Marley -Our Special Rescue Dog

Susan Lewis

In January 2008, our beloved dog, Yogi, went to the great doggie park in the sky. It broke our hearts as he was like a child to us. We didn’t think we would ever want another dog.

As the months passed, the house was so quiet and we knew something was missing from our happy home. We decided to check the Rescue Websites for another dog. In August of 2008, we saw photos of 11 rescue puppies that were born on the first day of the Olympics. They were absolutely adorable. At that moment, we knew we wanted another dog and we wanted one of these puppies. We drove to the foster home and looked at each one of them. We decided on one that was named Lezak. He looked at us with those brown eyes and had such a mellow demeanor that we decided he was the one for us.

We named him Marley (after Bob Marley) since we had spent our honeymoon in Jamaica many years ago and the island still held many precious memories for us. We were sure Marley would do the same.

He came into our house and felt right at home. Of course, we didn’t know that he was going to make it HIS home. The mellow little dog quickly became rambunctious and not so mellow. Always curious and nosey, he would get into the smallest places and make them his own little forts. He would hide out and play hide and seek. Our home soon had barriers and baby doors set up so that we could locate him when we were home.

Like all puppies, he soon discovered that chewing on DVDs, wood chips, and coke bottles were more fun than his 200 toys! As with any child, everything had to moved to a higher level. As he approaches his one year birthday, we have found that his antics bring us a lot of smiles and laughter. The joy of watching how much fun he has with an old stuffed animal when there is no stuffing is better than watching television.

He sits in our bay window for hours watching the neighbors and “his four legged buddies” walk by the house every day. The pure joy of just having a home that allows him to relax and enjoy life has made us realize our lucky we are to have those things as well.

There is no greater joy than coming home from a hard day at work and getting greeted with that 6 inch tongue just slobbering for attention. The unconditional love that he gives us every day is why we love him. He is smart, handsome, and quite the comic. It is humor and love that keeps us all young at heart and it is what we got when we rescued this special dog.