So far that sounds normal, right? Everybody takes their pet to Petsmart, however we were going in for a very specific agenda.. Kylie’s anti-reptile agenda!

We would go in and maybe look at some toys or treats, then casually stroll over to the birds, or the fish, on our way to The Lizzards!! Sometimes, if they were well camouflaged she wouldn’t even see them at first. It’s like she was a t-rex and her vision was based on their movement. And inevitably they would move, and eventually they would dart at her from behind the glass, and Kylie would launch her counter strike! She would lunge at the glass snarling and bearing her teeth, the hair on her back standing up (we called that her dorsal fin), carrying on like she was ready to eat ‘em for a snack.

Sometimes if said attack was a little too loud we would have to quickly snatch her up and shuffle her away from the scene of the crime and pretend to be innocently shopping for stain remover or something. But Kylie would always be very pleased with herself.

Then she would try her intimidation tactics on the gerbils or ferrets but she did not seem to get the results she was looking for there.. they just ignored her. Which she seemed to think was just rude!

Come to think of it, Kylie seemed to have issues with other reptiles as well..

–

…just more bad parenting!

Behind the apartment was an open space and a large ravine between us and a tree line. On occasion we would spot a fox or even a couple of deer – yes, in new jersey. Anyway… We had put a stool under the window looking out that direction that was the perfect height for Kylie to sit and gaze. Then at some point we started opening the window and letting Kylie hop out, sniff around, pee if need be, then hop back in. Of course then it became quite convenient, especially first thing in the morning or late at night to open the window, let Kylie out, go do what you gotta do, wait for Kylie to jump back in, and close the window. I know right, bad parenting!

Especially the time when she jumped out the window and right into the face of a great big dog on a leash who was unpleasantly surprised to see her. Or the time when I let her out mid-evening, and since it was cold, I shut the window while waiting, got distracted and about fifteen minutes later remembered, “Holy Crap, Kylie’s outside!!” I put on shoes and opened the front door prepared to go out and search, but there she was sitting right outside the door. She looked up at me like “what the heck is wrong with you?”

Fortunately Kylie was (usually) quick to forgive.

Anyway, once we moved to the mainland and had thunderstorms to deal with regularly, they didn’t just frighten Kylie, they would send her under the bed for the rest of the day, shaking and cowering. It was heartbreaking and absolutely nothing would console her, until…

One day, I don’t know how we got the idea, but during a particularly thunderous thunder storm we started encouraging her to BARK back at the thunder. And she did! Meekly at first, but with encouragement she got braver and of course louder! And louder, and louder, and louder, barking, howling, and carrying on like a lunatic!! All the while we would cheer her on and she loved it, and we loved seeing her brave and empowered instead of terrified. Knowing that thunderstorms are a common fear for dogs, we thought we should do an infomercial or something about how to empower your pooch, and get rich.

Then we went on vacation to hawaii – the only place we went on vacation without Kylie – and a friend of ours stayed at our house to take care of Kylie. One day when we called to see how they were doing, the friend who sounded very tired told us they were fine but there had been a series of storms the night before, in the middle of the night, and well therefore she was pretty tired at work that day.

“Oops, sorry about that,” we apologized. We felt a little guilty, but we explained our motivation for encouraging the foul-weather ferociousness. Fortunately there weren’t any more stormy nights during our trip and we brought our friend a large quantity of macadamia nuts and all was forgiven!

We of course continued to instigate the insanity, especially in colorado where thunder comes almost daily from late May to early July.

“WHAT? Wait.. When?.. What?” We were thinking that they were saying that’s why she was sick now and we just couldn’t figure out how that was possible since she was rarely even out of our sight. We were very confused. Then the doctor, who had no bedside manner whatsoever (this was pre-Dr. Monica of course), realized we were confused and explained that she wasn’t shot recently and that it had nothing to do with her current condition; which btw turned out to be colitis, caused by stress because we were moving. She had just taken x-rays of Kylie and saw two bb’s, one in her neck and one in her ribs. (See the bright white dot on the left side of her ribs.) It still took awhile for us to process what that meant…

What it meant was that when Kylie arrived at the Hawaiian Humane Society at the approximate age of 8 months, her wounds had already healed, which means that she was probably no older than 6 months old when somebody shot her with a bb gun! Can you imagine somebody shooting at something so cute?! Even if it was getting into your trash or something?! What is wrong with people??!

Of course we felt terrible because being the bad parents that we were, we had regularly made fun of Kylie for being scared of things like bubble wrap and paint ball guns – We called her chicken little! ( I know.)

Then again, knowing that she had survived a drive-by gave Kylie a lot of street cred! We started calling her an OG -”original gangster”- and joked about her potential career as a rapper. But it certainly helped to explain a lot of her issues, and we understood her a lot better.

Kylie was a tough little street dog, a scrapper, a survivor. She came a long way to her own chaise lounge and coach collars, but she was still a scrapper. Apparently you can take a dog out of the street but you can’t take the street out of the dog. And that’s why we love her!

—

Then several months after she came to live with us, we went on a trip to visit friends on the west coast and Kylie stayed with some of her favorite people at the time, our friends Derrick & Tammy. They adored Kylie, and every time we called to check on her they would tell us about some silly thing she had done or that she liked to eat bamboo shoots, and “what kind of dog eats bamboo shoots?!” Then during one of the phone calls the question was, “Did you know she didn’t know how to sit?” And we were confused about the past tense-ness of the question.. “Yes, of course we knew that. Did you teach her to sit?!”

“Yes, she learned really fast and she likes learning stuff!”

“Aarrgh! you broke our dog.”

Ok, that’s not exactly what we said, but that’s what we thought. We didn’t want her to learn normal dog stuff, we wanted her to be a free spirit. (aka, we were bad parents)

As it turned out it was pretty handy that Kylie knew how to sit, but we never did teach her to roll over or speak or any of that other “normal dog stuff,” oh except for high-five which came accidentally many years later while watching the super bowl. But we didn’t really need to, Kylie was just a really good dog AND a free spirit!

And she knew the difference.. if you tired to give her coke or pepsi she would take one drink and look at you like, “wth? something’s wrong with this root beer.” Then she’d have no more of it! And around here, it’s always Barq’s root beer, because Barq’s has bite! It also has caffeine – it’s the only root beer that does – and if there’s anything Kylie needed it was a caffeine buzz!

Speaking of a buzz.. if there was any beverage she liked more than root beer it was Bailey’s! OMG, she went crazy for that stuff! Once she knew you were drinking Bailey’s she was on you like a… like a terrier. We figured it was because as part jrt, she was part irish, therefore of course she likes Bailey’s, plus that stuff tastes like liquid candy! (cough, cough, bad parenting)

In 2002 we went on a trip back to NJ and wanted to spend a day in NYC. Kylie always enjoyed taking a bite out of the Big Apple and SoHo is very dog friendly so we went shopping!

Since it was early 2002 things there were still very tense there and it just so happened that we came out of a store and there was some sort of suspicious activity, and several law enforcement types had descended and rushed us across the street to avoid whatever “danger” was lurking. Of course instead of deciding to duck & cover, we stood around across the street with Kylie to try and figure out what was going on (more bad parenting).

So since there really wasn’t anything going on we decided to use it as a photo op! We were even trying to work up the nerve to ask one of new york’s finest to pose with her, but decided that until things were back to at least code orange it probably wasn’t a good idea. This photo later became very popular on Kylie’s website as the heading for KNN – Kylie’s News Network.

Another near miss came a few months later when Kylie, seemed to have forgotten that she had been successfully potty trained not long after that first week. All it took in the end was a few days of putting diapers on her end (actual human baby diapers), and the humiliation did the trick. Boy would she be pissed, no pun intended, about us telling the entire internet about that! Anyway, Kylie had started peeing everywhere again – her favorite target was comforters! And she was getting threatened.. “cut it out or you’re back on the streets!” (We know, more bad parenting.) But we decided maybe there’s something wrong, maybe we should have her checked out, maybe she’s got some sort of kidney or bladder disorder. But what did the vet find? Heartworms!!
Holy crap! Do heartworms cause a dog to pee on the floor? No, they don’t, it was completely unrelated – but thank god Kylie had started peeing on the floor or we never would have found them. And she never should have had them but again, we were VERY BAD parents! We let a vet convince us that since she was going to be an indoor dog she didn’t need a preventative. Hello! It’s hawaii! Mosquitoes are present everywhere and anywhere all year round! Much like louisianna, pretty much any dog not treated for heartworms will end up with heartworms. So Kylie had to undergo heartworm treatment which is basically like chemo, which is literally poisoning your dog in order to kill the worms. It’s very dangerous and we were so scared we were going to lose her.
Obviously, Kylie came out fine but man those first few months were rough for all of us! It’s amazing to think of what almost never was, how much we would have missed.
We were so lucky!

Sometimes while driving we see someone with their dog riding in the passenger seat or worse, sitting on their lap, and start ranting about how terrible and dangerous and irresponsible that is. Shame on them for being such bad pet parents! But in all honesty this is a small case of the pot saying “hello, kettle. this is the pot calling to say you’re black too.”

As mentioned before, we really were terrible parents, at least when Kylie was younger. We didn’t just let her ride in the front… we let her drive!

That’s right, I was like Britney with my baby on my lap, but I don’t think even Miss Spears let Shawn Preston put his little paws on the wheel. But we did! Not on a regular basis or anything, just a few times around Honolulu.

What’s worse is Kylie was a terrible driver!

She wasn’t much for keeping her big bulgy eyes on the road, she was pretty much looking everywhere else in fact. Then she would accidentally honk the horn and be looking all over to figure out who was honking at her.

So after a few attempts to turn her into Toonces we suspended the driving lessons, and Kylie learned to truly appreciate being chauffeured in comfort and style. And fortunately we gradually learned to be more responsible guardians.