Whenever Kylie was just lying around the house, meaning not laying on her couch or one of her many beds, or curled up somewhere comatose; you know just hangin’ out, nothin’ much going on… She would almost always have one leg out behind her.
We called it her kickstand..
We think she did it so she could be comfortable but all she had to do is stand up and she was already taking a step forward.
You know Kylie, always ready for action!
A Kyliedog in her natural habitat.
We drove around in “The Hills” for hours to get the perfect shot of Kylie under the big sign!
As a follow up to The Cookie Bar story, here’s a video of Kylie complaining about the lack of service she was getting..
She was one crazy customer (and noisy)!
We had a really difficult time getting through the anniversary of losing the sunshine of our lives, our rock star, our unicorn. And I wanted the next story to be something really special, and there’s nothing more quintessentially Kylie than The Cookie Bar..
In Jersey we moved from Edison to Lawrenceville, and on the first evening I was making dinner in the new condo I got a surprise. Kylie hopped up on some boxes in the dining area, put her paws up on the service window looking into the kitchen, which putting her face about a foot from what was cooking. She had a big grin on her face like she had found the best place ever to play peek-a-boo, so I laughed and of course gave her a bite of what I was preparing because she was just so darn cute! So the next day when she hopped up there again, looking cute again, she got a cookie, and just like that she had trained us. So we put her customized, indoor dog house (we’ll have to tell you about that later) under the window in the dining room to give her access to the service window, put her cookie jar on the ledge, and presto.. The Cookie Bar was born!
We would tell her, “go to the cookie bar,” and she would run over, hop up put her pretty paws on the window and wait for her treat. Of course then she started to take the initiative and run over there, hop up, tap her pretty paws, a little insistently and request a treat. Then of course that became her m.o. when company would arrive, “Oh, hello, nice to see you! Now go to the bar and give me a cookie!” And then, it became the only way you could apologize to her, whether you offended her on purpose by giving her a bath; or on accident by stepping on her tail or something. She would go straight to the cookie bar!
You can see how that first cookie bar in NJ went from plain to fancy. Then everywhere we moved after that, a location for the cookie bar had to be immediately established…
..until that is, we moved into this house that has a tiny kitchen but a big back yard. Once Kylie saw that big yard there was no looking back, she no longer needed a cookie bar, she had her Own BACK YARD!! I think we actually missed having The Cookie Bar more than she did, But don’t worry, she still got plenty of cookies!
This time of year our favorite family outing was a trip to Breckenridge for the International Snow Sculpting Competition. Kylie loves snow, so the amazing sculptures were just a bonus!
There were always plenty of other dogs around but Kylie, especially in her backpack always attracted attention. One of the things we miss the most is being around little miss congeniality and the life of the party! But really, we just miss everything about her.
My favorite song to sing to Kylie..
You are the sunshine of my life
That’s why I’ll always be around,
You are the apple of my eye,
Forever you’ll stay in my heart
I feel like this is the beginning,
Though I’ve loved you for a million years,
And if I thought our love was ending,
I’d find myself drowning in my own tears
You are the sunshine of my life,
That’s why I’ll always stay around,
You are the apple of my eye,
Forever you’ll stay in my heart
You must have known that I was lonely,
Because you came to my rescue,
And I know that this must be heaven,
How could so much love be inside of you?
__
We got a good deal, but it was still way expensive, but Kylie deserved it so we brought home her very own couch. And she was totally NOT interested…
We think she thought ‘why would I want that little thing when we have this great big couch in the living room’. Then gradually she figured out, ‘hey, this is just my size and I don’t have to share’!
She loved that couch!
One of the few things we regrettably don’t have photos of is Kylie using her hands. Not just like paws, but like hands, like a raccoon!
You know how you can hold a small dog with their back against you like a baby, or 
cradled in your arm like a baby? Well, we could do that with Kylie and then hold things out to her and she would hold them in her hands. The best example was a q-tip, and I have no idea how we figured this out or why we did it the first time but it was amazing! She would hold one end of the q-tip between her paw/hands and bring the other end to her mouth and chomp on it then take it back out of her mouth and look at it.
You could even throw her ball to her like that and she would catch it – not in her mouth, with her hands! Then she would bring it to her mouth IN her hands! Just crazy, and so funny!
Christmas was always all about Kylie! From mid fall when we would plan out what photo to use on her christmas card, which sometimes meant going on location for a photo shoot, to her photos with santa, to parties to presents, and shopping, she loved it all!
And she was a very good girl! The presents would accumulate under the tree for weeks and she would leave them alone, even when home alone, even when they had yummy aromatic treats inside. Then on christmas eve we would sit down around the tree and start handing her gifts and she would go to town!
She would even act interested in the collars and clothes momentarily before moving on to tear into the toys and treats! Then on christmas morning, she would dive head first into her stocking and not come out until she was sure it was empty!
And just like everything else, our enjoyment came from watching Kylie experience and enthusiastically enjoy it all! Thank you for that, Kylie. We love you, we miss you, we wish you a merry christmas.
