And the winner is…

Kylie!!

That hand-puppet was the best purchase from a dollar store ever!

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.

One of our favorite photos of Kylie, ever – and that’s saying a lot! This was taken up in the mountains. Kylie loved exploring the great outdoors, especially climbing around on rocks. It took a little convincing when we first moved to colorado to get her to get her feet wet, but once she did she became some sort of river dog, more than happy to wade in and get those paws nice and muddy!

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!

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Kylie had lots of fun on the farm, but this guy was her favorite. We weren’t sure if she wanted to be friends or butt heads with him, but she certainly wasn’t afraid of him. She even tried to heard him through the fence.

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.

Only the effects of thanksgiving dinner could get Kylie to cozy up to any dog like this, let alone Ferdinand, our friends’ Great Dane..

His head is almost as big as she is!

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.

No, Kylie did not enjoy taking a bath..

..we have no explanation for this picture!

Or these (click for larger)..

..but they made her a great model for Wag ‘n’ Wash!

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