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!

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!

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?

__

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.

Kylie was always thankful for Thanksgiving..

she got her own personal Thanksgiving dinner including turkey and dressing and potatoes and all the fixins!

Of course Kylie always wore a costume on Halloween. She wasn’t really happy about it but she was usually willing to humor us or at least tolerate for at least a few pictures or sometimes for part of a party with minimal bribery.

The worst ever for Kylie.. the lobster. Have you ever seen a dog looking really pi$&ed off?!

..she was not amused.

The best ever, for everyone.. The Queen of Cool!

She left this get-up on for two parties without protest, it was weird. We decided that she must have decided this what what she was always meant to wear.. after all, she really is The Queen of Cool!

And don’t worry, Kylie may have thought we were playing tricks on her, but there were always treats too!

In Colorado our first  few inches of snow of the season usually comes around Halloween or shortly thereafter. It’s a day we always looked forward to, especially for Kylie.. Kylie loved the snow! The first snow usually looked something like this:

This year apparently the mild, rainy summer we had is going to lead into a long snowy winter because we’re already enduring our first significant snow storm today. (by significant we mean at least a foot of snow)

The season’s first snow was actually last week. Without Kylie it was the saddest snow ever.. 

The first fall we after we moved to the mainland was a colorful experience for all of us, and that October was the first time Kylie carved a pumpkin!

We took her to a nice farmer’s market in the garden state and we got some big pumpkins for carving and let Kylie pick out a little one for herself.  Then we gave it to her to do whatever she wanted. She would push it around, gnaw on the stem,  then bite it! She would spend a few minutes or a few hours over a few days or weeks chewing chunks out of the pumpkin and spitting them out. It made a big mess but it was fun for her, and she never ate it so obviously she was carving it!

So from the age of two she got her own little pumpkin to carve every year about this time.

It was a very important part of Halloween until just a few years ago when she apparently just outgrew the whole thing and showed no interest in her pumpkin. You know how teenagers are! But we kind of missed having her make a big orange mess all over the house.. now we really miss it.