This post will be a reply to lovely PP, while enabeling me to show of the gorgeouse pixies of my dogs (both sadly enough gone now) and to explain the whole stinky, drooly, dirty part of beeing a dog owner. PP (Peoples Photographer, not wee or urin.. simply a shortent version of his bloggy name, since his name is his to share) has the really rather sweet missconception that any dog of mine would be farting rosescented potpuri while beeing demure enough to keep their faces out of their own bums.
Yeah.. no.. sorry.. Mine were just as bad, if not worse then every other dog on this planet. Allthough a lot better behaved (i'm not only a bit bithy.. I'm alpha bitchy too :)
Hades, the German Shepherd / Boarder mix. Weighed in at 55 kg's, ate like a horse and molted a small dogs bodyweight in furr every day for a couple of weeks every spring and fall. He also had the charming ability of all German Shepherds to accumulate moisture. Meaning he would smell quite .. uhm.. musky. This of course beeing a joy to us since we spent quite some time camping with this monster in the same tent. And as good as he was at keeping moose, beavers and assorted drunk youngsters away from the tent he also keept us out most of the time as well (Sweden is quite the rain forest anytime I had vacation) At the end, (he died a couple of days short of his 13th b-day) he could knock you out with the foulest breath ever to come out of a living animal. Possibly comodo dragons got worse problems with halitosis, but I'm not betting for it.
Now this gorgeouse boy, who was Nozem, was as you can see, a very stately bloodhound, pure breed and with several of his kin appearing more then once in his family trees (not a good thing) sadly never got passed his 2nd birthday. He suffered Bloat, which is a problem with their bowels turning and locking themselves up. One thing though that we were told by the breeder when deciding on a puppy (instead of how I did it with Hades, which was pick him out of the arms of my neighbour after roughhousig in the playground with him and his brothers and sisters) was that bloodhounds did not fart.
Yeah..
and there's a santa claus!
This dog could empty a room in 0.4 seconds. And he'd actually look suprised at the noise his but would make. He also managed to get drool stalakites (stalagmites? which one are the up's and which ones are the downwards ones? ) hanging from the 4.5 meter ceeling in the apartment. And never quite got over his happy-peeing before he died. (the usual way we would deal with this would be for me to call when I got home from Uni or work, so that my ex could simply open the door so that he would run down the stairwell and meet me on the side walk.. it atleast saved some of the carpets and we'd go for a walk.. but my shoes would sometimes be hit by friendly fire)
Also bloodhounds tend to have some of that very old dog smell right of the bat. they dont need to age very long (passed puppyhood and on it goes. their like human teenage boys - they dont smell of roses either when hormones are starting to kick in for the first time and make a hash of it)
anyway.. no.. its not a clean game when having dogs. once you've got a dog, your stuck with a wardrobe covered in a matting hair that makes you look a bit fuzzy around the edges. With some of the breeds (bloodhound beeing one of them) you have the saliva strands covering you like an oldfashioned handmade chockolate bon-bon.. specially if they shake themself off while your in the room.. and with just about all of them you get the musty dog smell haunting the house, and that only gets worse when they get older.
A lot worse.
But then again, despite the unholy hour you have to get up to walk them if your doing an office job (I used to leave Hades over for pampering with my parents when I worked full time, meaning he was walked and spoiled rotten while I was slaving away.. man i wanna be a dog next life) And despite the amount of cleaning you have to do to keep yourself from drowning in drool/lost pelt/ or the discusting things you have to do with medicin and ointments when they get sick, they make it all worth while.
Nozem had the interesting notion of having to kiss my feet (if he did not find them he'd try to rip the bed appart untill he got to nibble on my toes) and then come up for a ear rub before going to bed on his pillow. Hades would have a sing along while gnawing on my jawbone everytime I came thru the door.. even if i'd just been down with the garbage and gone for all of a minute.
None of them would waver from your side if you got into trouble and they would both love you no matter how big of a pain you are (and I'm quite a big one at times)
So yeah, their a pain, dependent on you for everything, their dirty as hell. They smell.. they're hard work and you end up with your heart broken when they do die.
But i'll have another 10 atleast before i kick the bucket myself (i hope)
oh and heres a picture of nozem as a puppy.. you tell me you'd be able to say no to this one :P
(ha ha, check out those paws... he was a bit over 60 kg's when he died, so those lion paws were not just for show :)
PS: oh yeah.. by the way PP, my dogs did not eat pooo.. I draw the line with my puppy raising and indulgence when it comes to eating poo and groin sniffing. Gotta set a standard right? :)
DS:
2 Reply to "The truth about Dogs"
Matt on 6 September 2009 at 09:13
I love it Meg! I suppose that the chains of love for an animal can outweigh any possible inconvenience. I suppose it is true with people, my daughter is a damned inconvenience, she craps in her bum cover and I have to clean it out, she destroys valuables, and on, and on. But, I cherish the time I have with her, and mutual love makes the revolting clean-ups and mid-night wake-ups not seem so bad. In fact, they are funny... almost fun.
Maybe it is the same between a devoted dog and owner?
Oh, and btw world, I am shaking off my internet paranoia. I am forsaking anonymity. My name is Matthew Jorgensen, and I am a flaming-frog-aholic.
Madz on 6 September 2009 at 11:11
he he, actually dogs are easier then kids.. Hades was potty trained in 3 days.. and if i told him to stay, nothing would make him move out of the spot (Nozem the bloodhound was another matter alltogether though) :D
My mum has actually expressed worries that i'll train any future grandchildren in the same way I did my dogs (quite hard and very much on the side of obediance) but i'm pretty sure i'll be just as much of a softspot like any other mum :P
happy to be able to use your real name, .. PP just did not fit you as it should.. unless i'd name you Peppe, but that would just be weird ;)
And now for your 12 step recovery prosedure :D
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