A Maggie's worth.
If it wasn’t for a certain loveable old beast making her teeth bleed from tripping on the stairs, I would not have heard my mother’s apology.
Mother claims Maggie is making Tashi friendlier.
Maggie has made such a difference in Tashi.
All three are out in the BIG yard in the afternoon when I am home or teaching class… no problems getting them into the house. Maggie leads the way.
Snow White had the birds fluttering about, I’ve three dogs milling around me.
A pack of rescues… an athlete, a silent one, a big friendly giant.
This isn’t Yogi, Tashi, or Maggie, but this dog did give a sweet visit today. The Norwegian Elkhound only grows to about 60 pounds (What? That’s baby talk!), but they were bred to take down huge animals: Bears. Wolves. And mooses.
They can’t all be born big dogs, but cute ones are tolerable.
GPOYW
The Yogi Story
In 2004, our Airedale Terrier Cody Coldwater Buffalo Bill passed away. He was 14 years old in human years, which means it was really his time and he lived a good life. My mom really missed having an Airedale around, so she went online (!) to find a new canine companion.
She somehow landed on a page with a dog named Yogi. The text said Yogi was half Airedale. Just based on his photo, though, you’d have immediately known that whoever made that conclusion had never actually encountered an Airedale. His coloring was flipped, his hair was straight, his nose was that of a hound’s and not a terrier’s, and really there wasn’t an ounce of Airedale in Yogi.
His story still kept us interested, though. Yogi was this big unidentified mutt of a thing that was left at a shelter out in the sticks. His being 100 pounds meant finding him a new home would be doubly hard for the shelter.
When it came to describing Yogi’s demeanor, the caretakers discussed how scared he was. He didn’t like men, he didn’t like dark, he’d tolerate being on a leash, but he showed all the signs of having been abused in the past. Based on those context clues, we believe to this day that he was abused by men in the dark. Based on his size, he was probably used as a watchdog, but if you get to know the real Yogi like only five people in the world have, you’d know he’d rather live his missed puppy years.
So we took him in, I forced him to watch TV with me (He wouldn’t stay sitting next to me without a leash hooked to his collar.), and now he’s living his puppy years. He’s just a little big, though, so I often have to just grit my teeth when he gets excited and sits on my feet—or my chest, as he did the other day right after he knocked me on my back.
Bubble Face (via theMaykazine)
This one’s Tashi. She is wearing a cookie hat. We are BFF. She just doesn’t know it.
So this is Maggie. She’s the latest adoption to our big dog family. Her antics in the last couple of weeks are what inspired me to start this blog. I was tweeting about her actions every day, and it just came time to celebrate how awesome big dogs are.
