We were in Seattle, obviously, and we spent a lot of time trying to get the perfect picture of Kylie with the Space Needle. (It didn’t take nearly as long as getting her pic w/the Hollywood sign, but that’s another story).

What’s funny about this photo is that somebody else saw it and asked us if we were trying to get her to look like the Space Needle… We hadn’t even noticed.

When we adopted Kylie, and she rescued us, we agreed that we were going to raise her the way we wanted to be raised – with NO rules whatsoever (except the potty training of course)! Kylie was allowed to do whatever she wanted, and to BE whatever she wanted. And we are now pretty convinced that’s why she had such a vivid imagination and such a huge personality.

Then several months after she came to live with us, we went on a trip to visit friends on the west coast and Kylie stayed with some of her favorite people at the time, our friends Derrick & Tammy. They adored Kylie, and every time we called to check on her they would tell us about some silly thing she had done or that she liked to eat bamboo shoots, and “what kind of dog eats bamboo shoots?!” Then during one of the phone calls the question was, “Did you know she didn’t know how to sit?” And we were confused about the past tense-ness of the question.. “Yes, of course we knew that. Did you teach her to sit?!”

“Yes, she learned really fast and she likes learning stuff!”

“Aarrgh! you broke our dog.”

Ok, that’s not exactly what we said, but that’s what we thought. We didn’t want her to learn normal dog stuff, we wanted her to be a free spirit. (aka, we were bad parents)

As it turned out it was pretty handy that Kylie knew how to sit, but we never did teach her to roll over or speak or any of that other “normal dog stuff,” oh except for high-five which came accidentally many years later while watching the super bowl. But we didn’t really need to, Kylie was just a really good dog AND a free spirit!

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.

One hot, sunny, saturday afternoon we went with our friend and Kylie’s doctor, Monica to Denver’s fancy-schmancy Cherry Creek North to have sushi among the elite.

And no one’s more elite than Kylie!

So of course she sat at the table, and of course they brought her her own water glass and of course she did eat some sushi.

She was very sophisticated when she wanted to be!

Kylie loves root beer! It’s just one of the things she has in common with Snoopy.

And she knew the difference.. if you tired to give her coke or pepsi she would take one drink and look at you like, “wth? something’s wrong with this root beer.” Then she’d have no more of it! And around here, it’s always Barq’s root beer, because Barq’s has bite! It also has caffeine – it’s the only root beer that does – and if there’s anything Kylie needed it was a caffeine buzz!

Speaking of a buzz.. if there was any beverage she liked more than root beer it was Bailey’s! OMG, she went crazy for that stuff! Once she knew you were drinking Bailey’s she was on you like a… like a terrier. We figured it was because as part jrt, she was part irish, therefore of course she likes Bailey’s, plus that stuff tastes like liquid candy! (cough, cough, bad parenting)

You may have noticed the giant rawhide bone in the photo where Kylie was shredding one of her toys.. it’s hard to miss, its as big as her!

We bought it for her because we thought it would be funny to see her try to maneuver it, but the joke was on us.. she would carry it up and down the hall, banging it into furniture and the walls but not slowing down. And you’ll notice, one end is totally missing!

Kylie was never afraid of a challenge!

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.”

In 2002 we went on a trip back to NJ and wanted to spend a day in NYC. Kylie always enjoyed taking a bite out of the Big Apple and SoHo is very dog friendly so we went shopping!

Since it was early 2002 things there were still very tense there and it just so happened that we came out of a store and there was some sort of suspicious activity, and several law enforcement types had descended and rushed us across the street to avoid whatever “danger” was lurking. Of course instead of deciding to duck & cover, we stood around across the street with Kylie to try and figure out what was going on (more bad parenting).

So since there really wasn’t anything going on we decided to use it as a photo op! We were even trying to work up the nerve to ask one of new york’s finest to pose with her, but decided that until things were back to at least code orange it probably wasn’t a good idea. This photo later became very popular on Kylie’s website as the heading for KNN – Kylie’s News Network.

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!

This is the first of many posts that will simply feature a favorite photo of Kylie (of which there are thousands – literally), whether it’s a glamorous location or just plain funny, with a bit of information about where it was taken , etc. We will cleverly call this category “snapshots.”

I think these are actually her cousin’s Gracie’s Doggles because they look a little big for Kylie. But this was a long drive and Kylie was always great for some entertainment on the road!