We’ve begun hearing the first claps of springtime thunder around here and it makes us miss Kylie even more – if that’s possible. She had always been especially scared of loud noises, which is why we called her Chicken Little. Of course then when we found out about the drive-by we felt terrible and once again realized we had been really bad parents!

Anyway, once we moved to the mainland and had thunderstorms to deal with regularly, they didn’t just frighten Kylie, they would send her under the bed for the rest of the day, shaking and cowering. It was heartbreaking and absolutely nothing would console her, until…

One day, I don’t know how we got the idea, but during a particularly thunderous thunder storm we started encouraging her to BARK back at the thunder. And she did! Meekly at first, but with encouragement she got braver and of course louder! And louder, and louder, and louder, barking, howling, and carrying on like a lunatic!! All the while we would cheer her on and she loved it, and we loved seeing her brave and empowered instead of terrified. Knowing that thunderstorms are a common fear for dogs, we thought we should do an infomercial or something about how to empower your pooch, and get rich.

Then we went on vacation to hawaii – the only place we went on vacation without Kylie – and a friend of ours stayed at our house to take care of Kylie. One day when we called to see how they were doing, the friend who sounded very tired told us they were fine but there had been a series of storms the night before, in the middle of the night, and well therefore she was pretty tired at work that day.

“Oops, sorry about that,” we apologized. We felt a little guilty, but we explained our motivation for encouraging the foul-weather ferociousness. Fortunately there weren’t any more stormy nights during our trip and we brought our friend a large quantity of macadamia nuts and all was forgiven!

We of course continued to instigate the insanity, especially in colorado where thunder comes almost daily from late May to early July.

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!

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.

It’s kind of cliche’ to begin a story at the end but in this case it’s absolutely necessary just to get the sad part out of the way. This site is intended to chronicle the laughs, the love, the life of Kylie, and to remember how wonderful she made our lives everyday!

Last week, sadly Kylie, had to move on from her life with us to greater adventures. But we will never forget how she changed our lives.

Kylie was truly exceptional, and one of a kind, totally worthy of her own website on the internet since 1996! But for those of you not familiar with kyliedog.com, here are some things you should know:

Kylie was more well-traveled than lots of people. She was born in hawaii which truly makes it paradise, we adopted her from the Humane Society there when she was eight months old. Then we moved to new jersey when she was 4 and that became her launching pad. She’s literally been from coast to coast (and Canada) including:

New York City (including Times Square, Central Park, and Rockerfeller Center at Christmas)
Boston
Philadelphia
Amish Country
New England
Washington DC
Toronto
L.A.
Hollywood
Las Vegas (one of her favorite destinations)
Seattle
Vancouver
Plus many less “exciting” destinations like Kansas, Texas, Nebraska, South Dakota, etc.

Kylie loved road trips! She visited multiple world’s wonders – Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, The Grand Canyon, and Old Faithful. She’s seen Hoover Dam, The Space Needle, Pike’s Peak, Royal Gorge bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, even the Hockey Hall of Fame (can you believe they wouldn’t let her in)! And of course the ever-popular roadside oddities like Carhenge, that big thermometer in Baker, CA, and the entire town of Roswell, NM.

We moved to colorado about seven years ago and Kylie loved it here too. The weather is nice in Denver almost all the time so she got to go on many hikes, and loves climbing up rocks and walking through streams, and chasing bunnies, and she really loves the snow, going sledding, and going to the mountains!

Kylie is quite famous! She was on the radio when we had a friend in honolulu that was a dj who let her hang out in the booth with him. Then she moved on to television when her Psychic Puppy Network got media attention. It was featured on the So Graham Norton show in the UK, then she was interviewed for a television show called “The Internet Tonight” on the former TechTV channel (now G4). PPN (the psychic puppy network) was also featured in a newspaper in florida, on USA today’s website, on Seventeen magazine’s website, and for awhile it was a link on Penn & Teller’s website.

Kylie was even a model! Wag n Wash used her as a spokesmodel on their website and in their brochure and print ads. She was very photogenic even though she really didn’t like the camera. Kylie is possibly one of the most photographed dog in the world, just visit her flickr page (or click all the blue links in this post) and you’ll see what I mean.

Kylie was such a comedian, she made us laugh almost every day. She was our child, our best friend, and she was a Rock Star! She was loved by everyone who knew her, and thanks to her website even by some who never met her. We were so privileged that she shared her life with us.

Of course kyliedog.com and our memories of this sweet funny girl will live on. It was all a work of love, for the most special soul we have ever known, but we still find ourselves driven to share the wonderment of Kylie with the rest of the world – she really was just too special for just two girls to maintain – so here we will share her with you. Not in chronological or any other kind of order necessarily, just as it comes. We hope it will bring you a small fraction of the happiness she brought to us.