Right on top of Kylie’s head, near the middle of that white stripe, there was a bump on her little skull. You couldn’t see it but you could feel it, it had always been there, a little left of center (which seemed appropriate).

Our first thought.. devil horns!

But there was only one and it wasn’t really in the right place.

Then we realized she must have been a Unicorn!!

It was a little off-center because you know the unicorn’s horn is a spiral.

It made perfect sense and explained why Kylie was so very UNIque!

Well since somebody noticed something missing in the previous snapshot we had better go ahead and explain how Kylie got her gangster name, “Kylie Three Toes,” in addition to all her other nick names.

Several years ago we spotted a fairly innocent looking bump on the inside of Kylie’s back left foot. Dr. Monica took a look and couldn’t really tell what was going on so we decided we better remove it and have a biopsy done. We got the news in just a few days that it was in fact a nerve sheath tumor, so Kylie had to have a second surgery this time to remove the entire toe.

Fortunately, with the amputation we got good margins and fortunately Kylie hardly noticed the absence. At first we called it her “magic monkey paw,” but Monica did not appreciate that so we settled on her “lucky fin.” But after awhile we didn’t notice the absence either, it was just part of who she was.

When Kylie was about 3 or 4 she got really sick and we were really worried. We took her to the vet and they ran all kinds of tests and at some point they came in to the room where we were waiting nervously and said, “you know that she’s been shot, right?”

“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!

—

April 24th was the day that we celbrated Kylie’s Birthday [ Her actual date of birth was likely earlier in the year, if we believe what they estimated correctly when we got her from the Hawaiian Humane Society. ] And celebrate we did!

We tried to make every birthday special. If the weather was nice there was usually a picnic in the park, and a shopping trip. Sometimes we celebrated with friends, always with our little family. Sometimes we even went on a little trip to the mountains or something. But there were two things that we ALWAYS did.. we always had a Happy Meal (or some other fast food kid’s meal for lunch), and we always had CAKE!

We would sing the birthday song – which was her favorite song and she would jump and dance!

Of course there were also presents, and Kylie thoroughly enjoyed opening presents!

Today Kylie would be 16, and since last year we were dreaming of her Super Sweet 16 party that would be worthy of Mtv; with pink & silver streamers and a Barbie car since she would be old enough to drive (legally this time)!

Today we are very sad.

Happy Birthday Kylie, we miss you so much.

When we lived in jersey, both girls had 8-5 jobs away from the house and away from Kylie (neither of us could have imagined that in recent years – we’ve been working almost entirely at home since 01). But Kylie was very much in need of supervision + we missed her a lot, so we set up the Kylie Cam, a live, streaming web cam that we could monitor online from our desks.

Mostly she just slept on the couch, until friends at work learned about the camera and learned that if they called the apartment the phone ringing would wake Kylie up. So the poor thing was constantly having her naps interrupted.

We were also able to take still pictures with the web cam and it gave us some of the funniest pictures ever!

click the images for slightly larger versions.

I’m not sure if this is “normal behavior” but we liked to incorporate Kylie’s name into songs and she loved it! Some favorites on the playlist:

“Oh Kylie” – (sung to Steve Perry’s Oh Sherrie) Oh Kylie, our love holds on, holds on.

“Kylie Dancing” – (sung to Gwen Stefani’s Hella Good) You got me feeling hella good so I’m just Kylie dancing.

“Kylie” – (instead of Call Me by Blondie) Kylie, my love you can Kylie any any time, Ky-lie.

And maybe the best one.. “Kylie” – (instead of Mickey by Toni Basal) Oh Kylie you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind hey Kylie, hey Kylie!

Kylie’s very favorite song also had her name in it.. Happy Birthday! We used to celebrate at least birthday week around here, sometimes it was even birthday month. And since Kylie didn’t have many doggie friends she didn’t have to share much of her doggie birthday cake. So as long as her cake lasted, we would sing to her at least once a day when the cake was served. So as soon as you started with the “Haaappyyy,” she would start dancing! Kylie dancing!

And here is Kylie’s favorite cake..

From local dog  bakery, Remington & Friends, it’s some kind of sugar free cake with low fat cream cheese frosting with chunks of chicken on top! According to Kylie, it was awesome!

PS: My favorite song to sing to Kylie did not have her name in it.. You Are the Sunshine of my Life by Stevie Wonder:

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?

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

Kyliedog.com has been around since 1996 – way before myspace or facebook or dogster, or any of that stuff. And Kylie’s diary was launched in 2002 before anybody knew what a “blog” was.

All that internet exposure amassed Kylie her own little fan base of some really wonderful people. People who never met her but loved her from afar and regularly followed her antics. We have received several messages from them recently but perhaps none so touching as the one we received today:

My husband sent me a Kylie card so many years ago I can’t remember when she wasn’t a part of our lives! He has kept me updated as this site has grown from Kylie’s offering of fortunes to seeing her photos sleeping in the sun to watching her travels!
We love looking at every photo of Kylie and reading every story! We are heartbroken that she is gone, especially because she died on my birthday! But we know she lives on in heaven with all the other pets who live in our hearts on earth. We lost our 1st Jack Russell, Libby just before she turned 20 and I am certain she and Kylie are rolling in their own special dirt baths in the sky as I type!
Two other Russells live with us now: Sully & Katie. We know the special love these crazy pups bring to those of us special enough to live with them. Sully and Katie came to us from Jack Russell Rescue as will all the Russells who will live with us throughout our lives.
Thank you so much for loving this lucky little dog so obviously and so deeply! Thank you for sharing her life with us and all the other who are now fans of hers and you forever. When we lost Libby our hearts were crippled with grief. At some point, thankfully, we began to notice that we could think of her without tears and soon enough, we were able to think of her as we do now: with great laughter, fond stories and the great love that continues to grow even today! We hope you are soon able to remember her with fewer tears. What an amazing life you shared with her…we know you were as lucky, if not luckier, than she! We truly wish you the best!
————-

Kylie cards, like the one above, are one of the most popular features on kyliedog.com and just one more way we were able to share Kylie with the world. And in this case, a simple Kylie card allowed Kylie to bring joy to two people’s lives for years.

It was wonderful to receive this email today and to be reminded that Kylie really was special – not just to us, not just because she was ours.. just because she was Kylie.

As hard as it was for us in the beginning to believe that Kylie was still a puppy, she was very determined to convince us. She was very destructive!

Kylie destroyed everything! Her favorites were electrical cords, she chewed through phone cords, fan cords, extension cords, and more cords. We tried putting tobasco sauce on the cords, that just made her more determined; we tried that bitter apple stuff which merely inconvenienced her but she would not be deterred. She threw up at some point (go figure) and there were bits of copper wire in the mix (sorry, that’s gross). Once we were even sitting in the living room, watching television in the evening when we heard a ZAP, a YELP, and the lights went out simultaneously. She had chewed through a lamp cord while it was plugged in and even that didn’t convince her to find a new hobby!

She also seemed to fancy unmentionables when she was looking for something to tear up – bras and boxer shorts, etc. Yeah… no idea what that was about.

Kylie got into the trash all the time, she knocked the christmas tree over that first year several times. It got to the point that when we were driving home we would start getting stressed out wondering.. what did Kylie destroy today.

Our solution was a little unique – we set up a Kylie rescue fund. Each week her three roomates would put money into Kylie’s piggy bank so that when she broke something the money to replace it came out of her savings. It worked out pretty well.. when she would destroy stuff, she had to pay to replace it out of her allowance!

When Kylie grew out of chewing things up finally, we kept putting the money in the piggy bank weekly and started calling it her allowance. Interestingly, even though Kylie would chew up almost anything, including paper and magazines, she would never destroy cash. And if you happen to miss a weekend payment, she would be sure to let you know!

Over the years she got the occasional raise and since she wasn’t having to pay to replace things, she built up a savings and eventually we opened an interest bearing bank account for her where she typically had a couple thousand dollars. Then Kylie was able to use her own money to buy christmas presents for family and friends and occasionally make a donation to an animal rescue.

I don’t know how we came up with it, but most every dog parent we’ve told about it has said it was a great idea and they wanted to try it. I guess we should have written a book about puppy parenting – we could have called it “what not to do.”

Hush Puppy was a hand puppet and one of Kylie’s first toys, who then became Kylie’s boyfriend or something. Many times we came home to something like this..

(Yes, we had a car seat in the living room as furniture.) Then at some point Kylie seemed to have moved on and Hush Puppy had been ignored for months. So while cleaning house we decided to make more room for the several other toys that had been accumulated since, so Hush Puppy went out with the trash.

Later that day a friend called and during the conversation he said, “I think Kylie’s upset about something.” He and Kylie had a very special relationship, they were like telepathic or something. And I could not deny it, she seemed despondent and quite dissatisfied.

I said, I didn’t know what was wrong with her, she had seemed fine earlier and it didn’t seem like she was sick or anything, but very not like herself. So then he asked, “Did you take something away from her.” And I said “No… Well I did get rid of Hush Puppy but she hasn’t played with him in forever.” He said emphatically, “That’s it! You better get him back!”

I briefly protested but soon found myself literally dumpster diving outside our apartment to fetch Hush Puppy from his odoriferous fate. Kylie greeted him warmly and her mood was instantly improved.

Needless to say, Hush Puppy’s residence was never again threatened, even when he had gone completely ignored and forgotten for years and Kylie had clearly outgrown him and moved on. Even when we would periodically go through all her toys with her and decide which toys could be donated to a local shelter, Hush Puppy stayed put.

We weren’t willing to take any chances!

We mentioned before that when the first girl first saw Kylie she thought that she was an old dog who had had a rough life and she wanted to bring her home so we could give her a big party for whatever life she had left. Then we found out Kylie was still a puppy! They said she was approximately eight months old and we totally didn’t believe them – until she started exhibiting some very puppy-like behavioral issues. For example, she peed everywhere!
So after about six days of potty-training with poor results, the first girl, who was Kylie’s official adopter, said she couldn’t take it and she was taking Kylie back. The shelter offered a seven day warranty of sorts so that if things didn’t go well you could take back your adopted pet with no questions asked, and she was prepared to send Kylie packing. So girl 2 stepped in and said she would accept all responsibility for the little pisser! This included cleaning up after all the “mistakes” that were made until Kylie was successfully housebroken as well as making sure that the housebreaking actually did happen. So the deal was done, there was even an official title transfer.
The truth was revealed by girl 1 much later, that it had nothing to do with the pee pee problems. She had quickly begun to feel way to attached to the little bean head (another favorite nickname), and was feeling a very vulnerable sense of dread about eventually having to go through exactly what we’re going through now having lost our sunshine. 🙁 In retrospect, a very reasonable reaction. And in the end she wasn’t spared the devastation and despair of the loss of the little monster. But she got to share in every day of the wonderful insanity that was the Life of Kylie, which neither girl would trade for anything in the world.

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!