JOHN GROGAN

I take a lot of satisfaction in trying to make my land as self-contained as possible, its own little mini environment. Minimal outputs; minimal inputs.

I can't solve the world's problems, can't even begin to contemplate them all. But on my little corner of Earth, I at least can try to live in a way that treads lightly.

When I wrote 'Marley & Me,' I had a clear audience in mind. And it did not include children. I wrote my book for adults and assumed only adults, and possibly teenagers, would be drawn to it.

A dog is the greatest gift a parent can give a child. OK, a good education, then a dog.

Certain people are not going to connect with a book about the effect a dog has on a family. But every one of us has parents and has either said goodbye to those parents or knows that someday they will.

Living organically is my way of feeling connected to the earth and my own humanity. It's how I feel balanced and at peace with the planet.

I was keenly aware that everybody would have loved for me to do a close sequel or a spin-off to 'Marley and Me.'

I confess to being a CNN junkie. And when I'm driving, it's all NPR all the time.

Cats will outsmart dogs every time.

Really, as a writer, I believe that if you're going to write about your own life, you need to do it as honestly and candidly as you are capable.

Many of the qualities that come so effortlessly to dogs - loyalty, devotion, selflessness, unflagging optimism, unqualified love - can be elusive to humans.

Even though I'm totally dependent on modern electronic gizmos, from my laptop to my iPod to my cell phone, I love to embrace old technology or no technology at all.

'Marley and Me' was a book I was proud of and believed in, but I thought it would just have a modest audience because it is such a personal story about my marriage and my family.

I collect old rusty hand tools and sharpen and polish them, then use them to build things out of walnut and cherry that I harvest from fallen trees in the woods.

I'm pathologically incapable of making decisions. Just ask my wife how long it took me to propose - on second thought, best not to bring it up.

Dogs are a really amazing eye opener for us humans because their lives are compressed into such a short period, so we can see them go from puppyhood to adolescence to strong adulthood and then into their sunset years in 10 to 12 years. It really drives home the point of how finite all our lives are.

Before moving to Pennsylvania in 1999, I played bass in a newsroom rock band in South Florida for several years.

Just so you know Labrodor retrivers do not howl.Begals Howl.Wolves howl. Labs do not howl, at lestnot well. Marley attempted twice to howl, both times in answer to a passing police siren, tossing back his head, forming his mouth into an O shape, and letting loose the most pathetic sound Ihave ever heard, more like gargling than answering the call of the wild. Butnow,no question about it he was howling.

Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day. It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.

It's just the most amazing thing to love a dog, isn't it? It makes our relationships with people seem as boring as a bowl of oatmeal.

He taught us the art of unqualified love. How to give it, how to accept it. Where there is that, most other pieces fall into place.

A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart.

Then I dropped my forehead against his and sat there for a long time, as if I could telegraph a message through our two skulls, from my brain to his. I wanted to make him understand some things. You know all that stuff we’ve always said about you?” I whispered. “What a total pain you are? Don’t believe it. Don’t believe it for a minute, Marley.” He needed to know that, and something more, too. There was something I had never told him, that no one ever had. I wanted him to hear it before he went. Marley,” I said. “You are a great dog.

Never slow down, never look back, live each day with adolescent verve and spunk and curiosity and playfulness. If you think you’re still a young pup, then maybe you are, no matter what the calendar says.

Only then did I see. Something was amiss with Patrick's snap-on one piece, or "onesie" as we manly dads like to call it. His chubby thighs, I now realized, were squeezed into the armholes, which were so tight they must have been cutting off his circulation. The collared neck hung between his legs like an udder. Up top, Patrick's head stuck out through the unsnapped crotch, and his arms were lost somewhere in the billowing pant legs. It was quite a look.