a puppy pic of our clyde.. i need to update his pics from my camera to comp.
we were supposed to walk with my sister and jo (her boxer) but she started not feeling well so it was just me, lil ron, and clyde.
we did get to spend a bit of time at my sisters house and tried to get jo and clyde to get along. i dont know what it is.. clyde does so well ignoring most of the neighborhood dogs, although he did talk to *chuck* another boxer that lives down the street but for some reason him and jo just seem to do alot of barking. specially clyde tonight, i just wish i could figure out why. grant it clyde hasnt been around many other dogs ..
we have had him so far around a friends great dane and they get along really well, weve also had him around another friends pitt bull pup and although they seemed to get along really well, the pitt bull did bug me a bit, but i am woman enough to admit that although i know you shouldnt judge a breed by what you hear, i do have a hard time not doing it with pitt bulls..
other neighborhood dogs he tends to ignore for the most part which is what we want him to do.. but when it comes to jo.. i just dont know. im hoping that we can socialize them more and hopefully they will work it out but it will take some time i think.
i think tomorrow we might take clyde for a walk at one of the local trails again. we took him last week on one of the larger trails that takes you into the croatan national forrest and he did really well.. wore his butt out thats for sure *lol*
clyde has been an awesome addition to our family. years ago we had a bullmastiff mix named *grunt* he was an awesome pup.. sadly he left our family way to fast. grunt was well trained and never ever went near the street. we had a friend over and his girlfriend (at the time) .. they were having problems with her soon to be ex husband .. that night, we had let grunt out to use the bathroom.. he kept semi asking to go out, he woud stare at us and than run to the door.. so we let him out. little did we know that he would end up running into the street and end up being hit by a car. we feel that he was chasing someone out of the yard.. but we will never know for sure.
it wasnt long after loosing our grunt that we started researching the bullmastiff breed. we had read up on them and really looked hard into them for .. well its been about 12 years now, maybe more.
we did what any dog owner shouldnt do after loosing a dearly departed fur baby.. we ran out and started looking for him. we found *him* in a golden retriever/german sheppard mix who we brought home and named georgie. she was a good dog, had a strange obsession with her feet though ~ we had her for quite a few years before life took over and we just didnt have the time to dedicate to her. so instead of thinking about us, we thought about her and let my mom take her home and adopt her. she was happy, loved and the best part was we could still see her. georgie had an issue before with her ear that we had surgery on to correct. well apparently at some point the same thing had happened to the other ear and i was told that mother was going to take her to the vet.. the next time i saw georgie she looked fine. so i thought the problem had been corrected, we were told that the only way to fix it was surgery so when you dont see a huge swollen ear you automatically think it was taken care of.
i was working at the time and my boys (wyatt and lil ron) were at mothers house. wyatt was only 2 years old at the time and the kids were just in moms room.. lil ron asking about something on his homework and wyatt playing quietly on the floor.. and thats when it happened.. georgie attacked wyatt. it was horrible.. we had to rush him to the ER and have him all fixed up.. he ended up with 13 stitches. normally they dont stitch bites but because it was located on his upper lip they stitched him. it was little ron who pulled georgie off of his little brother.
luckly wyatt has never had any ill feelings towards dogs even after the attack. georgie .. well mom tried to keep her but seperate her from the kids when they were around. when she went after a neighbor kid mom decided that there was nothing she could do. georgie was unadoptable due to her attacking kids.. so she had to be put down.
i later learned that the issue with her ear was never fixed and was told it *just went away* i sometimes wonder if it didnt shoot straight to her brain causing her to loose her mind.
as i said over the years we had looked at the bullmastiff breed.. and we continued to do so. but we didnt want to rush into anything.. we wanted to take our time and really look and make sure that we were ready completely and totally before adopting a pup into our family.
with grunt being gone so long and georgie also.. we decided that the time was right. we were origionally looking at a great dane breeder and were waiting for another litter to be born when i decided to check the raliegh news paper. and thats when i found the listing for the bullmastiff pups.
we called and they had 8 pups total.. 4 boys and 4 girls.
we made arrangements to come see the pups on valentines day.. and so that morning we got the kids up and off we went.
when we got there, there were only 3 males left and all 4 girls. we knew that we wanted a boy.. so that part was easy. when the man brought out the pups one was quickly X'd off our list becuase it was too skittish.. which left 2, clyde and his brother... if we had the money i would have loved to bring both of them home.
clyde was supposed to be the most aggressive out of the litter but let me tell you for an aggressive dog he is sure as hell lazy *lol*
he is the sweetest thing.. owen crawls all over him, pulls on him.. *pets* him .. you name it clyde could care less. he isnt food agressive or anything.. which is awesome. he is very smart but also very stuborn .. which is normal with the breed ~ we have started from day one on some training .. sit he has down pack, we are now working harder on *down* (lay down) .. stay..
when walked he isnt allowed the full leash, he has to stay right next to my side at all times. he is also not allowed to bark at other dogs, he is to just ignore them.. these things he has mastered.
we are still working on excitement when it comes to people coming to the house but alot of that is training them to not talk to him.. to just ignore him until he settles down. we are also working on barking in the house for no reason.. like today he was talking to the dog across the street .. thankfully that dog isnt here all the time and only here for short periods of time. its a yellow lab that will bark all day long..
but that is a jist of the story behind our clyde ...
if you like big dogs, and i mean big lazy dogs.. i would suggest looking into the breed.. both the bullmastiff and the english mastiff are wonderful family dogs for the extra large breed lovers ~ a bullmastiff is the shorter of the two only topping at 27 inches tall (from shoulder to floor) vs the english mastiff which tops out at 30 inches.
also great danes seem to be rather well behaved family dogs.. maybe someday we will add one to our family.. im still keeping a close eye on the breeder we were origionally looking at.. they just had 2 of the cutest pups.. ah so hard to resist *lol*
