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.

Inquiring minds want to nose!

Kylie has a very subtle approach to meeting unfamiliar creatures..

One of Kylie’s favorite things was a road trip! We went all over.. From New Jersey we went all up and down the east coast, and from Colorado we would pick a direction and just go. The destination was not nearly as important or exciting as the journey.

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!

Playing in the snow

Warming in the sun

Kylie was always thankful for Thanksgiving..

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

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

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..  🙁

Kylie’s trip to the Grand Canyon.

Normally she liked to live on the edge, but this one made her a little nervous!