Come to think of it, Marley has all the earmarks of having been trained by Slats, starting out as a puppy by eating barstools and spittoons. Marley becomes as useful to Grogan as Slats Grobnik was to Mike Royko: always good for a column on a slow day. But Grogan makes the canny decision to write a column about the dog, and it is a great success. Grogan would be ordered to carry a route on his way to work, and Arkin would be replaced by Uncle Scrooge. In today's newspaper world, this plays like escapist porn. Arkin counters: 'I'll double your salary!' He'd rather cover school board meetings and sewer inspectors. He gets a job as a cub reporter on a newspaper and is soon ordered by his editor ( Alan Arkin) to become a columnist. It is John Grogan's professional life that supplies the fantasy. Marley supplies the Sturm und Drang, 24-7.

You would think the dog would supply the playful, upbeat elements in this movie. Every couple has to survive ups and downs in their marriage, but Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette might be alive today if they'd adopted Marley, he had eaten the crown jewels, and they'd fled the palace and abdicated. Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston play the Grogans as brave and resourceful. 'Marley & Me' is a cheerful family movie about a young couple starting out in life with a new house, new jobs, a new dog and then three children, who the dog doesn't eat, or the movie wouldn't be rated PG. When you go to the pet lady, and she shows you a group of Labrador puppies and one is cheaper than all the others, this is not the time to go bargain-hunting. Marley has the behavior pattern of a manic wrecking crew and the appetite of a science-fiction monster, but you gotta love him. I hope the book earned enough to pay for Marley's overhead. He belonged to John and Jennifer Grogan, and was the subject of a 2005 best seller that has been adapted into this film. Marley considers such objects to be food, playthings or enemies. Books, dishes, tables, chairs, rugs, curtains. I'd love to have a dog around the house, but not Marley. This line is not frequently used in the Grogan household. The second-greatest headline in the history of the Onion is:

Marley & me book