Marley & me,
John Grogan
Synopsis
John and Jenny were young and deeply in love, with a perfect little house and no care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.
Marley quickly grew into an uncontrollable ninety-seven-pound steamroller of a Labrador retriever. Expelled from obedience school, even the tranquillisers prescribed by the vet couldn’t stop him.
Yet through the chaos and the hilarity, he won hearts and remained a steadfast model of devotion to his family, even when they were at their wits’ end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms.
__________________
Richard says
First, if you are or were a dog owner, don’t read this review. It is a promotion of Grogran’s book, Marley & Me, which is very difficult to read if you are sensitive and emotional.
I have owned three dogs and still have one, Fermo.
My first two dogs were Bouviers des Flandres, Tasza and Sobie (Sobieski). Both were very big dogs, when they barked the exterior walls vibrated. Yet both were gentle as lambs, lovable and protective. They were very good dogs; I was the inept master, unlearned, unskilled and ignorant of how to work with dogs. Then I got Fermo, a Scottish Terrier, an obstinate mule, respondent to training but resistant and slow. Slow, not like less than intelligent, more along the lines of “I might do it; I will do it when I am in the mood; nahh, not interested in doing that.”
I am a more learned dog owner this time around, but I have a dog who is very independent-minded. He understands every command and learns them quickly but responds at his pace when and only if he wants to. Some commands he can’t resist are sit and down. Others, he ‘considers as optional before reacting’, and the reaction isn’t necessarily obedience.
Fermo is twelve years old and a senior dog. You see, he has aged in how he does certain things much more slowly than his younger days. He is less active than he once was, plays less than before, and even seems reluctant to go up stairs or down them. He doesn’t have arthritis yet, I don’t think. His stair hesitance is because it takes energy, something he has in diminishing supply as he ages. It is noticeable. And I worry about the final outcome, the inevitable.
Marley & Me is the story of a Labrador who joins the ranks of worst dogs in the world, incorrigible, untrainable, destructive, but incredibly, very lovable.
Grogan is a newspaper journalist with years of experience writing for Florida newspapers. This means his book is a polished narrative that reads easily and well.
The story is a good one about a dog who is so incredibly difficult as a pet that many pet owners would consider putting him to sleep and saving the world from the agony of a miserable pet life. The Grogan’s rejected the idea. Instead, they coped, put up with, struggled and lived with a dog who may not had malevolent motives for living, but he definitely had destructive ones. Vets, dog trainers and other pet owners pushed the idea of euthanasia for Marley. The Grogan’s gave that idea a hard pass.
For thirteen years, the growing Grogan family kept Marley as the family pet, disciplining him, repairing his destruction, tangling with his super dog energy and loving him more and more.
The book becomes a very emotional read when we reach Marley’s old age. Any dog owner with experience of an ageing dog will relate to this part of the book. Grogan is a master story when he reaches this part.
If you aren’t moved to tears while reading the last days of Marley’s life, you have no feelings; you have no sensitivity, and you don’t feel what it is to love a dog and have that love returned, unquestionably and fully.
Marley & Me is an excellent read, well written, well developed, with great anecdotes and a book to which dog owners can easily relate. It is also a very sad book as it reminds us of mortality, both our pets and our own.
Marley & Me is a must-read.
