Since Its Doghouse Week Here on Spice and Sass

Here is  Marley, dressed in his holiday finery as Reindog.  As you can tell by the gray around his mouth and eyes, this was an older wiser Marley.  You can see him as a young golden retriever here.

Well, as you can tell by his size, Marley liked to eat.  A lot.  His paw was as big as my hand.  In his younger days he had the agility which made his appetite quite a problem. Once my brother and I were super excited about a $12 piece of Brie stuffed with pine nuts and pesto, wrapped lovingly in puff pastry.  After patiently bakaing it, it was super hot, so we left it on the counter to cool for 5 minutes, and exited the room to remove ourselves from temptation.  Marley felt no need to wait for anything to cool.  The entire Brie was gone in about seven seconds.  I was depressed for about seven days- I really love cheese.

But that doesn't explain why Marley hates Christmas- it seems like he would like it- Santa Paws would come and bring him extra milk bones, his family is around, he gets to wear his reindog ears (well that might have something to do with his dislike).. . .

Marley hated the holidays because it brought back bad memories of the Hershey Kiss incident.

During the holidays, my mom used to put out big bowls of Hershey Kisses.  My little brother (who's probably 15, because I was around 18), and I are sitting in the living room listening to some Christmas music and checking out our loot after Christmas Eve church.  We get up to do something, and come back in the room.  I notice the huge bowl full of kisses (probably 2 big bags) is empty, and immediately start making fun of my brother "Hhahaha- you fat ass I can't believe you ate all those kisses" etc.  He vehemently denies eating the kisses.  Mystery.

We ask our parents who look at us like we have lost our minds.  Brother and I are looking high and low- did they spill somewhere?  There's no wrappers laying around. 

We look at Marley, who is grinning.  His grin is especially captivating, and his teeth sparkle . . .with aluminum foil wrappers!  That damn dog had eaten 2 bags of kisses, wrappers and all.  He hadn't shared with the three other goldens we had at that point, he ate the whole thing.  Himself.

So Mr. Marley had to go get his stomach pumped Christmas Eve around 11 o'clock at night at the emergency vet clinic in the hood.  Santa Paws gave him some definite lumps of coal that year!