Xander was most definitely a heart dog, closer to me in many ways
than others I've had. Funny thing is, I never even wanted a boy.
His breeder talked me into getting a male instead of a female. I was
dubious, but I finally went along with the idea. And nothing could
have been better of a fit than he turned out to be. We had trials
and tribulations, for sure, but his sense of humor and cuddles made
it all worth while.
I used to accuse him of testing me regularly to see how much my heart
could take.
At 4 months, he stole a brand new, unopened bottle of Hungry Man
pancake syrup while I was out of the house and hubby was supposed to
be watching him. By the time I came home, he had eaten all 27
ounces. Floor and bottle were completely cleaned out! And he was
guzzling water. You should have seen how wide he was, and you could
almost hear him sloshing when he walked. My vet got quite a chuckle
out of my after hours phone call and assured me he would be okay.
The snot never even got the runs after all that worry.
At 6 months, he was diagnosed with masticatory muscle myositis, an
autoimmune disease caused by his puppy rabies vacc administered just
2 weeks prior to diagnosis. Needless to say, after losing Ashlee to
immune dysfunction, the mention of another immune problem just about
did me in.
At 9 months, we got up one Saturday morning to find yarn coming out
of both ends of my puppy! I knew that was NOT good and immediately
hauled him to a vet in SV that has Saturday morning hours. He had
surgery a couple of hours later to remove an entire skein of baby
yarn he had swiped and swallowed. The vet was amazed that there were
no breaks in the whole skein. He said Xander must have sucked it up
like spaghetti. Needless to say, ever since then, craft supplies
have been locked up when not in use and being directly supervised.
Then there was the constant, chronic yeast ear infections. I used to
lose sleep at night trying to figure out what to do for him, to
relieve the itching and madness.
Then at 18 months, he got very sick. The vet tried to tell me it was
salmonella poisoning because I had given him raw chicken wings (I
gave those as treats in those days). She completely ignored the fact
that I gave him the chicken AFTER he got sick, to get him to eat. I
flat out refused treatment for salmonella poisoning, much to her
great annoyance. I ran into the vet who actually owned the practice
on my way out with Xander. She said she'd been seeing a sudden
influx of dogs, that some viral thing was going around. Even two of
her own dogs needed subq fluids to get them through. Fluids was all
Xander got that day, and I refused to see that other vet after that.
Then there were other things along the way, most less severe.
Xander was my travel buddy. When I traveled without my husband,
Xander went with me. People gave my car a wide berth when they
actually saw him sitting on the backseat. Like that big boy sitting
there calmly watching the world go by would suddenly and without
warning tear through metal and glass to eat them alive. He was so
quiet in the car while waiting for me that there were times I noticed
people walking by without even noticing his silent presence. I saw
one guy nearly climb out of his skin when Xander, who was peering
between the seats, saw me coming back to the car and suddenly sat up
on the seat. The guy had been walking by, not even realizing a dog
was in the car. The look on his face was priceless. I laughed so
hard about that. I don't know how I'm going to face my next car trip
alone.....
Ever since he was a young pup, he would carry his food bowl around.
Needless to say, the tiny little one that I used when he was an 18.9
pound 9.5 week old pup didn't take long for him to outgrow. So he
rapidly moved uptown with a much larger stainless steel bowl. It
took him about 4 years but he eventually completely destroyed that
bowl, carrying it around and playing with it. I can still remember
the clang of that bowl as he dropped it on our kitchen floor or the
concrete in the hallway. Talk about echo! *G* One of his favorite
games was floor hockey with his bowl flipped upside down on the
kitchen floor or concrete. Man, what a racket. Never thought I
would miss that.... And he was never above stealing the girls'
stainless steel bowls for a game or two either. You have no idea how
many times I had to go scouring the yard for bowls come mealtimes.
Needless to say, I finally got him a ceramic crock dish that stayed
in the house. He didn't try to carry that around. I eventually had
to get him a new stainless steel bowl to play with, which he snubbed
for several months. That wasn't HIS bowl. But he finally made the
transition to it from scraps of the old one. It's still intact but
pretty dented and dinged, not to mention filthy. I'm not sure how,
but he managed to imbed mud into the metal. At least that's what it
seemed like every time I tried to clean it up so he wasn't spreading
mud through the house. LOL I've put it up out of my visual range.
Just hurts too much to see it right now.
One of the problems Xander developed that horrified me at first was
regarding his treatment of small dogs. Some people took it as
aggression because he would pounce on them. But he never hurt one,
even when he had one half in his mouth, which happened twice over the
years. He could have easily killed both (shih tzu and a pom/pug
cross), but he didn't even hurt them. I think it was part of the
lack of understanding he exhibited of just how big he was. And it
came on fairly suddenly after he was so sick the winter he turned 18
months old. When he was a puppy, he was raised playing with dogs of
all sizes and breeds. Great danes were always one of his favorites,
thanks I'm sure to a dane we fostered for a time when he was a pup.
Dogs who were bigger than him never gave him a moment's pause or
concern. He thought they were loads of fun.
Some of his favorite playmates in his first year was a pair of shih
tzu littermates he met in puppy class. He would lay down and get to
their level and have so much fun playing with those two. Then after
being sick that December, I suddenly couldn't trust him with them
anymore because he got so rough with little guys. It took me a long
time to unravel that mystery and help him learn to NOT pounce on
little dogs. He seemed most inclined to pounce on yappy little
guys. The ones who stayed quiet were less likely to get more than a
passing glance from him. I used to wonder if he either picked on my
own annoyance with those yappy little buggers and was trying to help
me feel better, or if he thought they were just animated squeaky
toys. After I realized what all was going on with him neurologically,
it fell into place. I think he really just wanted to play, but he
honestly had no idea just how big he was and how little they were.
And I think he took the yapping as an invite to play.
Of course, then there was his annoying habit to respond to the chow
next door. She was a fence fighter from way back. My girls ignored
her. Xander, however, couldn't seem to say no to her invitations. I
finally stopped it though, by fencing off that section of the yard
for my garden. So he couldn't even get to the fence. I was happier
with that anyway, since that chow was not what I'd call stable. She
would come to the fence and wag her tail at you. If you offered her
a pet, sometimes she would dance and let you love on her. Yet,
another time, she would try to take your arm off. Vaccine damaged,
I'm sure. Probably combined with poor breeding (lots of that with
chows around here). I got to where I just ignored her when she came
to the fence. Xander just couldn't bring himself to do the same, but
keeping him away from that fence seemed to take care of the problem.
As annoying as he could be about the chow next door or little dogs,
he sure made up for it with his cuddly, warm personality when it came
to dealing with me and those he cared about. He learned to detect
and alert me to rising migraines. Only dog I ever had that could do
that. His way of alerting me was basically to sit on me if I sat
down somewhere. I'm really bad to work despite pain and try to
ignore it. Needless to say, migraines are easiest to treat at the
time of onset, rather than waiting until they are full-blown, so his
early warning system would stop me long enough to deal with before it
became full-blown. He also would sit on me if I was sick and
wouldn't rest like I should. His instincts definitely worked better
than my sense at times. And just TRY to move close to 90 pounds off
of your lap when you only weight about 120-130 pounds. *G*
He LOVED stuffed animals, especially if they made any kind of noise.
Squeakers, barkers, you name it. If it made noise, he adored it. He
would share his toys, thankfully. And his favorite color was red.
I've heard so many people say that dogs are color blind. I've heard
others say they can't differentiate red from green. But I'm not sure
that's actually true. I could bring home a group of toys - all the
same except for color. And Xander would pull the red one out every
time.
And water. Just try keeping him out of it. And he didn't care if it
was clean or muddy as all get-out. No way you could pick up a hose
without watering the dog. Thankfully, he had such a no fuss coat
that once he dried, mud just fell off of him. Not good for my
floors, needless to say. *VBG* But at least he stayed clean. And
he enjoyed snow even more!
One of his favorite places to sleep was the bathtub. It didn't take
him long to figure out it stayed nice and cool in there. If he ever
went missing on me at night, I could virtually always find him
snoozing in there. It wasn't wide enough for him, but he curled up
his legs and snoozed away.
Xander tended to be predatory when it came to small animals, so I had
to watch him aroung the guinea pigs. One afternoon, I took one of my
boars out to give him some dandelion for liver dysfunction. Xander
wasn't in the room, and I forgot to close the cage door (which is
about 17-18 inches from the floor. I was only a couple of steps
away. I gave Storm his dandelion and turned around to put him back
in the boar pen, and found Xander up to his shoulders in the cage.
(For being such a big boy, he sure could move quietly.) He had one
of my younger boars cornered in the front of the cage and was licking
him. Needless to say, visions of bloodshed flashed through my mind.
(Xander had never killed or hurt anything, but I knew the potential
was there.) Once I got my heart out of my throat, I lightly asked
with a joking lilt in my voice "Xander, what are you up to?" He
backed up and turned and grinned at me. The look was so funny, all I
could do was laugh. I put Storm back in his cage and praised Xander
for NOT eating the guinea pig when I unwittingly gave him the
opportunity. Needless to say, I didn't make that mistake again.
Xander was most definitely my cuddle bug and huggy boy. When I
needed a hug, he always seemed to be there and quite content to be
hugged half to death. He loved to be hugged, and he loved
attention. He seemed to make friends and admirers wherever we went.
Kids wanted to meet my "police dog", and he sucked up attention from
them. Adults who were brave enough to approach admired his sweet
nature and handsome face. Those that weren't worried he was a drug-
sniffing K9. *G* But for those he really liked, those elite in his
life, he would give little chin, ear and nose nibbles and lots of
kisses. If he gave you those, you knew you were on his special list.
Xander was my reason for cutting back on vaccines, and ended up being
my reason to stop them altogether (bolstered by D'Artagnan's asthma
onset after puppy rabies at 9 months). He also is the one that
finally pushed me off the fence into feeding raw. I had been
researching raw feeding since 1997-1998. When Xander got seriously
ill in December 2002, I said enough is enough and took the chance
that I wouldn't kill him. What we were doing obviously wasn't
working, and I figured I couldn't possibly do worse than the
commercial stuff that was killing him.
I really wish I had stopped vaccines sooner with him, and started him
on raw day one, but I also know that might not have made much
difference in the long run since he came from his breeder already
seriously compromised by the vax, deworming and stuff they had done
to him and his dam. All he taught me will benefit the others that
come after him. I know D'Artagnan has certainly benefited from all
Xander taught me. And I know my next new addition will benefit even
more. That will be Xander's legacy.
