Marley comes home

Debbie came home on a Thursday night and said, "We might be going to look at a dog on Saturday. I'll let you know tomorrow."

I met Steve for coffee on Friday morning. He said, "Every time my family went to look at a dog, we came home with a dog."

On Friday evening, Debbie and I looked at the website for the rescue shelter. The picture was in black & white and not very clear. It looked like a dog with a big snout and not much else. Debbie had researched lots of dogs, but she never heard of a cattle dog. Our friend Adrienne said, "They're not photographers, they're dog people. It's a really sweet dog. If you don't come up here and look at this dog, someone else will get him."

We got up early on Saturday and drove two hours upstate to the shelter. His name was Bobbi, but we knew we'd change it. Debbie said, "I was thinking Bubba, or {I lost my mind and couldn't hear a thing she was saying right then. I knew I had to come up with something better really quickly} ..." I said, "How about Charlie or Marley?" "Which do you think is better." "I'm thinking Marley." "Okay, so it'll be Marley."

We got off the Thruway at New Paltz and a half hour later we were at the shelter. The volunteers at the shelter told us that Bobbi's brother was adopted two weeks earlier and was twice Bobbi's size. And they said he was a lot cuter. We met Jane and were brought to a play area in back. Adrienne arrived with her dog, Barley. Then Jane brought Bobbi in. I called him, "Come, Bobbi. You're such a good dog." And he came trotting over, with a little hop in his step. As soon as Jane left the room, we started calling him Marley.

He was a cute little thing, about 18 inches long and weighing 10 lbs. His ears and forehead are mainly brown, with a streak of white in the middle. His muzzle is black and white. His eyes are darkly shaded, like a raccoon. His right side is darker. He has six different sets of whiskers and those on the right side have more black in them.

I fed him some kibble from my hand. At that moment, we knew we were taking him home with us. The rest of the day was devoted to getting him ready to come with us and getting stuff to take care of him. We took him to the vet for a rabies shot and to look for ticks. There was paperwork to take care of at the shelter. We bought dog food and toys. We got a crate at Home Depot. On Sunday I went to Petco and bought a bunch of more stuff.

Marley sat on Debbie's lap in the back seat for the ride into New York City. He was calm and didn't make a sound the whole way. We got a cart and brought everything into the apartment. Debbie and I set-up the crate on the side of our living room area, put down a towel, put out water, put some kibble in a bowl, and led Marley over to the crate.

Over the next several hours, we had him in the crate about half the time. He had a couple of accidents in the apartment and we clean them up. We took him outside to do his business. He was batting about .500 at this point.

At bedtime, we put him in the crate and closed it tight - he wouldn't be getting out. We put a towel over the crate. We closed our bedroom door. Marley cried for an hour, but we ignored it the best we could. Finally, we all fell asleep.