Women's Legacy Project

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neapolitan mastiff

Mr. Guy, aka Buddy, Grieves But Still Loves Treats

Blogging & Writing, Home & Family, Pets

I thought I would update readers on how my household is doing without our Daisy Dog.  We have her ashes so it is seeming more real.  Buddy (below) still wants to know where Daisy is and why she isn’t coming home.  The only real regret I now have is that we couldn’t have had Daisy euthanized at home so perhaps Buddy could have understood that she died.  I don’t know that dogs really understand such things.  At least I don’t understand such thing from a doggy perspective.
 

Buddy Sept 28 2013
Buddy. Tucson. Sept. 28, 2013

He is getting used to having free range rights throughout the entire house.  Daisy was a cat-chaser so we had baby-gates up in the house dividing dog and cat areas.  Buddy wants to play with the cats, he is lonely and wants a new play-pal, but the cats just hiss at him.  This makes him very sad.
I want to get another rescue so Buddy has doggy companionship within our “pack,” but I cannot fathom having another puppy in the house while this guy is still a pup.  As a Neapolitan Mastiff, a great or large breed dog, his puppy-hood will last in many respects until he is two.  We know this.  He is our 4th Neo.  I think we may do rescue or foster for a female great breed that is okay around cats when we are ready.

He is quite the handful.  In this video, at the end, you can see his “nudge” which he does with treats, this leash, and our arms when he wants some attention.  Yes, I am an unrepentant baby-talker to my puppies.  I’ve never seen a dog “nudge” before, have you?

Parenting the Pup

Creekside Commentary, Done Nesting, Tucson

The whole empty nest stereotype is bogus. There are as many reactions to graduating out of the daily, in-house parenting phase of life, as there are parents. People who have maintained their own identity while parenting, and most people these days do maintain a healthy identity and don’t live solely through or for their children. But there can be patterns of behavior from the parenting years that are comforting, familiar, and rewarding and that may be maintained once the kids are gone.
I didn’t know that we would fit into this pattern. But we do, I think. Our life together has been almost totally filled with parenting. We didn’t have much time together alone before our family started. And while that may be less than ideal, per what is recommended by marriage experts, that is what we have come to know and with which we are comfortable.
I think that some of this is underlying our decision to get a puppy. We can’t imagine life without a being able to care for a living, loving creature. I’m pretty sure this is one of the reasons we now have a 26 lb. puppy.

baby mastiff's BIG foot

Yes, that is right, twenty-six pounds! Our Little Guy has BIG feet.
Humans have a need to parent. There are many ways this urge can be filled, satisfied, or mitigated. Having kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews, volunteering with kids, having pets, engaging in a caring profession, and so on also can take care of the innate need to parent. Also, some couples engage in lots of care-taking behavior with each other, and that fills the same care-giving niche.
But us, we parent puppies.  BIG puppies.
 

The New Puppy!

Creekside Commentary, Done Nesting

I’m starting this post on the way to Phoenix. Ever since last weekend we have been in conversation with the Mastiff Rescue people about adopting one of the puppies we met last weekend. Because we are good puppy parents and have had three Neos in our lives, as well as a Dogue de Bordeaux puppy, and have a mixed breed rescue right now, we were hoping that we would be in serious contention for gettting a puppy. And we were. We are signing the papers, paying the adoption fee, and picking up a little male Neapolitan Mastiff today. Our nest isn’t empty any longer.
We are discussing dog names. Names discussed include: Weaver, George, Frank, Gus, Shawn, Sid, Guy, Mr. Bill, Mr. Scott (Scotty), Mr. Bruce, Jack, Mr. Bones, seven of eight, number six, Dr. Who, Rudy, Mike, Ike, Fang, Beau, Gilbert, Phx, Joseph, Bert, Earl, Seeger, Roy, Boots, Bimbo, Jabba the Mutt, Chewy, Jones, Pecos, Crosby, Parker, Cash, Pancho, CIsco, Boris, Moose, Clayton, Quinton Hairentino, Teddy, Roosevelt, Falstaff, Charles, Thurston Howl III, H.B. (short for Honey Badger), and Clifford.
We wanted to miss the slow down of the Phoenix rush hour so we actually arrived in Phoenix a bit early and went to La Tolteca on 12th & Van Buren (1205 E. Van Buren) for some good inexpensive Mexican food and a couple little treats from their delish bakery. Hubby Fang had chicken mole and I had a carne asada burrito.

I couldn’t make my mind up at first as to whether I wanted an apple or a pineapple empanada… but I finally decided on apple. I love basic Sonoran home cooking.

But now for the real reason this post:

OUR NEW PUPPY!

We are calling this little guy George for the moment. The pic above is at the foster home where he has been learning that there can be enough food for everyone and that life doesn’t have to hurt. He is a tawny Neapolitan Mastiff who is between 9 and 10 weeks old. He is a rescue, we picked him up in Phoenix late this afternoon.

He seems to be settling in exceptionally well and follows Hubby Fang around everywhere, guards him, comes when called, and loves to go outside. The water bowl is totally cool. There are chew toys everywhere and no one tries to eat his food but him. This may be puppy Valhala.

Every boy needs a puppy. Every puppy needs a boy. They have bonded already!
The pic above shows the mastiff’s tendency to have an excellent use of paws. Not all dogs are able to back up but Neos can. He’s done this already too.
And the Neo Mastiffs inclination to guard their territory and people is evident even in puppies of this age as you can see in this posture already. This is one of the reasons that the breed needs intensive, consistent, and loving training to channel their natural inclinations into obeying the alphas in the pack, their humans, rather than making decisions on their own. Mastiffs make bad decisions when left to their own devices. They need guidnce.

The Hubby and I may not be getting much uninterrupted sleep over the next few weeks until house-breaking is complete.  We have a puppy!
 

Another F Word Day, Friday the 13th

Blogging & Writing

Frenzied is how the day seems to be defining itself in the F Word world.  You may have noticed that… with the post being a day late…. the pace and continued forecast  frenzied to zoo-like.
Car goes to the shop for a new key to be linked to it. $250 freaking dollars for a car key. Then the seat adjusting button needs to be reattached to the drivers seat…second time for this. Still under warranty, thank heavens. Have to orient the house sitter for the days when both hubby and I will be on the road. We will actually have a few days of vacation time together this year. Amazing. The last time was when we vacationed together in Portland three years ago on our 20th wedding anniversary before the start of a conference he was attending. I thought he’d want to come to NYC to BlogHer with me, but nope. I come in Weds. and leave Sunday. Oh well…  I wouldn’t have had time for him anyway!
And then,  guess what?  The hubby tells me he is picking up a two puppies, Neapolitan Mastiff puppies of course, in TN.  One will be ours, and the other will be picked up by a California owner from our Tucson home.    So I guess the road trip just got longer.  Argh.  Hubby needs his puppy though and our old female dog needs a puppy to raise and keep her company.  Nothing has been right in our home since Mr. Worf was killed by the swarm of Africanized bees.

Mr. Worf, the bestest puppy ever. 2006 -2012. RIP

 
U.S. Gov map of Africanized Bee distribution in 2009.

Please be sure your animals have a safe place to take shelter from bees if they are outside, as in a doggie door (but the bees might have come in through the door) or better yet never leave them outside alone.  We did, only for a few minutes, something we had done for years with no problems, even though we have predominantly inside dogs, and we lost our beautiful friend of 6 years in May from a bee attack.
At least I’m not starting off on this many legged, many legged indeed, in oh so many ways, journey on Friday the 13th. Not that doing so would be all that terrible, necessarily. I walk under ladders, after checking for buckets of paint and determining reasons for the ladder being there. I open umbrellas indoors. Logic rules my behavior most of the time. But then I remember my best friend during my teen years, who was born on Halloween, saying that her lucky number was 13. She was in a horrific car crash that took place on November 6, 1977. She died on a Friday in January in 1978, that Friday was the 13th. And since I seem to be in a sad mood, let me also say.  Please do not drink and drive, ever.
Okay back on to brighter things and funky strings… or something like that…I did not do an app of the week this week. I might do two next week to make up for the app sloth. I’m really impressed with lightArrow’s company’s LifeTopix organizer.  It really does organize your life, and I will want to feature it, I’m sure. And at some point I also want to talk about Pages for the iPad.
And I am working on my… series, I guess that is what I should call it, on the mash up that is becoming momma media meets corporate money. I look at it from a culture change perspective, and if you are actually following along on this thread, you might want to go back and check out a couple of posts of mine from April: The Feminization of the Interwebs  and Women may be the Winner in the SEO Google Wars while I get this next set up and ready to run.
And don’t let arbitrary day and date cyclic co-occurrence freak you out.  Wikipedia tells me that Friday the 13th only became a focus of superstition a couple hundred years ago.  It is a modern invention.