Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Marley & Me - our dog and John Grogan's Marley.


Marley & Me is a book by John Grogan. I'm pretty sure everyone would have heard about it by now since it was made into a movie last year.

After our Brinkley died and I was just so sad we got our new puppy and while we were waiting for him to arrive to our home the children and I tried to think of what we would call him.

As I've mentioned before I just loved the name Brinkley for a dog and only having our Brinkley for two years was not nearly enough time for me to enjoy the name or the dog. I was tempted so close to naming our second puppy Brinkley II, but was talked out of it by a good friend.

So then I researched puppy name web sites and read out the hundreds of names to the children - we came up with Bentley, Bundy, Fluffy, Muffy (see my guinea pig post and you'll guess who picked that name), and Marley. In the end we all agreed to Marley and so that was the name he was given. I wrote to my good friend telling her of our choice and she emailed me that day to tell me about a great book named Marley & Me. I had never heard of it and the movie was not yet made. Within a few days a gift parcel arrived in the post and I received John Grogan's book - Marley & Me from my friend.

I devoured the book in a few nights. I have never laughed so much and I read out portions of it to my husband and the children over dinner. If you haven't read it yet and you love pets please do yourself a favour and read it...it really is the best.

I cried in parts too and then I was so eager to see the movie when it was released. I enjoy Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston both as actors so I was excitedly imagining them in the roles of John Grogan and his wife. I think we saw it on opening day. I must say I was sadly disappointed. I don't really know how to explain why, maybe it's partly that watching movies after I've read the book has always disappointed me - they never live up to the book, or maybe it was just the weird way it was filmed....I'm not a film critic so I'll leave that to those that are, but I didn't enjoy the movie nearly as much as I thought I would. There was that strange jumping through time scene and the filming of that just lost me...


Back to the book though, I loved the antics of John Grogans' Marley. One of my favourite parts was when they took him to the open air cafe and tied him to the table legs and he dragged the table through the cafe as he tried to chase another dog (a poodle I think). The other part was when he took Marley to the off-leash beach and Marley swallowed all that water. I've seen our own Marley do that in my parents swimming pool. Not pretty!!!

So what was your favourite part of the book?

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