I just finished reading Marley and Me by John Grogan.  I may be the last person on the planet to read the book, but I’d been eyeing it since it was released a few years ago, and I finally took the plunge.

For the first half of the book or so, if you’ve never owned a large dog, you’d swear you never would.  Grogan relates horrible, horrible stories about the sheer destructiveness of Marley the Lab Puppy who never really grows up.  Actually, even if you have owned a large dog, you might swear you’d never take the chance again while reading the first half of the book.  But you’ll also be nodding along in some places, because anyone who is owned by a dog can relate SOME story of the havoc wreaked by the beast at one time or another on their lives or homes.

The Grogan’s were indeed fortunate.  Marley had a loving, loyal personality.   He never hurt a person (scaring them was another story) and was great with the kids.  No.  Marley’s destructiveness was reserved for things.  People, he loved.  In that, Marley was a good dog.

The second half of the book is the tear-jerker.  That’s where the reader learns the philosophical lessons Grogan learned from Marley and the difficult aspects of helping an elderly big dog get through life.

Our Dazzle is at least sixteen going on seventeen (maybe more), because hubby’s had her for more than a year longer than we’ve been married, and we celebrated our 15th anniversary last fall.  Like elderly Marley, Dazzle is deaf and vision-impaired.  Her hair falls out in clumps and knots up.  She’s a chow/spaniel cross, and she has the fluffy coat of a chow.  At least, in her younger years it was fluffy.  Now, it’s…not so fluffy.  She suffers from skin allergies, which contribute to it falling out.  Her hind quarters are weakening, and walking is becoming more difficult for her, made worse by frequently attempting to walk and scratch at the same time.

Despite all this, Dazzle is a happy dog, and on her good days (or moments), she can be spry and playful.  She sleeps a lot, but we sometimes catch her cavorting with Millie.  Since she doesn’t hear, I usually have to touch her to wake her.  In the morning, once I make sure she’s still alive, I usually will leave her until I finish all the other chores that go with getting the dogs outside and fed.  If she gets up on her own, that’s fine, but if not, I’ll gently wake her.  I’ve reached the point where I fully expect her to have left us, each time I go out to check on them (she’s developed a slight palsy, so I look for movement).  Her doctor did blood work on her last year to ensure we could safely give her a medication to help her skin, and she was healthy as a pup internally.  That was happy news.  Since then, we’ve been giving her the medication for her skin as well as vitamins and glucosamine.  That has helped her spryness, but it’s helping less and less.

So far, Dazzle’s walking around ok with occasional balance problems, but it won’t be long.  She’s been a good dog, and when the time comes, we’ll miss her.  For now, we try to spend some time  getting the knots out of her fur and brushing the loose fur to keep it from knotting.  She looks better, and we hope she’s more comfortable.