Ok, this one definitely gets filed under “bad parenting”… once in awhile we would take Kylie to Petsmart or Petco.

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..

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It may seem a bit out of order to go from spring flowers to winter sports, but for the record it snowed on our spring flowers last night. Besides, Kylie was not one to stick to anybody’s rules about keeping things in order!

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!

Kylie always knew when it was time to stop..

and smell the flowers!

Kylie frequently had a flair for the dramatics, and when she really wanted to lay it on thick she would break out “the drama paw.”

That’s what we started calling it when we realized that she was totally using it for dramatic effect. For example, if you were eating something she thought looked particularly tasty, she wouldn’t just sit and stare – she’d stand, one paw up looking particularly desperate.  In this photo there were three BIG dogs running around at our friends’ house in the mountains. So she was feeling a tad concerned and looking for a little reassurance..

And of course, if there was a lack of service at The Cookie Bar.. here comes the drama paw (occasionally even accompanied by a tiny whimper).

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We’ve mentioned how much Kylie loved a road trip, well she really enjoyed camping too – if you did it right. And the right way to go camping was at 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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Kylie, like most dogs was not a big fan of the vacuum. She wasn’t terrified or traumatized, like with thunder, but she was very leery and overly concerned whenever we fired it up. So like with the thunder, we encouraged her to be brave. We wanted to empower her so while we were cleaning the carpet we would repeatedly tell her, “get it, Kylie!” and point at the noisy machine. And like with the thunder, it really worked!

She would walk right up to the vacuum to confront it head on, making some crazy noises. She’d be barking, howling, almost shrieking – I think at least partly because she was trying to be louder than it. But when that failed to stop it or even shut it up she pulled out all the stops.. she would actually try to bite it!

She would put her mouth on it growling viciously, then trying a new spot to chomp on, looking for a more vulnerable spot.

We have thought many times we wish we had a video of these shenanigans, but I think it never occured to us because the sound would be a little overwhelming. But I just came across these photos and had to share.

Anyway, she would pretty quickly get over it, declare a victory and go on about her business – as you may have gathered, Kylie always had a pretty full agenda. But it never failed to make us laugh!

Kylie never failed to make us happy, its hard to conceive of beginning another year without her.

Kylie’s first christmas was an eventful one… We lived in hawaii where it was very expensive to buy a real tree but we always did. Kylie’s first christmas tree survived about three days, however because during that time she managed pull it down three times!

We never witnessed how she did it specifically, but we’re pretty sure it was because she was going after a particular ornament. It was a little wicker basket with a tiny little dog and cat curled up together on a red & green plaid blanket. For some reason Kylie was determined to destroy it – and she was successful!

Eventually we managed to block off the tree, and after that first year she never again tried to destroy the tree (though for several years she seemed perplexed about why we were bringing the outdoors in), or any ornaments, she would even wait until christmas eve to tear into her presents. That first year though, we had to tell her that Santa did not bring goodies to bad little doggies – of course she still got plenty of goodies.

Now, there’s only one thing we want from Santa..

(btw, whenever you see small photos like these in a post here, you can click on them to see a larger version.)

Well since we admitted already that Kylie’s no angel, here’s a specific example of how bad (yet smart) she could be.. In order to help her maintain her mobility and flexibility in her adulthood we took Kylie swimming once a week. She didn’t “enjoy” it per se, but she was willing and  after her swim session she would always play around in the rehab area like a loony, running and jumping so it seemed to make her feel good.

During her sessions Kylie swam in an endless pool  – you know the ones that generate a current for you to swim against, and with her short neck she did have a little trouble keeping her chin up. So to help her keep from struggling we winched her up a little using the handle on the back of her life jacket. This seemed to work great until…

One day her swim coach unhooked her a little early and she didn’t see it coming and as soon as the hook came off she SANK like a stone!! For a few seconds she actually swam under water! It turns out Kylie had been FAKING it, letting the hook hold her up and pretending to swim!

We were not happy (swimming sessions were like $35/each).. but we were laughing! And soon after, Kylie found herself spending her swimming sessions on the underwater treadmill where there was no way to cheat. Although she did sometimes attempt to keep her front feet on the ledge on the front of treadmill – but hey you can’t blame a girl for trying!

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Clearly Kylie had some very specific sleeping preferences, like the princess and the pea perhaps. And of course she never had a lack of options, she pretty much had a bed in every room of the house.

Then one day we were at the grand opening of Wag n Wash in Colorado Springs, and we were having a conversation with some people about their dog, and about Kylie dog (you know how dog people are). We were going on and on, as we will do, about how great Kylie is, and how smart Kylie is, etc. And not kidding, quite literally, we were in the process of telling them how she never ever used the bathroom where she wasn’t supposed to, when somebody interrupted, and said “Uhmm,” and pointed at Kylie. She had gotten up onto the bottom shelf where they had lots of beds on display and was positioned right in the middle of a rather large one… relieving herself.

Yes, that’s right, she peed on a bed in the store!! We were mortified! But Kylie seemed oddly self-satisfied. We told the proprietors, coincidentally good friends of ours, that we would of course buy the bed. They said we didn’t have to do that but we insisted, and explained that’s why Kylie gets allowance, to pay for her mistakes. Then they insisted that because the bed was peed on, we get a discount!

The important thing to know is that when I referred to the bed in question as “rather large,” that was rather an understatement… IT IS HUGE!! Seriously, a portly St. Bernard could stretch out and sleep comfortably in this thing! But we brought it home, laundered the cover and put it back together, at which point Kylie climbed in it and promptly fell asleep. At which point we promptly figured out that Kylie peed on that bed on purpose!

Let’s be honest, Kylie was pretty spoiled. Pretty much anything she showed interest in, and plenty of things she didn’t, we bought for her. But she had to know there was no way we would have bought a rather expensive, rather gigantic, bed that we barely had room for. So what’s a dog to do? “Hmm, I’ll bet if I pee on it, they’ll have to buy it!” And what do you know.. it worked!

And from then on, for several years anyway, that was Kylie’s favorite place to snooze – in a bed five times bigger than her!

And from then on, for several years anyway, our friends at Wag n’ Wash would encourage Kylie to “shop” whenever she wanted, aka, pee on whatever she wanted!

Clearly comfort is very important to Kylie, and ok, maybe she was a little spoiled…

Once upon a time one girl bought a new set of sheets that she selected strictly for the lovely color, giving little thought to the thread count which was around 200. She came home and put the sheets on the bed where Kylie at the time normally slept with her. That night Kylie got up on the bed and laid down, but something wasn’t quite right. She tried turning around in circles before laying down again, as a dog will do when they can’t quite get comfy. When that was unsuccessful, she tried digging and digging into the sheets like she was trying to uncover the real bedding where she was accustomed to sleeping, but that didn’t work either.

So finally with a “Fffthph” she got off the bed and laid on the floor!

The new sheets were promptly returned and replaced with something in the neighborhood of 400 thread count!