He always wanted a mastiff
Years and years ago, Brian was the GM of Jazz de 0pus. A few storefronts down a woman had a shop.....I can't remember the shop or what she sold, but she had these two giant mastiffs. Beautiful dogs. They would lay out on NW 2nd watching the homeless, druggies, drunkards, and general dregs of the earth traipsing by day after day. They were enormous dogs. 3 or 4 feet tall. Brian would stop by and see them every day and he would say to me "THAT is the dog I am going to get" I always though it was because at 6'6" the mastiffs came up to him around the same spot say a lab or a golden came up to a regular sized person. Also, there is something about being a giant that makes you in your own class. Those Mastiffs looked at Brian and he looked back and I think they got each other.... Like man, isn't it a bitch being this huge.
About 8 years after that, we were finally in a house big enough, with a yard, where the possibility of owning a Mastiff was actually doable. We had one dog, a retarded lab, named Barkley who would eventually self destruct. But our family wasn't complete. Having one dog is never a good idea. Dogs need companionship. So we started thinking about that Mastiff....Daddy's Mastiff. I didn't want to buy from a puppy mill whore breeder so I thought about rescuing one. I contacted the Mastiff rescue society, filled out my paper work, they sent someone out to interview the family, inspect the property, interact with Barkley the retard, all to see if we would pass inspection and be lucky enough to rescue one of their breeds. Things looked good, but we needed to wait.
Months went by, and eventually we got the phone call. A mastiff was dumped at the Columbia animal shelter by a known breeder who had claimed they had "found her". The Mastiff people swooped in and placed her in foster care to have her evaluated where she lived for a few weeks. She passed all of her tests, and they wanted to know if we would like to go out and see this little girl and perhaps make her apart of our home. We were giddy....besides ourselves with excitement. FINALLY our mastiff had arrived and we were all atwitter with excitement. On the way out we had all sorts of conversations....What would she look like, what wold we call her, how BIG will she be.
We arrived in a less than desirable neighborhood, not bad-bad, but not very good. The houses were small, maybe two bedrooms. Crappy cars, garbage kinda piled up, no sidewalks, 500 toys on each front lawn. You get the idea. We found our house and entered. The woman explained what they knew of Katie's history that she too, had small children, and Katie had been excellent with them, etc. We stood there impatiently like yeah yeah yeah, bring out the dog. When it was time, we all kinda looked at each other, all excited, all here she comes !! And instead of a grand majestic four foot lion dog, out walked the saddest looking "dog" any of us had ever seen. She was maybe a foot and a half to her shoulders, her back was so swayed and her nipples nearly hit the ground from being bred, and bred, and bred. She was still recovering from the chop shop neutering they do at the pound ( not the Humane Society) and my God, she was the most sorriest looking Mastiff I had ever layed eyes on.
"What do you think?" the woman asked. I wanted to burst out laughing and say "Is this a joke? you're joking right? Stop it. Brian, let's GO" . But to my left my husband said "Well I think she's just great! Right Silly?" and I looked at her again. And then again, and then she looked at me and through her Jedi-ways said to me "Listen, get me the fuck out of here, trust me, it'll work". The kids were already head over heels and I knew there was no going back. We took "Baby" loaded her into the mad cap mini van, and hightailed it back to the right side of town.
"KATIE!!!" said Brian once we were in the car "Katie is her name!! Isn't it Katie?" and that right there kicked off the next seven years of Brian having conversations with his dog. We brought her home and had to to the daunting task of a. introducing her to another dog and b. living with the two dogs while they try to figure out who's the top and who's the bottom. When we brought Katie out to the deck, Katie literally cowered to the floor and kinda sat there tail between her legs ( the tail remained between her legs for about the first 2 years she lived here. Most likely due to being raped her whole life and she was covering that no-no whole anyway she could) She moved around on the deck a little tail between her legs while Barkley the retard sniffed, jumped, pawed, licked, did anything he could to get his new, ahem, playmate to react. She looked kinda like a turtle and was showing no signs of coming out. That damn dog pestered here and pestered her and eventually, she snapped, and she lunged, and bark growled, and all of us peed a little cause good god was that ever scary, but who it scared the most was Barkley who was like "OK, OK, we cool, calm down little mama".
Eventually the two became BFF's and Katie settled in. She was very much Brian's girl and I was her second choice. The kids? The kids she knew, were children. And being a wise old mother herself many times over, she showed them patience, she showed them protection, ( people would start roughhousing with either Barkley or the kids and I would have to say "you don't want to do that, seriously, you need to stop, no I mean it" and then she would lunge and they would shit their pants and i would say " I kinda tried to tell you" She would never bite, just lunge at you and scare you a little.....I always wondered what would happen if an real bad guy ever got in, what she would have done to him) and she put up with them. They would dress her up and, I bet when I wasn't looking, probably tried to ride her now and then.
Last year, around October, I started to think we were getting close. Brian laughed, "DID you hear that Katie? Mommy is so silly....go get em Katie" and she would.....she would lumber off with Lucy, trying to keep up, trying to get those ever allusive damn squirrels, big soft floppy ears flapping. Lucy would race back and forth for 30 minutes, Katie would race once, decide " yeah, not so much", and then lay down in the grass, roll her big self on her back and look over at her family which always killed us. You see upside down, when all those jowls were hanging upside down, she appeared to be smiling the biggest damn smile, she looked like The Joker, like she was grinning from ear to ear. And the second best part of that was that she felt safe enough to roll over and show her belly.....that my friend, took about 4 or 5 years to happen, and when it did....so totally worth it. Anyhoo, for about the past 10-11 months, she has slowly declined. Watching a massive animal like that try to get up and down can be painful. She slept more and more, getting up and down the stairs wasn't pretty, just generally slowed way way down.
When we got Katie, she was "between 3 and 5 years old". We of course didn't know as she was dumped, but by looking at her teeth, this was their best guess. We have had Katie for 7 years this month, this making her somewhere between 10 and 12. If you Google how long do Mastiff's live, you get this:
"As you may already suspect, giant breeds as a rule do not live as long as smaller dogs. Some Mastiffs will live to be twelve or thirteen years of age- but by far the majority of Mastiffs do not live past ten years of age. Many will only live to be seven to ten years old.
The past week or so, she went down hill fast. Real fast. She quit eating around Tuesday and quit getting up about that same time. She would get up to go to the bathroom ( and didn't make it about 75 % of the time....thank you hardwoods) Wednesday was the last time I saw her drink any water, but Brian said she drank Friday morning. Thursday night she needed to be carried to bed and Friday when I got up with her, she was just laying there motionless with black ooze coming out her behind. She didn't even know she was poopin'. It was then I knew. I called B and he agreed which scared me because it made it real. I called the vet to ask about details and that is when I started to cry, and not just like tears....like unable to speak, which is great when you are calling a place of business trying to get you know, information. It was not good. I then called my mommy who, is so funny, I was all crying and couldn't get the words out and she said " What? What? WHAT?? OK, I'll be right there!!!" which made me laugh because now that I have a child I get it. It doesn't matter that she didn't know what I was trying to say, or what we had to do....you just automatically say I'LL BE RIGHT THERE !! when you hear your child crying, even if your child is pushing 40....you'll just BE RIGHT THERE forever.
So the appointment was made for 4:45. The kids and I took turns lying with her all day, sobbing into her fur, whispering all of their I Love You's, and Thank You's, and I Will Miss You's. It was sad, but everyone knew it was right. Keeping her alive would have been selfish. Brian left work and we drover her over together, him picking her up to put her in the car, picking her up to get her out of the car, and picking her up again to get her off the vets waiting room floor and into her room. The vet looked her over, and yes, yes, it is time, what a good life she has had. All this time she stood, her head in Brian's hands staring right into his eyes. My mom said she would look at us and we would be able to tell, she would be saying thank you. Finally, thank you. but she didn't look that way at all. She was staring at Brian like " I don't know what we are doing her dad, but I trust you and I will do what ever you want" She never took her eyes off of him.
The first shot was to relax her....the vet said she would relax and lay down. The shot went in, and she stood there, not even flinching, head in Brian's hands staring. And she stood. And stood. And stood some more. I was like God damn that is just like her, stubborn thing. Vet came in...."Not feeling it yet huh?" Nope, not our Katie. But eventually she did, her labored breathing relaxed and I swear she was like "OMG yes, where has THIS feeling been all my life". She layed her self down, and rested and breathed easy for the first time in a week. They then shaved her arm, found a vein, popped in the second needle, and we waited, 10 seconds was about all it took, and she was gone. Peaceful as could be. I won't get into the tears, the heartache because we all know it's was there.
The drive to the vet was in complete silence, neither of us could speak because what is there to say when you are off to kill one of your own. The drive back was back started the same way. Neither of could speak. Eventually I said to Brian " Lot less dog food".
He replied " Less dog poop"
me "less dog hair"
Him " Lot more sleeping through the night"
me "Our house won't stink"
silence
me " No more "WOO-WOOOOOOOO's"
silence
When we got home, we started to clean things up, mostly Katie's sleeping area which was utterly gross. She wasn't a very clean dog, lets just say and baths did little to help. We threw her bed out, cleaned the walls ( trust me if, unless you have lived with a slobber dog you don't know what I am talking about) cleaned the floors, swept and swept and wept ( typo but I am leaving it) and swept some more. I will be sweeping Katie hair for many more weeks. Cleaning to help with the healing.
This morning I woke up to rain. It hasn't rain-rained in weeks. Katie is making it rain to help clean out the backyard, wash away all the mess she left behind, all of the diarrhea for the past week, getting rid of her peeps so that Lucy isn't reminded of the BFF she just lost, she is washing everything clean back there, and we are doing the same inside. Living with a 114 pound dying animal isn't a tidy event. There are a lot of messes to clean up, both before she died, and now after. Including two little broken heart who are learning about love and loss.
People keep asking if I will get another dog. I am not a fan of having one. Dogs are social animals. Dogs need to be with a pack. And sometimes the pack goes out to dinner, and guess what? You my friend are left home alone. When Barkley died, I lasted a week and I needed to get another dog, Katie and I needed to get another dog. But when Barkley died, the loss was different. Barkley was a loud social, tail wagging, greeting you at the door, knocking over the Christmas tree kinda dog. When Barkely left, the house was silent. Katie wasn't that kind of dog, she was big, but she was quiet, she slept most of the time, she didn't want to play fetch, or go for a walk, or wrestle on the floor. Katie was like Brian, only a dog. She wanted to sit back, observe, relax. She is gone, we are sad, but the house, the noise, the energy while different, isn't deafening different. We still have Lucy, and all of her wannagoforawalkwannagoforawalkwannagoforawalk energy. Brian says we will wait at least a month. Me? i am not even thinking about it yet.
When I googled that question about Mastiff's here are some other questions I found.....
Do Mastiffs Make Good House Dogs?
Mastiffs are wonderful house dogs whose only desire is to lie at their master's feet and to be loved. They are sometimes called 'velcro dogs' because of their tendency to follow their owner from room to room to be with them at all times. On the 'down side', a Mastiff takes up a lot of space on the floor, and their tail can clear a table of knick-knacks in the blink of an eye.
Are Mastiffs Good with Kids?
Mastiffs are often called 'Gentle Giants' because their normal demeanor is dependable, loyal, caring and docile. However, like any breed, if a Mastiff has been teased or frightened by children they may grow up to distrust and avoid them. Most Mastiffs who have been raised with children are patient, gentle and loving with them.
What About Drool?
Yes, Mastiffs do drool, mostly after eating, drinking, or exercise. Many Mastiff owners water their dogs outdoors, replacing their water several times a day to keep it fresh. However, drool still does happen. If you are not willing to wipe up some 'slingers' from your walls now and then, or carry a 'drool towel' with you, maybe a Mastiff isn't the right breed for you.
Are Mastiffs Active Dogs Or Are they Lazy?
Both! Some Mastiffs are athletic and playful and others are too dignified to lower themselves to chasing a ball or stick. Many Mastiffs will 'fetch' and enjoy playing with other dogs or their owners, for long stretches of time. Others would prefer to lie on the couch and watch agility trials on Animal Planet
Maybe I reconnect with the Mastiff Rescue folks......
About 8 years after that, we were finally in a house big enough, with a yard, where the possibility of owning a Mastiff was actually doable. We had one dog, a retarded lab, named Barkley who would eventually self destruct. But our family wasn't complete. Having one dog is never a good idea. Dogs need companionship. So we started thinking about that Mastiff....Daddy's Mastiff. I didn't want to buy from a
Months went by, and eventually we got the phone call. A mastiff was dumped at the Columbia animal shelter by a known breeder who had claimed they had "found her". The Mastiff people swooped in and placed her in foster care to have her evaluated where she lived for a few weeks. She passed all of her tests, and they wanted to know if we would like to go out and see this little girl and perhaps make her apart of our home. We were giddy....besides ourselves with excitement. FINALLY our mastiff had arrived and we were all atwitter with excitement. On the way out we had all sorts of conversations....What would she look like, what wold we call her, how BIG will she be.
We arrived in a less than desirable neighborhood, not bad-bad, but not very good. The houses were small, maybe two bedrooms. Crappy cars, garbage kinda piled up, no sidewalks, 500 toys on each front lawn. You get the idea. We found our house and entered. The woman explained what they knew of Katie's history that she too, had small children, and Katie had been excellent with them, etc. We stood there impatiently like yeah yeah yeah, bring out the dog. When it was time, we all kinda looked at each other, all excited, all here she comes !! And instead of a grand majestic four foot lion dog, out walked the saddest looking "dog" any of us had ever seen. She was maybe a foot and a half to her shoulders, her back was so swayed and her nipples nearly hit the ground from being bred, and bred, and bred. She was still recovering from the chop shop neutering they do at the pound ( not the Humane Society) and my God, she was the most sorriest looking Mastiff I had ever layed eyes on.
"What do you think?" the woman asked. I wanted to burst out laughing and say "Is this a joke? you're joking right? Stop it. Brian, let's GO" . But to my left my husband said "Well I think she's just great! Right Silly?" and I looked at her again. And then again, and then she looked at me and through her Jedi-ways said to me "Listen, get me the fuck out of here, trust me, it'll work". The kids were already head over heels and I knew there was no going back. We took "Baby" loaded her into the mad cap mini van, and hightailed it back to the right side of town.
"KATIE!!!" said Brian once we were in the car "Katie is her name!! Isn't it Katie?" and that right there kicked off the next seven years of Brian having conversations with his dog. We brought her home and had to to the daunting task of a. introducing her to another dog and b. living with the two dogs while they try to figure out who's the top and who's the bottom. When we brought Katie out to the deck, Katie literally cowered to the floor and kinda sat there tail between her legs ( the tail remained between her legs for about the first 2 years she lived here. Most likely due to being raped her whole life and she was covering that no-no whole anyway she could) She moved around on the deck a little tail between her legs while Barkley the retard sniffed, jumped, pawed, licked, did anything he could to get his new, ahem, playmate to react. She looked kinda like a turtle and was showing no signs of coming out. That damn dog pestered here and pestered her and eventually, she snapped, and she lunged, and bark growled, and all of us peed a little cause good god was that ever scary, but who it scared the most was Barkley who was like "OK, OK, we cool, calm down little mama".
Eventually the two became BFF's and Katie settled in. She was very much Brian's girl and I was her second choice. The kids? The kids she knew, were children. And being a wise old mother herself many times over, she showed them patience, she showed them protection, ( people would start roughhousing with either Barkley or the kids and I would have to say "you don't want to do that, seriously, you need to stop, no I mean it" and then she would lunge and they would shit their pants and i would say " I kinda tried to tell you" She would never bite, just lunge at you and scare you a little.....I always wondered what would happen if an real bad guy ever got in, what she would have done to him) and she put up with them. They would dress her up and, I bet when I wasn't looking, probably tried to ride her now and then.
Last year, around October, I started to think we were getting close. Brian laughed, "DID you hear that Katie? Mommy is so silly....go get em Katie" and she would.....she would lumber off with Lucy, trying to keep up, trying to get those ever allusive damn squirrels, big soft floppy ears flapping. Lucy would race back and forth for 30 minutes, Katie would race once, decide " yeah, not so much", and then lay down in the grass, roll her big self on her back and look over at her family which always killed us. You see upside down, when all those jowls were hanging upside down, she appeared to be smiling the biggest damn smile, she looked like The Joker, like she was grinning from ear to ear. And the second best part of that was that she felt safe enough to roll over and show her belly.....that my friend, took about 4 or 5 years to happen, and when it did....so totally worth it. Anyhoo, for about the past 10-11 months, she has slowly declined. Watching a massive animal like that try to get up and down can be painful. She slept more and more, getting up and down the stairs wasn't pretty, just generally slowed way way down.
When we got Katie, she was "between 3 and 5 years old". We of course didn't know as she was dumped, but by looking at her teeth, this was their best guess. We have had Katie for 7 years this month, this making her somewhere between 10 and 12. If you Google how long do Mastiff's live, you get this:
"As you may already suspect, giant breeds as a rule do not live as long as smaller dogs. Some Mastiffs will live to be twelve or thirteen years of age- but by far the majority of Mastiffs do not live past ten years of age. Many will only live to be seven to ten years old.
The past week or so, she went down hill fast. Real fast. She quit eating around Tuesday and quit getting up about that same time. She would get up to go to the bathroom ( and didn't make it about 75 % of the time....thank you hardwoods) Wednesday was the last time I saw her drink any water, but Brian said she drank Friday morning. Thursday night she needed to be carried to bed and Friday when I got up with her, she was just laying there motionless with black ooze coming out her behind. She didn't even know she was poopin'. It was then I knew. I called B and he agreed which scared me because it made it real. I called the vet to ask about details and that is when I started to cry, and not just like tears....like unable to speak, which is great when you are calling a place of business trying to get you know, information. It was not good. I then called my mommy who, is so funny, I was all crying and couldn't get the words out and she said " What? What? WHAT?? OK, I'll be right there!!!" which made me laugh because now that I have a child I get it. It doesn't matter that she didn't know what I was trying to say, or what we had to do....you just automatically say I'LL BE RIGHT THERE !! when you hear your child crying, even if your child is pushing 40....you'll just BE RIGHT THERE forever.
So the appointment was made for 4:45. The kids and I took turns lying with her all day, sobbing into her fur, whispering all of their I Love You's, and Thank You's, and I Will Miss You's. It was sad, but everyone knew it was right. Keeping her alive would have been selfish. Brian left work and we drover her over together, him picking her up to put her in the car, picking her up to get her out of the car, and picking her up again to get her off the vets waiting room floor and into her room. The vet looked her over, and yes, yes, it is time, what a good life she has had. All this time she stood, her head in Brian's hands staring right into his eyes. My mom said she would look at us and we would be able to tell, she would be saying thank you. Finally, thank you. but she didn't look that way at all. She was staring at Brian like " I don't know what we are doing her dad, but I trust you and I will do what ever you want" She never took her eyes off of him.
The first shot was to relax her....the vet said she would relax and lay down. The shot went in, and she stood there, not even flinching, head in Brian's hands staring. And she stood. And stood. And stood some more. I was like God damn that is just like her, stubborn thing. Vet came in...."Not feeling it yet huh?" Nope, not our Katie. But eventually she did, her labored breathing relaxed and I swear she was like "OMG yes, where has THIS feeling been all my life". She layed her self down, and rested and breathed easy for the first time in a week. They then shaved her arm, found a vein, popped in the second needle, and we waited, 10 seconds was about all it took, and she was gone. Peaceful as could be. I won't get into the tears, the heartache because we all know it's was there.
The drive to the vet was in complete silence, neither of us could speak because what is there to say when you are off to kill one of your own. The drive back was back started the same way. Neither of could speak. Eventually I said to Brian " Lot less dog food".
He replied " Less dog poop"
me "less dog hair"
Him " Lot more sleeping through the night"
me "Our house won't stink"
silence
me " No more "WOO-WOOOOOOOO's"
silence
When we got home, we started to clean things up, mostly Katie's sleeping area which was utterly gross. She wasn't a very clean dog, lets just say and baths did little to help. We threw her bed out, cleaned the walls ( trust me if, unless you have lived with a slobber dog you don't know what I am talking about) cleaned the floors, swept and swept and wept ( typo but I am leaving it) and swept some more. I will be sweeping Katie hair for many more weeks. Cleaning to help with the healing.
This morning I woke up to rain. It hasn't rain-rained in weeks. Katie is making it rain to help clean out the backyard, wash away all the mess she left behind, all of the diarrhea for the past week, getting rid of her peeps so that Lucy isn't reminded of the BFF she just lost, she is washing everything clean back there, and we are doing the same inside. Living with a 114 pound dying animal isn't a tidy event. There are a lot of messes to clean up, both before she died, and now after. Including two little broken heart who are learning about love and loss.
People keep asking if I will get another dog. I am not a fan of having one. Dogs are social animals. Dogs need to be with a pack. And sometimes the pack goes out to dinner, and guess what? You my friend are left home alone. When Barkley died, I lasted a week and I needed to get another dog, Katie and I needed to get another dog. But when Barkley died, the loss was different. Barkley was a loud social, tail wagging, greeting you at the door, knocking over the Christmas tree kinda dog. When Barkely left, the house was silent. Katie wasn't that kind of dog, she was big, but she was quiet, she slept most of the time, she didn't want to play fetch, or go for a walk, or wrestle on the floor. Katie was like Brian, only a dog. She wanted to sit back, observe, relax. She is gone, we are sad, but the house, the noise, the energy while different, isn't deafening different. We still have Lucy, and all of her wannagoforawalkwannagoforawalkwannagoforawalk energy. Brian says we will wait at least a month. Me? i am not even thinking about it yet.
When I googled that question about Mastiff's here are some other questions I found.....
Do Mastiffs Make Good House Dogs?
Mastiffs are wonderful house dogs whose only desire is to lie at their master's feet and to be loved. They are sometimes called 'velcro dogs' because of their tendency to follow their owner from room to room to be with them at all times. On the 'down side', a Mastiff takes up a lot of space on the floor, and their tail can clear a table of knick-knacks in the blink of an eye.
Are Mastiffs Good with Kids?
Mastiffs are often called 'Gentle Giants' because their normal demeanor is dependable, loyal, caring and docile. However, like any breed, if a Mastiff has been teased or frightened by children they may grow up to distrust and avoid them. Most Mastiffs who have been raised with children are patient, gentle and loving with them.
What About Drool?
Yes, Mastiffs do drool, mostly after eating, drinking, or exercise. Many Mastiff owners water their dogs outdoors, replacing their water several times a day to keep it fresh. However, drool still does happen. If you are not willing to wipe up some 'slingers' from your walls now and then, or carry a 'drool towel' with you, maybe a Mastiff isn't the right breed for you.
Are Mastiffs Active Dogs Or Are they Lazy?
Both! Some Mastiffs are athletic and playful and others are too dignified to lower themselves to chasing a ball or stick. Many Mastiffs will 'fetch' and enjoy playing with other dogs or their owners, for long stretches of time. Others would prefer to lie on the couch and watch agility trials on Animal Planet
Maybe I reconnect with the Mastiff Rescue folks......
posted by sillypants at Friday, September 04, 2009
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