his owners' hearts. When John and Jenny, a newlywed couple, were children, they each had obedient and loyal dogs. Before they decided to have a baby, they decided to get a dog for practice. They named him Marley because they always listened to a Jamaican singer named Bob Marley. Marley started growing at an astounding pace, and he began driving his owners crazy. Soon, Jenny found out that she was pregnant. After 10 weeks, she went to the doctor to see the baby, but he couldn't see anything. That meant there was no baby, and it was a miscarriage. John and Jenny knew that one in six pregnancies end in miscarriages. Jenny was so sad, and Marley somehow understood that was always calm around her. Soon, Jenny was pregnant again, and soon was born a healthy baby boy. They named him Patrick because of John's Irish heritage. When Marley was around Patrick, he was also calm and quiet around him, gently licking his face. After seventeen months, Jenny was pregnant again, but the baby was coming too soon. The doctor said that she had to avoid moving so the baby wouldn't come too early and be unhealthy. Jenny was becoming really angry with Marley with his crazy antics like tearing up many of their furniture items. She wanted him gone-- out of the house for good. After waiting several more weeks, Conor, their second baby boy, was born. Soon, John got a call because a new movie was casting roles, and the casting director thought Marley would be perfect for the part of the dopey family dog. He wouldn't cooperate with what he was supposed to do. He kept jumping out of the van before he was supposed to and chewing on his leash that the little boy actor was supposed to hold. When the movie came out two years later, everyone was laughing at Marley's performance. Not long afterwards, another baby girl named Colleen was born. Marley was still eager with John and Jenny, but gentle with all the kids. He followed at John's heels wherever he went, even just down the stairs for water or to the bathroom. Soon, John got really into gardening, so he had the whole family move to Pennsylvania so he could become a writer for a gardening magazine instead of a column writer for a newspaper. After a while, John realized that he wasn't happy writing for a magazine, so he took a job writing a column for a local newspaper. As the days turned to weeks, weeks to months, months to years, Marley began aging as quickly as he came. When the family went to Disneyland, they left Marley behind in a local kennel. While they were there, they got a call from a kennel attendent saying that Marley was really sick and his stomach was bloated. They were going to put a tube down his throat to remove all the excess air in his stomach, but there was a 1% chance he was going to live. After a couple days, Marley's chances were boosted up to 5%, and when the family got home, Marley was back to his usual self, but he wasn't as jumpy. He mostly just laid around all day, but still followed John around although his weak hips allowed him limited movement. One day, Jenny took the kids to Boston to visit her sister, and John dropped Marley at the vet's so he could have special attention while he went to Philidelphia for a news coverage of a plane crash site. Soon, he got a call saying that Marley was bloated again, and the vet said that he tried to stop the bloating the same way the kennel attendant did, but it didn't work. the other options were to put him through surgery or put him to sleep. Putting him through surgery would just be too vigorous for an old dog like Marley. He called Jenny to ask her about it, and they both knew it was time. Marley had been a part of their lives for almost 13 years. Soon, he was gone. John, Jenny, Patrick, Conor, and Colleen moped over Marley for months. John buried him between the shade of two pretty cherry trees in their front yard. They found it a little easier without Marley following them around everywhere and without dog hair all over the house. Eventually, John wrote a column about how Marley was a cunning, loyal, stupid dog. He got a lot of responses because the column reminded a lot of people of their dead dogs or their dogs who were just like Marley. John and his family weren't the only ones who had their hearts broken by a recently deceased family pet.