Marley
Marley passed away peacefully today just one month and three days shy of his 14th birthday. He had been declining the last week or so and may have had a small stroke on Wednesday. Marley was a fantastic dog. A lab that hated the water so he wouldn’t have been a good duck hunting dog. But that’s okay. He was the best companion anybody could have ever asked for. He was the smallest of his siblings (the runt of the litter as they say) so they liked to pick on him. The day I went to take a look at the puppies, the breeder asked me what I was looking for. A hunting dog? Nope. Just a nice companion dog. As all of the other puppies were swarming around my feet, he pointed over to a hill across the yard that Marley was sitting on top of. “That’s your dog” is what he said. I already had a name picked out. Henry. And he even looked like a Henry. When I came back to pick him up a week or so later, the family confessed they were hoping nobody claimed him because they were planning on keeping him. I told them not to worry and that he would have the best life ever. I didn’t have a kennel to put him in so I just put him on my lap. As we were leaving, the song “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley came on. His ears perked up and he looked around like where was that sound coming from? So, I played the song over a few more times on the way home, while at the same time deciding that I guess his name needed to be Marley instead of Henry. It fit him now. So, as he heard the words, “Don’t worry…..bout a thing…..every little thing’s…….. gonna be alright” when I brought him home 13 plus years ago, I say the same words to him today………..”Don’t worry……bout a thing……every little thing’s……gonna be alright”. Thank you Marley, for the life you shared and for the lessons you taught. You will be missed tremendously.
