Marley and Me - Is it bad if you start crying from the preface???

I'm halfway through MARLEY AND ME by John Grogan. For the first time in a long time a book has made me cry. AND I didn't even get through the preface...

"...The love affair lasted 14 years, and by the time he died I was no longer the little boy who had brought him home on that summer day. I was a man, out of college and working across the state in my first real job. Saint Shaun had stayed behind when I moved on. It was where he belonged. My parents, by then retired, called to break the news to me. My mother would later tell me, "In fifty years of marriage, I've only seen your father cry twice..."

This book hit a chord. I had a dog like Grogan's "Saint Shaun." Koocho wasn't a Saint, but he was a good dog. My sister and I had come up with his name before we even met him (we made it up). We got him from the pound after we moved to Staten Island. I was about 7 years old. He was the most friendly puppy in the pound and we were told that he wouldn't get too big.

Koocho was the biggest dog in the neighborhood, and everyone knew him by sight and sound. During the day, we kept him in a pen in the backyard. He learned to open the gate with his nose, so we had to make sure to lock it when we were done playing with him outside. He watched over the block from the top of a 6 foot fence (he used his dog house as a step stool). He loved to surprise us with the snakes and rats he caught in the yard. When you let him out of his pen, he would run zig zags around the yard for a good 3 minutes before you could settle him down. He seemed to always be smiling. He wasn't good to walk, because he could drag you down the street, and was always ready to fight with other dogs. When my Dad, Sister and I would try to leave the house and walk into town for a movie, we could hear Koocho howling for blocks as if someone was killing him. We resorted to sneaking out the front door and climbing over the fence so he wouldn't see us leave. He was a mutt, but had some German Shepherd in his blood. I remember pretending that he was a guide dog, and walking with him with my eyes shut. He walked me right into a curb, where I tripped and fell, skinning my chin.

We let Koocho in the house at night. He couldn't be alone in the house, or he would tear apart the couch cushions in tbe basement or pee in the living room (where he wasn't allowed). Unlike small yappy dogs, Koocho never barked inside. You always knew where his was when his tags would clink together. We taught him how to sit, rollover and shake, and later "speak" on command. I almost trained him to play dead, but he would always wag his tail, knowing he earned his treat. We liked to wrestle, and one day he hit me in the mouth with his thick skull. My two front teeth became loose. The dentist said I'd be fine, but may one day say, "that damn dog." Every time I see a new dentist, I am asked if I wore braces because the roots on my front teeth are very short...my mother says it was because of "the damn dog."

Overall, Koocho was my best friend and lived a good 16 years.

My mother, who used to yell, "Get that damn dog out of here!" was the one who cried the most in the weeks after he died. She said every time she sat at the table, she was expecting him to come over with his sad eyes begging for scraps from the table. I never saw her cry like that.

Anyway, I'm enjoying this book, remembering the good and bad of Koocho as I hear Marley's adventures. I expect the crying is not over....