But we are also an american family, so of course when it was super bowl sunday we would watch along with the rest of the country. Of course even the super spectacle couldn’t keep Kylie’s attention for the whole game.

But, one super bowl sunday we just happened to be in Boston with Kylie on one of our road trips, and the Patriots just happened to be playing.  And we just happened to tune in from our New England hotel room in time to hear the other team, not sure who it was, maybe the Rams, all be introduced individually as usual. Then the announcer said something like, and now, “choosing to be introduced As A TEAM.. the New England Patriots.” We thought that was pretty cool! So while we previously had no dog in that fight (ha, ha), we decided to root for the home team! (Of course now, nobody gets introduced as individuals because it would make them look like jerks I suppose. But we still know who started it..)

It was a pretty exciting game as we recall. At some point we girls were high-fiving an especially thrilling play and Kylie decided to get in on the action and started jumping up between us. So, while we rarely attempted to officially “teach” her anything because we wanted her to be a free spirit, we put up our palms and when she put her little paw up too we said, “High Five!” and “Yay, Kylie!” And that was all it took.. Kylie became a high-fiver! (yes we know, lots of dogs know how to high-five. but not lots of them teach themselves in a situation that is so apropos.)

So while Tom Brady was becoming the youngest quarterback to ever win a super bowl that day, Kylie was becoming a high-fiving fool. And while he was MVP in the big game, she was always and will always be our MVP!

So since then, whenever the Patriots make it to the super bowl, they’ve got our support, including today! Go Patriots! Go Kylie! (high-five implied)

[Note: As retired sports fans we have experienced the heartbreak, and the agony of defeat, that can come along with that. So if the Patriots don't win today, well we all just have to be good sports about it. Although admittedly, good sportsmanship was not Kylie's strong suit! ]

We were trying to think of something to make Kylie’s site unique, because by then lots of dogs were copy-catting Kylie and getting websites of their own. The Psychic Puppy Network was launched.. with The Great Kylini’s Magic Dog Biscuits, Past Life Regression, and online Tarot Card Readings, it became Kylie’s claim to fame.

I don’t remember what came first or in what order things took place but the Psychic Puppy Network started getting international acclaim. It was featured in a few newspapers across the country. It was a featured site on USA Today’s website, and on Seventeen magazine’s website. It received 4 out of 5 stars when reviewed by Access Magazine. Penn & Teller even linked to the Psychic Puppy Network from their website for quite awhile.

It was also a topic of conversation on several different radio stations in the US. In fact for weeks one radio station was calling “The Great Kylini” once a week (very early in the morning) for lucky numbers!

Then Kylie hit the big time.. TV, in both the US and Great Britain!In 1999 she was on the tele on London’s “So Graham Norton” show as part of a regular segment about wacky things on the internet. Then in 2000 Kylie did a LIVE interview via webcam for the TechTv (now the G4 network) program, “The Internet Tonight”!

Eventually, the excitement wore off and the internet moved on to dancing hamsters, and bulldogs who ride skateboards, and the like. And Kylie, well she was just Kylie.. unaffected by the love and adoration of the masses. She just loved her life and loved us, celebrity was inconsequential.

But for those of you who just thought Kylie was your typical, little white dog (though somewhat extra smart and sassy and cute), you should know she really was a super star – and not just to us!

Kylie LOVED snow, and one of her favorite things to do in the snow… SLEDDING!

No, she didn’t go down on her own but as soon as we would sit down on the sled she was very happy to jump on your lap!

She was even happier at the bottom of the hill to jump off, shake, and head back up the hill.. it was almost like she was saying, “Let’s do it again!”

And whenever we were at a really populated sled hill, people were always amazed and amused, “look at the dog getting on the sled!” But Kylie always was a crowd-pleaser.

Of course sledding is exhausting work, sometimes on a sunny sledding day the sled itself became the perfect place for a nap. Or if we were sledding in the mountains, it would be a very quiet car ride because Kylie would be passed out all the way home!

Usually we set up camp in the temperature controled living room with all the necessities lots of pillows and blankets and of course junk food! We would hang out and play, things like simulated storm, or blair witch project, or most often her favorite, in other words, her most hated toys would launch an attack and then hover just out of reach hanging from the top of the tent where kylie would jump and jump on the futon mattress until she got them.  Of course then they would manage to pounce up on top of the tent and torment her. Kylie would launch herself, full force up onto the sides of the tent until they would tumble down to their own demise.

Naturally after all that the tent was a great place to take a nap. Napping however was the only sleeping that was to be done in the tent… when it was bed time, Kylie would climb out of the tent and go directly to bed, her regular bed. And no amount of coaxing would convince her that when you’re camping you’re supposed to sleep in the tent.. all night! She would look at me like I was some kind of weirdo, like “who in their right mind sleeps in the living room (or a couple times on the back patio) in a tent when there is a perfectly good bed in the BED-room? Geesh, dummies, play time is over!”

We have told people many times that Kylie was our ticket to a second childhood, but the fact is sometimes Kylie was just more mature than us – and not afraid to let us know it!

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So to really compliment her collection of state sign photos we decided to make a trek to four corners. We thought it would be cool for Kylie to be in four states at once, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. In retrospect, “cool” was probably an overestimation, it’s like the definition of the middle of nowhere down there! Anyway, we drove and drove and drove and drove, which was fine because with Kylie it was all about the journey. We finally got there and it was like she was on a mission. She walked straight up to the marker and all on her own she sat her little butt down right in the middle where the four corners meet. And even though she wasn’t a big fan of the whole picture taking process, she looked up at us, squinting in the ridiculous wind, and it was like she was saying, “ok, this is what we drove all this way for, go ahead and take my picture!” we just laughed.

All together Kylie visited 25 states I think, plus DC, and oh yeah.. Canada, twice! That’s quite a lot for one little dog!

It was then that we decided to buy a CRV for ourselves – well, more accurately for Kylie! But we told her that we absolutely refused to put a child safety seat in the back!  Fortunately we found something better.. a booster seat! It was made specifically for dogs, it provided a comfortable raised seat, storage space under the seat, and you could even take it out of the car and unfold it to make a bed in the hotel room or wherever. It’s pretty cool – and it was possibly Kylie’s favorite place to be!

Her favorite place to snooze during a long road trip..

Her favorite place to stand guard, or rather sit and guard her CRV…

Definitely the best place to look down at people in tiny little cars..

and no question, the best place ever to just cruise and be cool!

But Kylie is always cool!

So when we finally got there, we were tooling around seeing what there is to see, but Kylie was really not happy with what there was to see. There were two things that got Kylie really riled up when she was riding in the car, one was pedestrians. You see Kylie loved going places in the car, it didn’t matter where she just liked to go! So she couldn’t understand why everybody else didn’t ride around in the car too, it seemed suspicious to her that anybody would choose to be on foot, or riding in a horse drawn buggy for that matter. Which brings us to the other thing… horses (and cows too). And what do they have more than anything of in Amish Country? Pedestrians & horses!

She was barking her head off the whole time!

Then we had stopped to do some shopping, and touristy type touring and we were at a stand where they were selling homemade candies and goodies and root beer of all things. And there was a cute little Amish girl working there, maybe ten years old, and of course she was instantly captivated by Kylie. So she came out and knelt down to say hello and Kylie who was hot & tired and already on high alert because of all the horses and such started barking like crazy at the little girl in black & white and scared her silly! Poor little girl didn’t know what hit her, we felt terrible so we bought a big jug of root beer and didn’t let Kylie have any even though root beer is her favorite.

That was, needless to say, our only trip to Amish Country!

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.

That was especially true on a spontaneous jaunt to Roswell, New Mexico where Kylie made some interesting new friends.

Anyway, as you can imagine the drive got very boring, miles and miles and miles of nothing (actually you can’t imagine). Kylie doesn’t do well with boring.. fortunately her imagination kept her from staying that way. She invented a game.

She was riding in the back of a little Honda Civic hatchback and she started putting her paws up on the back of the driver’s seat so she could see out the front, and she would wait… Then when there would be an oncoming vehicle, she would get ready – ready to attack! Growling, and posturing, she would get louder as they got closer, then as they sped past she barked visciously and pounced against the backseat window and “chase” them all the way to the back of the car, feverishly jumping on and climbing over the bags and pillows and what not in the hatchback, and barking at them behind us for awhile! She went nuts!! Then she’d “reset” and come back to the front wagging her tail, waiting for the next one.

This went on for hours, although she would skip some cars for no apparent reason. Well, no apparent reason to us anyway, clearly the game had rules we did not understand. We tried joining in a couple times but mostly we didn’t do it right and she would look at is like we were the crazy ones!

It certainly made a boring drive entertaining, just like Kylie made every boring day entertaining!

We miss that noisy little dog so much!

On another awesome autumn adventure with Kylie we drove all over New England. We went to upstate New York, and all the way up to Bar Harbor in Maine, it was really beautiful. And along the way we stopped at Dog Mountain, Vermont.

It’s home of artist Stephen Huneck’s gallery, and a dog chapel where we got Kylie’s photo with this big dog sculpture. Everybody loves this snapshot