I
didn’t need a puppy, but two of my
friends had just acquired little ones, and I was suddenly desperate for a pink
tummy and little shark teeth of my own. Human
children don’t appeal to me. At all. Actually, they scare me. But put me around
a puppy, kitten or foal, and I become an irrational fool.
I’ve been told that mothers don’t remember how bad childbirth is, which is how they're able to have more than one kid.
Puppies are like that. It had been six
years since Dalai the Dane was a baby, Naturally I’d forgotten what a pain puppies. are. Friends tried
to warn me, but I didn’t listen. I wanted
one.
Admittedly the last 12 months have rough. I lost
my heart dog, Murray the Dane last August, my dear aunt Maud Ann passed in
January, and Wes the horse died suddenly in February.
The
future isn’t bright either. Rocky the elderly Brittany that I adopted in 2015, is
failing and both Lucy the horse and Poppy the Brittany were diagnosed with
Cushings disease.
Thankfully, Dalai is doing great,
but she’s a six year-old Great Dane, which makes her – like me- late middle
aged. I needed something young and lively in the house. A puppy would do the trick.
I started scanning the rescue
pages, but none of the Danes that fit my particular specs (a male that was good
with all dogs, cats and horses) were available in my area. So I began looking for reputable breeders.
My choices in California had just had
litters and all their puppies were placed.
I finally settled on a breeder in Ohio. She was perfect: she’d been
breeding for 20 years, was a Great Dane and obedience judge and I knew people
who’d gotten dogs from her.
I contacted her and got a form
letter back saying that she would have a litter arriving in time to place in
late summer. That worked perfectly with
my schedule. I always go home in mid-August to see mom and watch the Travers
race in Saratoga. I could pick up the puppy on my way home.
Perfect and sensible. Then the
stupid began. I started browsing pictures of puppies on Great Dane Facebook
pages. On a whim I contacted a breeder
in Kentucky. She sent me photos of the
males in her latest litter.
Instant mush. I was
inquiring about where to send money practically before the email alert pinged.
I know better than this. I know you
should never get a purebred dog without meeting both parents. You should check the
breeder out with the AKC and probably the BBB. I did none of the above.
Instead I immediately sent her a deposit
through PayPal and began figuring out how to get the puppy from Kentucky to Los
Angeles without him flying cargo in the summer. This was not simple.
I discovered that the breeder lived
in the Kentucky equivalent of where my mom lives in Massachusetts. That is, the
middle of nowhere.
In the
past the breeder had shipped puppies out of the Nashville airport. Bing! We had
a winner.
I’d visit mom in Massachusetts going via Nashville and picking up the puppy on the way.
At eight weeks, he would still be small enough to fly onboard. End of problem.
Then, a
friend convinced me to help her move some horses to Pennsylvania by way of
Kentucky. From there, I’d go to mom. It made sense at the time so that’s what we did.
After two
days of non-stop driving from Santa Anita with only one tornado and a hailstorm, we met the breeder at a Burger King
parking lot in a tiny Kentucky town right off the freeway. I handed her an
envelope filled with money, and she passed me the puppy. It was a lot like a
drug deal, but with a 35-foot horse trailer, six racehorses and a tiny puppy.
There might be an HBO series in this.
Jasper – named for painter Jasper Johns - was a scrawny little
thing and slept a lot. This was good; we had another 20 hours of driving ahead
of us. He pretty much collapsed on whoever wasn’t driving, waking only when
we stopped for gas and to feed and water the horses. Then he would shake
himself awake, pee and drop back to sleep all without making a sound. He was
the perfect traveling companion.
Even
when we finally got home he was nearly faultless. At eight weeks, he asked to go out and immediately do his business. He'd play for a
little while and then crash.
Like
most Danes, Jasper doubled in size in two weeks. Not surprisingly, as he’s grown, he’s turned
into a typical puppy. This does not please any of the other quadrupeds already
in my house
He worships Dalai, who is a little terrified
of him, and follows poor Rocky around incessantly. Poppy, who has no maternal
instincts whatsoever, and thriving self-esteem, promptly bit him on the ear, so
he avoids her most of the time. Tilly
the cat and Jasper have achieved a détente of sorts: they simply ignore each
other.
Like many new mothers, I'd conveniently forgotten a lot. Like puppies have to go
out every two hours for potty breaks, they chew everything they can reach –
which with baby Danes is practically everything and they don’t sleep through the
night, Also, some of them, like Jasper, are pukers. Nothing wakes you from a
dead sleep like an animal about to throw up.
In
other words, my once peaceful household has been turned upside-down. But things
will settle down. Eventually. My puppy fever is now satiated. I’m good for at
least another six or seven years. Maybe.
