Marley and Me: Life with the Worst Dog in the World. John Grogan

Foreword
perfect dog
In the summer of 1967, when I was ten years old, my dad finally agreed to buy a dog. We got into our station wagon and drove to a farm located on the outskirts of Michigan, which belonged to a rude woman and her elderly mother. Here you could buy only one product - dogs: of any age, size and temperament. All pets were united by two features: firstly, they were half-breeds with an unknown or dubious pedigree, and, secondly, any dog ​​was easily given into good hands. We came to the owners of these mongrels.

- The main thing, son, do not rush to choose, - said the father. - Years will pass, and you will remember your decision today.

I immediately decided that someone else would take the aging dogs out of the kindness of my soul, and without any hesitation rushed to the cage with the puppies.

“If you want to adopt a brave dog,” Dad advised, “try to make some noise and see which of the puppies doesn’t get scared.”

I grabbed the grate, chained to the cage, and pulled it. There was a loud clang, and about a dozen puppies backed away, stepping on each other's heads, turning into one big ball of fluffy fur. Only one of them, golden, with a white spot on his chest, was not afraid: he jumped up and began to joyfully lick my fingers through the bars of the cage. It was love at first sight.

I brought him home in a cardboard box and named him Sean. It was one of those dogs who uphold the good name of the four-legged. He quickly learned all the commands and was distinguished by good behavior. I could drop a bread crust on the floor and he wouldn't touch it without my permission. He ran up when he was called, and remained in place if such a command was given. In the evenings, we calmly let him go for a walk alone, knowing that he would do his business and return immediately. We could leave him at home unattended without worrying that he would get hurt and break something, although we rarely did. He ran after cars, but did not bark, and walked next to me without a leash. Sean could dive into our lake and get rocks from the bottom, sometimes so large that they got stuck in his mouth. Most of all, he liked family trips in the car, when I put him in the back seat next to me. Then he could spend hours admiring the views from the window. I think it looked especially impressive trick: he pulled my bike like a sled, making my friends jealous. Nor has the dog ever put me in danger.

He was always there - and when I smoked for the first (and last) time, and when I kissed my first girlfriend. He was sitting in the front seat of a Corvair, a car I surreptitiously borrowed from my older brother so that I could drive for the first time in my life.

Sean was an energetic but disciplined dog, gentle and calm at the same time. He was so well brought up that before sitting down and doing his business, he modestly ran behind a bush, and only his top of his head stuck out from there. Thanks to his cleanliness, it was possible to walk barefoot on our lawn.

If relatives came to visit us for the weekend, they left us determined to get a dog - they liked Sean, or St. Sean, as I began to call him, to such an extent. The dog has become our home attraction, a gift of fate. We could not believe that we got such a treasure. He did not have an enviable pedigree and was one of the many useless dogs. But by some happy, incredible chance, he became a welcome friend. I entered his life, and he - into mine, giving me the childhood that every child dreams of.

This love lasted almost fourteen years. When Sean died, I was no longer the little boy who brought him home one summer day. I grew up. He graduated from college and began working, traveling around the state on business. When I started living on my own, Saint Sean stayed at my parents' house; his place was there. One day my parents called me and told me the tragic news. By that time they had already retired. Later, my mother admitted: “In fifty years of living together, I only saw your father in tears twice. The first time it happened was when your sister Mary Ann was stillborn, and the second time was when Sean died.”

Saint Sean of my childhood. My perfect dog. In any case, that's how he remained in my memory forever. It was Sean who set the high bar by which I judged all my next dogs.

Chapter 1
Third family member
We were young and in love. In those first cloudless days of family life, we had fun with all our hearts, and every day was joyful and happy. We couldn't live without each other.

So, fifteen months have passed since our wedding, and one day, on a January evening in 1991, my wife and I, after dinner went to the post office to answer an advertisement in the Palm Beach Post. I didn't quite understand why. A few weeks earlier, when I woke up at first light, I found myself lying alone. I got up and saw Jenny, who was sitting in a dressing gown on the veranda of our house at a glass table. She was perusing the newspaper with a pen in her hand.

There was nothing unusual about this activity. Palm Beach Post is not just a local newspaper, it is the source of half of our family budget. Jenny and I worked for newspapers: she wrote for the Palm Beach Post's Accent, and I was a correspondent for the Sun-Sentinel, a rival South Florida publication that was an hour away in Fort Lauderdale. Every morning we studied the press and reviewed our articles, discussing each individual's contribution to the competition. We carefully circled and underlined entire paragraphs, and then hemmed the numbers.

But that morning, Jenny was not interested in the news, but in the special columns. I noticed that she hastily marks the ads under the heading “Pets. Dogs".

“Oh,” I said in the gentle voice of a young man, “is there anything you want to tell me?

She didn't answer.

- Jen-Jen?

“It's all about the plant,” she said at last, and there was desperation in her voice.

- In a plant? I asked.

“A dumb plant that withered because of us.

Because of us? I did not specify, but I will note: it was about a plant that I bought, and she ruined it. One evening I brought home a beautiful large dieffenbachia with emerald leaves and cream veins, which greatly surprised Jenny. "For what reason?" she asked, and since there was no reason, I exclaimed: “Damn it, isn’t the life of a married person beautiful ?!”

Jenny was impressed by both my gesture and the flower. In gratitude, she hugged me and kissed me on the lips. And then deliberately and cold-bloodedly, like a maniac, she began to destroy my gift. No, she did not seek to destroy him, but by her departure she brought the poor plant to death. Jenny had no idea how to deal with plants: she believed that all living things needed water. Therefore, I began to pour Dieffenbachia daily, completely forgetting that the plant also needs oxygen.

- Are you overdoing it? I warned her.

“Of course not,” she replied, pouring another bottle of water.

The more the plant withered, the more abundantly she watered it, until it sadly bowed to the ground. Once I noticed a fading stem and thought:

“Yes, for those who believe in bad omens, today it would be something to profit from.”

Now Jenny remembered this incident, mentally making an incredible leap from a dead plant to pets. Kill a plant, get a puppy. Yes, it definitely makes some sense.

I looked carefully at the newspaper spread out in front of her and noticed one ad that seemed to be of particular interest to her, because she drew three large red stars next to it: “Yellow Labrador Puppies. Purebred, have a club certificate. Various shades. Parents live in the house.

“So,” I began, “could you explain to me again what is the relationship between plants and domestic animals?”

“You know,” she said, looking up from her newspaper, “I tried hard, and what came of it? I can't even take care of a stupid houseplant. It's terribly difficult! But the only thing that was required of me was just to water this damn dieffenbachia.

Then came the logical conclusion:

"If I can't even handle a plant, how can you trust me with a child?" She had a face like she was about to cry.

Preoccupation with the future Child, as I called this condition, became Jenny's obsession, and every day the problem took on more and more dimensions. Jenny graduated from university a few months before we met at a small newspaper office in western Michigan, and adulthood loomed somewhere over the horizon. For me and for her, this was the first serious job after receiving a diploma. We ate pizza, drank a lot of beer, and the very fact that one day we would give up fast food seemed absurd to us.

Time flew by quickly. We barely started dating when we ended up on opposite ends of the East Coast - I enrolled in a refresher course and had to