Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog

I purchased this book from Amazon based on the many glowing reviews it has received... and wow, I wasn't disappointed! It is definitely deserving of 5 stars. Reading it, Marley reminded me so much of my border collie, who can be a handful, to say the least. Yet, through it all, she, like Marley, despite all their mess ups, bring so much love and joy into our lives. In fact, I've heard that owning a dog, believe it or not, has been scientifically proven to increase lifespan. Dog owners live longer, for some reason. After reading this book, I really believe this to be true.

John Grogan has captured, in great writing sans big words, a believable story of "the worst dog". Ironically, I bought and had started reading his book because I had a not too well behaved, registered, purebred, standard-sized black dachshund, male, 8 years old. His name was Oscar and he was half of my pair of dachshunds, Oscar and Felix, the odd couple, Felix being a red Doxie.They were good buddies but Felix is mellow and afraid of his own shadow. Not so Oscar. He was very aggressive and stubborn, pretty much untrainable, for the 6 years, plus, that I had him. I tried patience, mild discipline, harsh discipline, short duration punishments, etc. Like John Grogan, I fell in love with both of my dogs in spite of big problems with Oscar's behavior.I could not walk "the boys". Oscar wanted to fight any dog, regardless of size, any bike, car, child, old person or heaven help us if a rabbit, quail or squirrel appeared. Oscar nearly jerked my arm out of the socket many times as, when we walked, I kept him on a leash, trying to protect him, myself and his intended victims from a vicious, snapping, snarling, bared teeth attack.He was bad in other ways, too, but this is supposed to be a review of John Grogan's book. All I can say is that it will be one book that will live with me for a very long time. About 2 to 4 days after I began reading this book, and enjoying every story, my dog, Oscar slipped a disk in his lower back, totally paralyzing both hind legs. Not an uncommon happening for long-bodied, short-leggged dachshunds, but very serious.To be brief about it, the surgery, which is not guaranteed, was priced far out of my pensioners budget. And, I felt I would be putting Oscar thru a lot of suffering. At 8 years old, he may or may not have tolerated the surgery. Being such a pail of worms, keeping him quiet post surgery would have been a nightmare for him and for me.The alternative of course was the same decision that John Grogan eventually faced with Marley - a rather abrupt need to make a hard decision.Oscar was put to sleep and cremated February 10, 2006 so the sorrow is still very much with me (and with Felix who was Oscar's life-long buddy). Reading the stories of John, his wife, Jenny and Marley, and the family children somehow helped me thru these past couple of weeks. Tears have not entirely dried and Felix still pokes around the house with his nose, obviously wondering where his canine pal has gone.If the reader is not a serious dog lover, this story won't mean as much to them as it means to me and as it will mean to any pet owner who has been there with his animal friend at the end of the day. A tear jerker, at the end of the story, but Marely is an treasure trove of hilarious adventures of exactly what can and will go wrong with a "bad" dog. Hilarious, that is, if it's someone else's dog.The author, John Grogan must be a totally wonderful, caring and understanding man or he could never have put up with Marley's truly awful behavior, not to mention his usually patient wife who took most of it in her stride, too.May the Grogan family enjoy their new golden lab, Gracie, as much as they did Marley and hopefully, with somewhat less struggle and strife.Embarrassments,there will always be. Non-dog lovers won't understand much of this book, but who cares?This lovingly, beautifully written book is a book to be read by anyone who has a dog to love.

Marley & Me is the engaging and funny story of John Grogan and his dog, Marley. But Marley deserved more at the end of his life than being locked in a kennel, feeble, deaf and nearly blind, while the family goes off to Disney World.Like all great dog stories Marley & Me is the story of a relationship. Marley is the star but the story revolves around Grogan family. While they are largely clueless about dogs and get one for the wrong reasons, they do come to love the animal. I have lived with, and loved, dogs all my life but I have never owned or even known one dog who possessed all the bad habits and phobias of Marley. I am not sure that I would have had the patience to put up with one such dog. But through it all, they did and that is the story.John Grogan is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and, as I would expect, Marley & Me is well written. He is able to show through well described events the challenges of living with a dog of boundless energy, curiosity and no manners.As described in the book Marley did appear in the movie The Last Home Run for about two minutes. The movie went straight to video and I have not seen it.While the book is well written and funny, I could not give it five stars. I would have preferred more about Marley and less about the adults, John and Jenny. Perhaps more about how the children grew as the dog aged would have added to the story. But perhaps the most troublesome event for me was how Marley's life ended. It is clear the Grogan's loved Marley but I had to wonder why they put him in a kennel at the end of his life and went off to Disney World. Then did not pick him up until the next day after they returned. The stress of the kennel was perhaps too much for him. Marley deserved better and Disney World would have been there next year.Recommendation: Read and enjoy the book and when your dog is old and feeble, be there for them like they were for you.Kyle Pratt

This is not a sentimental, sloppy homage to a wonderful, delightful dog...but instead the tale of mutual adjustment between a rather difficult, spunky dog and his owners. His poor owners had NO idea that the adorably cute pup they purchased would force them to adapt, work through despair and anger at the chaos inflicted into their lives and finally arrive at a truly loving, deeply bonded relationship. This, of course, meant they had to become more flexible, accepting and loving (either that or go berserk when they came home to find doors ripped from their hinges when Marley went into a panicky frenzy during a thunderstorm) Adapt or collapse. That was pretty much the name of the game with a dog like Marley. I don't know if Marley is the "World's Worst Dog" - as the title states - but he is certainly far from the best. Reading about how one family learned to copeand make peace with Marley should lend hope to many owners of supposedly "hopeless" dogs and (hopefully) encourage them to persevere and find a way to live with this member of their family. One of Marley's great strengths was that he knew how to LOVE wholly, passionately and unconditionally. As the author so wisely points out, towards the end of the book, Marley (like so many dogs) didn't care a whit about the things that so often obsess human members of their pack - clothing, designer items, money or class. Instead, Marley loved food, certain objects (besides food) worthy of eating and then spewing out, usually at very awkward moments... and, of course, his owners. He saw every waking moment as a new adventure and was wildly enthusiastic, when he wasn't disgracing himself in some totally new way. Actually, he remained pretty enthusiastic even in the face of humiliation. Humiliations aside, we should all be so lucky. Loving those you live with, savoring your meals, going through life at full throttle and shrugging off humiliations in pretty short order...one could do worse. Marley never meant to pass on such wisdom - but inevitably his owners couldn't fail to pick up on some of the lessons he taught them, however unintentionally.

I simply had to have this book after watching the movie. The novel is solidly written and while the movie sticks pretty much to the book, there's so much more detail of the life of John Grogan, his family, and good old Marley that you'll want to make sure and pick up both movie and book.John Grogan was a reporter turned columnist in South Florida when he and his bride Jenny purchased an adorable little puppy and named him Marley, after Bob Marley. Marley proved, while growing up, to be an oversized, over-eating, unconventional and irascible dog. Breaking away from the leash and running off, humping poodles and other things, failing obedience classes and humiliating the instructor, crawling out of a moving car, eating Jenny's beautiful necklace John bought her when she first found out she was pregnant, jumping on people, chewing on anything in the house, howling at thunderstorms, tobogganing down a hill on top of John ... in other words, Marley was a holy terror.John began to write about Marley in his newspaper columns, and soon all of South Florida knew and loved Marley and his antics. From puppy to adult to old age and sadly, his death, Marley was definitely a part of the Grogan family. John Grogan is a very talented writer (well, he does it for a living) and tells Marley's tale in this book with talent, humor, tragedy, and finesse. The Grogan family was definitely blessed to have such a unique dog. That John Grogan took his pen and turned his memoirs of life with Marley into a book is a blessing, allowing all readers to enjoy the antics of the world's worst dog. This is a not-to-be-missed book; make sure you pick it up, and the movie as well. Ten Stars! Enjoy!