He doesn't stop moving long enough to get too many good pictures at the moment. And he just left mom yesterday so he's a little whiny so I get a lot that look like this with his ears down and his pout face one...
His dad is giant. Pictures did not do him justice - holy hell that dog is huge. The proportions make sense in photos but you don't realize that the boy can get up on his hind legs and look you in the eye.
He's nothing if not game but the 'real dog' has no earthly idea how much bigger he is that this guy. He just kinda bats him around and then stares at him like "seriously, are you gonna make a game of this or what?"
The girls at work hit him like a guided missile barrage this morning and needless to say, he can't hang...
I haven't had a puppy for 8 years and mostly just forgot what a monumental pain in the ass they are and the fact that they should line jungle traps with those !@#$ing teeth. Man those things are sharp. The baby boy loves him so when he's around, the boy gets to him first and kinda dominates the narrative. The baby girl, OTOH, has no idea what to do with him and he just plows right into her face and pisses her right off. And I've never had a puppy since I had children so a house full of baby/kid toys adds a whole new degree of difficulty that I didn't face with the 4 prior dogs.
He's....willful. But I don't think he quite understands that no matter how big he gets (and he's gonna get big), I'm still gonna be bigger. Rotty's are notorious for trying to buffalo folks and out-stubborn them but this isn't a battle he's gonna win. He'll try to ignore me here and there and it's just not working out for him. On the plus side - he's shockingly close to housebroken already. He's had one poop and one pee in the house since he got here but otherwise everything outside. 90% outdoors is a pretty good ratio. The trick will be teaching him to let us know when he needs out but with a couple older dogs in the house, he'll just end up on sequence with them and it'll be fine.
My 2 labs though, I'm starting to feel a little sorry for them. My 'younger' one was 100 mph until about a year ago and while he's still very playful, he's 8 and the energy doesn't stay up for as long as the puppy's does so he just starts to get exasperated. He growled at him last night and it's literally the first time I've ever heard him make a noise of any sort in anger. He'd played with the puppy for over an hour and was finally just done with him. The older boy is 14 and has no time for any of this shit - he gave the puppy a pretty snap on the second night and won't hesitate to snarl at him a little.
I kinda vacillate on what I think about that. My general rule with dogs is "let them figure out it; that's what they do..." but at the same time, virtually all behavior in dogs is learned. I'm not sure how excited I am about the possibility of him being 6-8 years old in his own right some day and giving the next puppy a similar grab and biting the damn things head clean off. Not sure there's much that can be done - I'm not gonna yell at the existing dogs for trying to tell the puppy that enough's enough.
It's gonna be a long couple months. Puppies are a pain in the ass, man. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Little heathen chews on everything.
I haven't had a puppy for 8 years and mostly just forgot what a monumental pain in the ass they are and the fact that they should line jungle traps with those !@#$ing teeth. Man those things are sharp. The baby boy loves him so when he's around, the boy gets to him first and kinda dominates the narrative. The baby girl, OTOH, has no idea what to do with him and he just plows right into her face and pisses her right off. And I've never had a puppy since I had children so a house full of baby/kid toys adds a whole new degree of difficulty that I didn't face with the 4 prior dogs.
He's....willful. But I don't think he quite understands that no matter how big he gets (and he's gonna get big), I'm still gonna be bigger. Rotty's are notorious for trying to buffalo folks and out-stubborn them but this isn't a battle he's gonna win. He'll try to ignore me here and there and it's just not working out for him. On the plus side - he's shockingly close to housebroken already. He's had one poop and one pee in the house since he got here but otherwise everything outside. 90% outdoors is a pretty good ratio. The trick will be teaching him to let us know when he needs out but with a couple older dogs in the house, he'll just end up on sequence with them and it'll be fine.
My 2 labs though, I'm starting to feel a little sorry for them. My 'younger' one was 100 mph until about a year ago and while he's still very playful, he's 8 and the energy doesn't stay up for as long as the puppy's does so he just starts to get exasperated. He growled at him last night and it's literally the first time I've ever heard him make a noise of any sort in anger. He'd played with the puppy for over an hour and was finally just done with him. The older boy is 14 and has no time for any of this shit - he gave the puppy a pretty snap on the second night and won't hesitate to snarl at him a little.
I kinda vacillate on what I think about that. My general rule with dogs is "let them figure out it; that's what they do..." but at the same time, virtually all behavior in dogs is learned. I'm not sure how excited I am about the possibility of him being 6-8 years old in his own right some day and giving the next puppy a similar grab and biting the damn things head clean off. Not sure there's much that can be done - I'm not gonna yell at the existing dogs for trying to tell the puppy that enough's enough.
It's gonna be a long couple months. Puppies are a pain in the ass, man.
I went through the same thing with my oldest two dogs when we got our puppy 3 years ago. Brought in a 4 month old pit bull puppy who had all the energy in the world and just wanted to play with the other two dogs. Our 8 year old chihuahua dachshund mix played with him for a little while until she realized that he was bigger than her....and then she wanted nothing to do with him. Our 12 year old lab beagle mix instantly wanted zero to do with him and let him know right off the bat not to fuck with her. The lab beagle mix is gone now and the dachshund chihuahua mix growls whenever the pit comes around. And it's hilarious because the pit has this look on his face....like...."seriously? Still pissed off at me?". [Reply]
Originally Posted by SAUTO:
MAN, thats a damn good looking dog.
mine was a breeze to housebreak too.
He's gonna be ridiculously handsome. They wanted to keep him as a breeder but they just got a new male and needed a female so they kept her instead.
I tell you what man, when I went and saw their runs, Condor (the sire) was in his kennel and he just had this massive head sticking out. She came up and called him out to say hi and it was like watching a horse climb out of a Volkswagen. He's !@#$ing enormous. Pitchers can give you his proportions well enough but they don't give you scale. I was just dumbfounded by the size of that dog.
Yours is from Zero, right? What a sweet old boy he is. And the dam for mine, one of his offspring (Beauty), was just the nicest thing you'd ever meet as well. She was my buddy immediately even as I'm down there messing with all her puppies. Condor was standoffish and definitely had an "i could kill you if I wanted to" air about him, but that's a training issue given his background in Germany as a working dog. He was plenty playful with Jodi but clearly not someone who was going to warm to someone as soon as they showed up.
Both times I've had a 'pick' to make has come down to two dogs. The first time I ended up with the other one anyway later on but before all that went down I just constantly questioned myself and worried about the one I left behind. I'm gonna do the same with the pup I didn't pick this time. That one was very sweet; much less boisterous and even a little reserved. I maybe should've gone that route but this guy was so damn handsome and I figure I can get the energy directed with time. Still hated leaving the other guy behind because he was also just a friendly little pup... [Reply]
Yeah zerro is jet's poppa. And carob is her mom. She would be beauty's mom's litter mate I'm pretty sure. They've got a heck of a set up there.
One of those little girls had taken a liking to jet and was pretty upset as we were getting ready to leave. She ran across the yard barefoot (on Christmas day) , grabbed a horse by its mane and jumped on it bare back and took off.
Originally Posted by SAUTO: How did you like that drive in to their place?
Yeah zerro is jet's poppa. And carob is her mom. She would be beauty's mom's litter mate I'm pretty sure. They've got a heck of a set up there.
One of those little girls had taken a liking to jet and was pretty upset as we were getting ready to leave. She ran across the yard barefoot (on Christmas day) , grabbed a horse by its mane and jumped on it bare back and took off.
They're country.
Fuuuuuuuuuck.
I brought the damn van thinking "eh, it's just a little gravel..." and it would make putting a kennel in and getting him home 100 times easier. I didn't realize that it was unimproved mountain roads. I'm sitting there putting minivan wheels on pieces of brush to keep the undercarriage from scraping. It was rock-climbing in a Pacifica w/ low profile tires. I don't recommend it. To get back out I plugged my address in (I'd come from KC on Monday after the Chiefs game) and both my phone and the van's GPS sent me UP the mountain. Okay...they matched so I went. I get to top of the road and there's a homestead or something there and the road just ends. I get out and walk around and am looking and every bit of technology I have swears to me there's a road there and there just....isn't. So I backtracked through to the little town at the base of the gravel and went the circuitous route that actually, y'know, had a road.
It's funny you mention the girl. She's 9ish now and Jodi said she always picks a favorite out of every litter. Sure enough, mine was her favorite as well. They were out sledding when I came to pick him up and as we were filling out the paperwork the girls got home so she came running over with him and loved on him before we left. Evidently the guy before me couldn't bring himself to take my boy because "I don't want to take her puppy". I said "well hell, somebody's gonna so it might as well be me..."
She did not, however, blast across the pasture on a horse... [Reply]
one of the FIRST PM's i sent you specifically said that if you decided to pick up a puppy TAKE A TRUCK!!!
we went down on christmas day( so no one around anywhere) and took our wheel chair lift van (whole family went). Lowered floors you know.
it drug most of they way and i spent the 45 minutes (give or take) each way of gravel just watching the fuel gauge hoping it didnt take a nose dive because we had finally drug through the tank.
Our German Shedder... Just turned one. And everyday, it seems, he leaves clumps of hair the size of other dogs. Yet with that face, how can you stay mad at him?
