Challenges of Life with Giant Puppy

Life with giant puppy

I remember the days B.C. – before Catawba, aka "Giant Puppy."

On mornings like Monday when I found only a few crushed egg shells as ghosts of the 14 fresh eggs he ate – yes, more than a dozen! – I look back in my mind at the cute, little blonde teddy bear we adopted.

It was a May afternoon at the Catawba Valley Farmers' Market, and a little boy from New Castle came walking across the grass hugging a fluffy pup of a breed I couldn't identify. Golden doodle? Chow?

By the time the two reached me, I had locked eyes with the puppy and I was a goner.

"He's a Golden Retriever-Great Pyrenees, with maybe a little English shepherd," the young man said. And then the clincher: "Mom says if we don't find homes for them today, we'll have to take them to the SPCA."

"Well, I could do that if he doesn't fit into our family," I told myself.

Of course, I named him Catawba. And you know how it is once you name something. You're bonded, probably forever.

When we arrived home to my unsuspecting husband, Bill, I announced, "I've brought a friend for Skippy," our still-new Shihtzu-Cairn Terrier mix. My husband responded, "Is he here to stay?"

He was.

So far, the score is giant puppy 25, humans 2. In the wee hours of the morning so far, Catawba has snatched-and-chewed a library book, three of my late mother-in-law's clutch bags that were wrapped in plastic and stored (in an open shelf), a couple of magazines, the obligatory tasting of various of (my) leather sandals, my favorite half-cup measuring cup, and more.

Because I've never crate-trained a dog, I never thought how much angst that could have saved us. I also had no idea how rapidly a fluff ball would grow legs and turn into a coffee table, then a dining room table with hair, and now he's working on being a counter.

And because of his rapid height growth, Catawba can easily nose things off the counter for pre-dawn snacks. This week it was the eggs. A few weeks ago it was two sticks of butter, still in their wrappers, I had set out in a mixing bowl to soften so I could make cookies the next morning.

I am so thankful Catawba left the mixing bowl intact.

I'm sure Skippy, who can easily walk underneath his huge friend, gets some of the spoils, too. Catawba usually defers to him when it comes to chew bones, despite the size difference.

We went as far as to locate and borrow an enormous crate a month ago to confine Catawba during the night. It's still sitting empty, except for his cushion. I'm a wimp.

And once I learned to give the two dogs rawhide bones right before we go to bed, life did get more peaceful.

Sunday night I forgot the bones, and hence, the omelet without the pan. At least Catawba cleaned up after himself.

Life with puppy

It's been 16 years since we've lived with a puppy.

Savannah was our last one. After she disappeared in a blowing snow on her final adventure Jan. 8 and we never located her, we began looking for a shaggy, small dog to adopt as a companion for our 12-year-old Lhasa Apso, Hairy Dawg, who is blind.

Skippy came home with us two weeks ago. He's a black-and-white "Goodview terrier," whose daddy was a Shih Tzu and whose mother was a Cairn terrier. Think "Toto," Dorothy's dog in "The Wizard of Oz." This pup who definitely tends toward the terrier side of his family came from Goodview in Bedford County, and he's 3 months old.

We weren't looking for a puppy. Even though we had looked into adopting adult dogs at just about every shelter, checked with rescue groups, adoption websites and Craigslist postings within a 100-mile radius, almost all of them available in January and early February were big, were hounds or had a healthy "re-homing fee."

Skippy – whose original name was Billy – was the last of four puppies and his human mama, Delores, just wanted a good home for him. We set off with Hairy in the car one Sunday afternoon for a meet-and-sniff. (The dogs did the sniffing, not us.)

My husband wanted to name the pup Skippy after his first dog, a Spitz mix. Billy-Skippy doesn't seem to mind the change. He was ecstatic to have a friend to lie next to on the dog pillow in the back of the car, to sleep with in the crate for the first two nights, and to roll all over in general.

Skippy didn't know about leashes, walking on lead, housebreaking or stairs. But he didn't whimper when we put him to bed, as his original mama told us to do, "every night at 9 when I give him a hug and kiss him on the nose."

That worked the first night, once I put Hairy in with him, and might have after that if Hairy, who isn't used to being crated, hadn't decided enough was enough. Hairy started barking in the wee hours of the morning and wouldn't stop voicing his discontent over being confined with a youngun who thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

OK, so I'm a wimp. After that, we turned the two of them loose in the kitchen with a puppy gate confining them, and plenty of puppy pee pads, food, water and toys.

Hairy didn't think much of that, either. He's used to sleeping on carpet next to our bed.

His domain upstairs was puppy proof for a brief while. But Skippy, who's definitely not an alpha dog and isn't used to being alone, started barking in the middle of the night in the kitchen.

He solved that himself. Over the weekend Skippy – who was raised in a single-story mobile home – taught himself to climb stairs and scamper down again. No more crates, no more puppy gates. Still plenty of pee pads, but it's a lot easier to open the upstairs door and let the dogs outside in the fenced yard in the dark instead of trying to walk the pair of them in the middle of the night. The full moon was gorgeous, though.

Our devilishly clever plan is working. Skippy plays with Hairy's toys, lies close to him on the dog bed, and gives him somebody to follow up the stairs and out the door. The three cats have adjusted much easier than I expected, and tolerate the newcomer.

Hairy is moving around better. Maybe it's having a youngster in the house. Maybe it's the glucosamine sulfate-chondroitin I grind up and put in his food.

I think Savannah would approve of Skippy. She would be licking him.