Marley and Mary and Me

I read “Marley and Me” ages ago - in fact, the book hadn’t even hit the bestseller list yet . I remember thinking that it was a sweet story about people who loved their dog. I also have to admit that I didn’t give it too much thought after that … until now, that is.

The ‘net is abuzz with Marley - or perhaps I should say that the message boards, blogs and dog-centric websites are. Calling the movie everything from a tragedy that glorifies bad pet ownership to a teaching tool, dog people are lambasting, bashing, and bad-mouthing the movie as a testament to all the is wrong with what they consider “bad” dog owners. Thinking that I must have had a lapse in my cognitive skills when reading the book (or maybe it was just an very extended senior moment!), I had to go see this movie. How could I have completely missed the fact that Marley’s owners were such lousy people?

Given all I had read and feeling that, given the vehemence of the reviews, I maybe was really missing the boat, I decided that I had better not go this task alone. I enlisted Mary to come with me. As a great dog person and owner of two wonderful Pugs (Hi Graham! Hi Quinn!), I felt sure that she, being a no nonsense type person, would catch what I may have missed.

We went to the matinee of “Marley and Me” yesterday and sat through the entire thing. We laughed at puppy antics. We agreed that the “dog trainer” was an ass. We counted how many different “Marleys” were used to film it (we got to 8 adults). We got misty-eyed at the end. No where, not once, did either of us see lousy people - what we did see was “Joe Average” dog owner who doesn’t participate in message boards, read dog related blogs (even mine!) and have probably never heard of dogster.com or itchmo.com or even infodog (which is my most visited website).

The fact of the matter is that most of the dogs out there are Marleys and jump on people and run away and eat whatever happens to be on sale supplemented from what they get out of the trash can - and their owners love them like crazy just the same.

You know something? That is the wonderful thing about dogs - they don’t care that their owners aren’t perfect and they certainly don’t care if they do a straight sit or can hold a long down. They don’t even care if their food is off the bargain rack or leftovers from the kid’s plates. They just want to be a part of the family - and Marley was ... and in abundance.

I have to wonder, what's so lousy about that?

(and to all you nay-sayers, I have one thing to add - Let he who is without chewed sneaker cast the first stone...)