Since we told you how girlie Kylie was sometimes, we should give equal time to her love for all things dirty and stinky!

She was a dog after all (or was she?), so sometimes instead of rolling on perfume samples she rolled on dead frogs or other unidentifiable stinky stuff.dirt2

Once in Jersey she took a romp through the ravine beside our apartment and came out the other side covered from the shoulder down in green-ish, brown-ish, gray-ish sludge – New Jersey sludge – and happy as a clam!

In Colorado she became mountain dog. She loved going for hikes, especially with her aunt Merrianne, especially when she got to get especially dirty.

dirt1

Of course, as the mom I would always spoil the fun and give her a bath. Even this new year’s eve, we were having guests so I was busy cleaning the house, running the vacuum, when in comes Kylie through her doggie door leaving a trail of muddy paw prints behind her. I turned off the vacuum and yelled STOP, before she got from the wood floor to the carpet! She had apparently found some sort of mud pit in her backyard which thrilled her no end. So again I was the bad guy, picked her up and carried her to the tub and she got a happy new year bath.

dirt3

Crazy, Dirty, Happy, Dirt Dog!

I know I said this wouldn’t be a chronological story and I’m sure for the most part it won’t be. Then again a little background wouldn’t hurt…

Once upon a time there were two girls. They were in their mid-twenties, living in Honolulu, and they had become fast friends with a common objective – ‘We must get an apartment so that we can get a DOG!’

So as soon as said apartment was rented regular trips to the Hawaiian Humane Society began. (Nevermind the fact that said apartment had a No Pets policy. That’s another story for another time) One day very shortly into this journey, one girl went to the Humane Society on her own and saw a very odd looking creature. It was about three feet off the ground having climbed the chain link fence gate of the dog run. “What’s that?” the girl inquired.

THAT was a mess of a lump of a “dog,” covered with motor oil and ticks, that had just come in that day. So the girl, who had been hoping to find something more along the lines of a pure-bred pup, asked to see IT. The dog was unresponsive and looked tired, beat up, and old, so the girl took pity. She put her name on a list because there was a waiting period in case somebody came to lay claim. Then she came home to announce to her roommates (there was also a boy in residence at the time) that she had found this poor, old dog who probably didn’t have long left to live so she was planning to bring her home to have a big party for whatever time she had left. (Which as it turns out, is exactly what we did!)

The next day both girls went to see the dog who had been moved from a run with three or four other dogs to a run with just a shepherd puppy to share. She had been cleaned up but now was sporting a gash on her head that we were told she got when she started a big melee with the other dogs in the pen. This seemed surprising at the time.

We took her out of the run to get acquainted but that was difficult because the little dog was so skittish. She mostly just sat on the grass, no eye contact. We gave her treats but she just tried to bury them or at least cover them with grass, which was cute but heartbreaking. The only true sign of life we saw was when we got her to walk near the area where they keep guinea pigs in cages. When she caught sight of them moving around, and presumably got a scent, she really perked up! But it was very short-lived and we just assumed, well she is a terrier of some sort so that’s just instinct.

When it was time for her to get sprung from the pokey, we went to pick her up and on her adoption papers we noticed it read “Age: appx 8 mos”. To which we said, “What?! Are you sure??” We were assured that the vet had determined this through thorough examination so we had no choice but to believe them. But it wasn’t until in the weeks and months to come, when she got BIGGER, that we really decided they must have been about right. By the way, on that last day she had been moved into a private run, all by herself, which was odd because they were at max capacity. They told us that she had turned out to be a bit of a scrapper. To which we said, “What?! Are you sure??” We would find out much later that they were right about this too.

She was a little scared of the car ride, then she walked in the door of the apartment, where she wasn’t allowed, stepped about one foot in the door and peed!

To the best of my knowledge this is the first picture of Kylie in her new home.

babykylie1

She spent three weeks laying on the couch like a potato, getting up periodically to pee on the carpet, then one day she decided she was staying so “they might as well get to know the real me,” and she WOKE up! Suddenly we had a puppy with all the craziness and destruction that comes with that!

To be continued…