Marley Dog

Sadly, since the entrance of one Mr. Everett, there has been some major doggie neglect on the blog. I started this blog when we got our original baby Marley. We adopted him in May of 2008. He was a crazy puppy and I spent endless hours exercising him, loving him, and training him. February 2009- enter dog #2. Marley had a playmate in Kai, but also someone competing for my attention. They learned to love each other and settled into life together. We went on walks every day and life was good. March 2010- enter baby #1. I'm sure if you asked Marley (and if he could talk) he'd say he could do without the kid. He likes Everett well enough and LOVES him at meal time; however, there's a lot less Marley time because of Everett. I guess that's just life. The really nice thing about dogs is that regardless of how much time you have for them and how much attention you pay them, they're always happy to see you. So here's to you my Marley dog. My first baby. I still love you lots.

dog bowls? don't mind if I do...

When I put Everett down, he's got one thing on his mind: dog bowls. I usually try to stop him, because there is typically water in one of them and dog crumbs in the other. This day he obviously got his way. He spent 20 minutes banging those aluminum bowls on our new kitchen floor. It's amazing what amuses him. I am just not buying him toys anymore. We played with an amazon box and a dog chain for 15 minutes tonight. Seriously. What a crazy kid  :)

what is it about sirens

that make my normally barking dogs do this:

sharing is caring

Everett's interesting and slightly gross first try at sharing...he made me laugh and made the dogs happy for a good 45 minutes

winter storm

The weekend before Christmas Philly was hit hard with a crazy snowstorm. We went to bed Friday night with no snow and woke up to about 4 inches on the ground! It continued to snow really hard all day and we ended up getting over a foot of snow!!! We were actually on the outer edge of the snowstorm with parts of Philadelphia receiving over 2 feet of snow!

Aaron and I love snow and operate on the policy that if it's going to be cold that there should be snow on the ground :) So, needless to say, Aaron and I were really excited with all the snow. The dogs both love the snow too and we took them out Sunday to play in it. Sadly, the snow didn't stick around for Christmas, but we enjoyed it while it lasted! Here are some pictures of our first snowstorm of the winter and the dogs (obviously) loving it :)

fall fun

Last year at this time, I found this hilarious dog costume at Goodwill and thought for 99 cents I'd try to fit Marley into it... he didn't love it. haha I just found the dog costume while organizing a closet and decided to torture Kai with it before I sent it back to goodwill ;) I sure am glad these dogs love me and put up with my harassment :)

drumroll please...

Over spring break, Kai had blood taken and sent to wisdom panel, a company who analyzed his blood to find out what breed(s) dog he was. We did the same with Marley only to learn that he was an exotic mutt. It's fun for us to guess what kind of dogs we have and then also have the ability to find out if we were right! I thought that Kai might have some bordie collie or lab in him. WRONG. Which makes me 0/2 in the dog breed guessing game. The results came back that Kai was a little less of a mutt than Marley. The test found that Kai had minor traces of German Shephard and Golden Retriever in him (about 12.5% of each). Meaning: One of Kai's "great-grandparents" was a German Shephard and one was a golden. These make sense and we can see a little of each in him. Kai's coloring is definitely shephard and he has that guard dog mentality too. We don't really see golden in his physical features, but Kai is really sweet and happy go lucky like goldens. The other 75% of him is just mutt. So here we are again, $100 poorer with a mutt. Lucky for us he's a perfect little dog!

Kai baby

























Our handsome mutts

objects in mirror are closer than they appear

Spring Break!

As a teacher in Eastern PA, every spring we get a week off of work. No complaints here. Last Friday, (our last day before break) I asked my students what they were doing over break and if they were going anywhere. I had lots of kids going to incredible places... Puerto Rico, Cali, Wales, Scotland, and the list goes on. One class asked, What are you doing Mrs. Windle? Much to my chagrin I said... Oh you know... getting my dog neutered. haha So yes, sadly, as my students will come back to school next week tan with lots of great stories, I will come back with a neutered dog. fun, fun. So since that's the only thing I have to report on ... here goes. Things went well with Kai's surgery. We just got him back home this afternoon and he's doing well. We also got a blood test on him as well (we did the same with Marley, only to find out he was an exotic mutt) So in a few weeks, we'll know what breeds our little guy is. Any guesses???

Aidan, the dog whisperer

Over Presidents Day weekend, we traveled out to Pittsburgh to hang out with my family. It was the first time that my family had met Kai. I had a feeling our nephews (aidan-6, ethan-almost 3) were going to really love Kai. Kai is pretty mellow- lets people pet him, licks instead of nips, and loves to cuddle, unlike Marley. Needless to say, they loved him! Ethan liked Kai and had fun with him, but it was Aidan that just couldn't get enough of Kai. They chased each other around the house, he petted him, held him and repeated them all over and over again. Kai even went down to my sisters house with us so that Aidan could play with him there. The other good thing was that Kai seems to be rubbing off on Marley. Marley has definitely been more calm and allows people to pet him without Marley chewing on their arms. Here are some pictures of the boys with the dogs and the newest dog whisperer, Aidan.

Aidan and Kai napping

Ethan and Kai... I'm pretty sure this was right after Ethan told Aidan "that's Kai's peepee" haha

the boys and I

Aidan, the dog whisperer with Kai and Marley

which obviously worked because these two were knocked out!

our wonder-dog

As most of you know, our older dog Marley is absolutely crazy! The lady who trained him said "I have NEVER seen a dog with this much energy, ever!" I have to agree. Marley is hyper... all the time. I have tried all kinds of things so that he can release all that energy: going on walks, going on runs, and even buying an attachment for my bike so that he can ride along with me. My latest attempt was to teach Marley how to run on our treadmill. It took a good month, but now Marley jumps on the treadmill and stays there until we stop it. I've had him on there running for an hour! We don't need to hold him there or have him on a leash- he just runs! It has been great to be able to exercise him without having to bundle up and go out in the cold. Sadly enough, I think Marley has put in more time on our treadmill than we have...

our newest family member

My friend Helene said it best when she blogged that "dogs are addicting." Apparently this is completely true since we are now the proud owners of a second rescue dog. It all started when we decided that Marley had outgrown his crate and needed a new one. It was at that point that Aaron said to me "well, I guess this means you'll want another one to fill the old crate." This wasn't what I had in mind, but it got me thinking anyway. A week later, I was bored and looking on petfinder.com at the dogs at Lamancha animal rescue where we got Marley. I had decided that if we were going to get a second dog, I wanted an older dog that was already trained. So, I found a cute hound/beagle mix who had been given to the shelter because of a divorce. I sent it to Aaron, but didn't really think anything would come of it. Well, I was wrong and Aaron wanted to go down and look at dogs that night. On the way to the rescue, I specifically told Aaron that I just wasn't sure that I wanted to come home with a dog that night. We went and looked at the grown dogs, but Aaron wasn't convinced. He insisted that we go look at the puppies. Well, at that point I knew it was over! We played with a number of puppies, until Aaron found one that he just couldn't say no to. He was a little guy with tan fur and a little pink birthmark on his nose. As soon as Aaron picked him up, the puppy started licking Aaron's face. Aaron looked over at me and said... Kristen- I really want this one. haha I just couldn't say no. So, we adopted the little guy at about 11 weeks old. Here are some new pictures of our new family member. We named him KAI (rhymes with Thai ... like the food) Aaron lays claim that Kai is "his dog" which has worked out wonderfully for me when he barks in the middle of the night :) haha Kai is really sweet and loveable dog, not to mention, much calmer than Marley. So without further adieu... here's our second little mutt, Kai

KAI!!!

don't be fooled... they're usually chewing on each other

matching tails!

seriously adorable :)

aaron and "his" dog

first snow, EVER

Last Thursday, after a long night of parent/teacher conferences, I headed home to Morgantown. It was flurrying on the drive home and by the time I pulled into our house we had about a 1/2 inch of snow on the ground. I couldn't get my clothes changed fast enough because I knew this would be the first time Marley ever saw snow. After a quick change into warm clothes, we were off. Marley didn't know what to think at first. He sort of sniffed around and tried to figure out what all this white stuff was. Snow was coming down in huge flakes by this point and more and more snow was laying on the ground. This was when Marley really started having fun. He was jumping in the air trying to catch snowflakes in his mouth and rolling around in the snow. I threw snow at him and he thought it was just the best game ever. By the next morning, we had over 3 inches of snow on the ground! We were excited Marley liked the snow so much! Lets hope for lots more snowy days!

our first snow in Morgantown

Marley still not sure what to think

ahh, play time!

so cute

family photo shoot

I decided that this year I wanted to take some pictures of Aaron, Marley, and I and send out a photo Christmas card. Let me tell you... getting a 45 lb. hyper puppy to sit for a photo shoot is near impossible. hahaha here are the results... and thanks to kels for her picture taking skills ;)

what can i say? kels had a treat ...

great minus the finger... haha

the winner!

busy, busy fall

So I realize that it has been a solid 2 months since I've blogged about anything, but this has been one crazy fall! Since Labor Day weekend, Aaron and I haven't slowed down. The start of school, 3 trips to Pittsburgh, rugby, bible study, and training Marley has pretty much filled our plates. I never got to blog about our spectacular Labor Day weekend with my childhood (and still) best friends and their boyfriends. Alysa, John, Amy, and Craig ventured from Chicago and Pittsburgh to check out our new house and see Philadelphia. We had a blast!!!

all of us on the art museum steps

me, Alysa, and Amy

We have also made numerous trips to Pittsburgh to see Kelsey play in her last collegiate soccer games. She's been playing really well and the team is playing well too!

Check them out: http://www.geneva.edu/page/womenssoccer

It's also been really nice to see my (Kristen's) parents and finally make it to a Geneva homecoming. I got to play in the GWS alumni game and it reminded me how far from soccer shape I am! haha

me, Kels, and Mom at the Alumni game

The other thing we've really been focusing on this fall is training our pup Marley. He is a great dog but has a TON of energy. We've been working with Shannon who runs Polite Paws and he has come a long way. If you need a dog trainer and live in our area... call her! We've still got a long way to go but he is doing a lot better and enjoying our daily bike rides :)

Marley and me

One of these days, hopefully soon, life will slow down...

marley... the pure bred mutt

So about 4 months ago, I started searching for different dogs to adopt. I searched for hours trying to decide the perfect dog breed for Aaron and I. Finally, we decided on a beagle. When we adopted Marley they called him "beaglet #7" and the guy (mind you it was the same guy who said he was a she) said he looked to be mostly beagle. In the beginning of July, Aaron and I took Marley to the vet to have his blood taken for his breed test. We really wanted to get an idea how big he was going to get and what he really was, although, I was positive it was going to come back a beagle/german shepherd mix. So after weeks of anticipation, the results came back. He was neither! Not an ounce of beagle in him, at least nothing that was traceable. The test said he was "an extremely complex mixed breed dog" and that "results like Marley's are found in only 15% of mixed breed dogs in the U.S." They were able to pull out "distant traces" of a few different dogs: scottish terrier (are you serious?) shiba inu, siberian husky, and weimaraner. The official analysis let us know there was a chance that maybe we'll see some traits from these dogs. haha So now, we are officially $100 poorer and own an exotic mutt. BUT, it's okay because Marley, beagle or not, is a great dog! And really, could he be any cuter?