Such A Cute Puppy!

Today is the day you’ve been waiting for. Instead of boring you with the major events of the summer or the trials of my relationships with dogs, today you get two in one as both topics come together, and I introduce you to Guinness.

At 9 months old, most puppies are about half-grown. If that holds true, we’re going to need a bigger house, because Guinness is a big boy. Even the crate he came in is too big for me to carry, and he fills it up. I didn’t know they made puppies this big. I once saw a super-jumbo sized rawhide bone in a store. The thing was so huge you had to have a shopping cart just to get it to the checkout. I couldn’t imagine a dog big enough to be able to gnaw on the thing.

This puppy loves them.

Guinness rests easy in his crate, but once released, he becomes the poster-puppy for perpetual motion. It’s actually just normal puppy exuberance that he is expressing, but since he’s the size of a house, and he’s inside a house, every move has a huge impact. My first meeting with Guinness was for the purpose of putting his leash on so we could go for a walk. How naïve I was. I never accomplished either one. The harness he was wearing had no obvious way to attach a leash, and by the time I gave up looking for one, I found myself on the floor. His greeting to me had been friendly, in a mastiff sort of way, but by the time he was finished with me, both of my arms were dripping, having been coated with a liberal application of mastiff slobber.

You may recall I have a strong dislike for dog slobber.

When Guinness is around, you have to stay on slobber patrol. His head brushed lightly against me as I walked past him one day, and I needed a towel to blot the wet spot he left on my slacks. If you ever saw the movie, “Turner and Hooch”, you will understand. That's right…yuuuuck!

But I’m still learning to keep my guard up. I walked, unsuspectingly, through the door one day and there he was. I could tell immediately what his intentions were. I even had a second to brace myself. I don’t know. Maybe it helped, maybe it didn’t, but his “gentle little nudge” came close to toppling me. Even the earthquake hadn’t done that.

His saving grace is, he is as sweet as he can be. He loves you, even if he hasn’t met you yet. He especially loves Rose. She barricades herself to avoid the inevitable greetings he insists on, but that doesn’t faze him at all. Can you picture a 90 pound mastiff puppy crawling underneath and working his way around the back side of a dining room table, just to share a friendly “Good afternoon” with an 81 year old woman? He can’t help himself, he just has to do it. Once it’s done, he obediently responds to commands. His mommy trained him well, and I am exceedingly grateful for that, but she didn’t train the friendly or the happy out of him, and I am also glad for that.

We’ve got an abundance of friendly and happy around here lately.