My two lovebirds.

Whether it is the true nature of Rottweilers to make new friends or my recently adopted rescue Rott Griffin is just a very fast worker. In only ten days he has overcome Bessie's resistance and won over her affections. These two spend a lot of time with me in my den because I spend a lot of time on my computer. And when they are not taking naps they are, for want of a better term, making out. 

Late last night the two lovebirds began playing with their squeaky balls in my den. This time I held the camera down at floor level to get some new shots.

 

 

 

 

 

 A Saturday Night bath?

Playtime.

Finally, the Sun came out today and the lovebirds went out to play.
The first pic begs for a title: "Will you dance with me?"

And, yes, Griffin is feeling better today. Just dealing with a drippy nose.

This fenced-in area is the only part of the backyard where Griffin is allowed off leash. I haven't taken him and Bessie down to the back to explore yet and when we do go he will have to be on a leash so he won't run away. My property measures 115 ft wide and 600 ft deep. The telephone pole in one of the photos is the boundary marker on one side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Probably the strangest story I ever wrote

The best place to begin is at the beginning.
 
My big boy Ruffin was born on November 13, 2006 in Sharonville, Ohio and passed away in his sleep on August 23, 2018 in his home in Independence, Kentucky where he lived all his life. During his lifetime we became more than best friends forever. From the moment he licked my nose when I picked him up out of his whelping box he stole my heart. And every day of his life we gave each other hugs and kisses. To say that we bonded together during his almost 12 years on the Earth doesn't completely explain how much love we had for each other.

During Ruffin's life in our home he was a witness to much sickness and death. When we brought him to his new home he was introduced to his new family, Mocha and Sassy my two female Rottweilers. Sassy, who was four years old became Ruff's foster mother and because they were so close later on they fell in love. And when Sassy died in 2014 Ruffin was heartbroken and mourned her loss for months. During this time my beloved Jacqueline was fighting a losing battle against Alzheimer's and I was drawing upon the compassion of my two Rottweilers to help me deal with this. Two years after Sassy died I underwent months of treatment for Prostate Cancer. This was followed by Ruffin's loss of eyesight and his own treatment for cancer and dealing with his total blindness. I was Ruffin's rock, his anchor, his safe place. Every single day he would come to me on numerous occasions to get hugs and kisses. He needed his batteries recharged frequently. All this time we became closer and closer together. We became inseparable.

Then last month I had to go into the hospital with heart problems. I was so fortunate to have met a wonderful Christian woman from a local church who came to my home to take care of Bessie and Ruff. But still, Ruff missed me and it began to affect his health. On the 3th day I was hospitalized the woman told me Ruff had stopped eating. He missed me and probably thought I was never coming back. The next day they implanted a pacemaker and on the 5th day I told them I couldn't stay any longer so I came home. When I walked in the house Ruff heard my voice and came out of the bedroom to greet me. We hugged and kissed for a long time and I told him how much I loved him and missed him. That night Ruffin ate his entire dinner and seemed to be back to his old self. The next day he stopped eating again and I became worried and took him to our Vet. Dr. Black was Ruff's favorite lady doctor and he always greeted her with kisses. This time he didn't move off the floor in the exam room and she said to me, "He must really be sick if he didn't give me any kisses." She did a thorough exam, took x-rays and an ultrasound and didn't offer any clues to his problem and sent him home with me. Whether she suspected anything I will never know because if she had suggested keeping him overnight for observation, Ruff would have died alone in a cage instead of next to me in his home. Several friends pointed out that Ruffin was holding on waiting for my return home before he died.

In the last 23 years I have owned 7 Rottweilers and faced the hardest part of saying good bye when 5 of them passed away. But I felt a strange difference in the days after Ruff was gone. It was not the great feeling of grief one would get over the death of a very close friend. It didn't occur to me right away but later I started feeling like Ruff had not gone too far away.

After the surgeon implanted the pacemaker he said to me, "You will live for another 20 years." I said, great, this gives me time to have one more Rottweiler. And I started letting people know I was looking on Facebook. Within days a friend alerted me to a notice posted by Pawsitive Warriors Rescue of New Carlisle, Ohio, about 100 miles north. They had a 15 month old male Rottweiler who was just given to them for a new home. My first impression was he looked like Ruff. And somehow, someway, I began to think my best friend Ruff was still looking over me and knowing that I needed this new friend.

It has now been one full week since the rescue group drove down here and delivered Griffin (Bruno). I fell in love with him the moment I saw him. He was more beautiful than his pictures. It didn't take Bessie too long to start up a friendship, either. She seems to be trying to be the pack leader and girlfriend/playmate at the same time. Today she was all playmate when they were outside and she seemed to be coming to life enjoying her new friend. And I am beginning to notice some peculiar personality traits with Griffin that bear an uncanny resemblance to Ruffin.

Tonight I had a strange thought about Griffin. I wondered where he came from. I reached out to the rescue group and wrote them: "you mentioned when you delivered (Bruno) Griffin that you thought you had a copy of his pedigree. I am very much interested in seeing it if you can locate it. FYI my big boy Ruffin was born in Sharonville, Ohio and there have been several times that (Bruno) has shown me personality traits identical to Ruffin and as strange as this seems it is not beyond the realm of possibility that (Bruno) might be an offspring of one of Ruffin's siblings. And besides, (Bruno) even looks a bit like Ruff, too. I have Ruff's pedigree and would like to compare them."

And I sent another message to Theresa Howard, the ARC Certified Breeder who had bred Ruffin at her home. Theresa and her husband came to my home last year for a visit and to see Ruffin. It was the first time she had seen him in 11 years.

Hi, Theresa, you have not yet met my newest addition to our family but when you do I think you may be surprised. I have begun to see several personality traits in Griffin that remind me of Ruffin, not to say the least they look alike. I have sent a request to the lady who runs the rescue group in New Carlisle, Ohio to see if she can locate the pedigree for Griffin. She told me that she had it when she got him. I am wondering if you still have the names of the people who purchased the other Rottie pups from Ruffin's litter? I think there is a slight chance that Griffin may be an offspring from one of them.

Now we wait. One thing in my favor is there are not too many Rottweiler breeders in southern Ohio so that works in my favor. Wouldn't it be a wonderful coincidence if Griffin turned out to be an offspring from one of Ruff's brothers or sisters? It would be like Ruffin found a way to come back to me. That's what true love is all about.

I was never able to examine Griffin's pedigree but I did learn one more amazing fact. And the more I keep thinking about it the more I believe someone upstairs is watching over me. The woman who runs the Pawsitive Warriors Rescue group told me that Griffin was surrendered to them for adoption on August 22nd which was the day before Ruffin died. And I am wondering if my best friend Ruff had anything to do with arranging his replacement.

Continuing the story about our newest Rottweiler, Griffin

A lot has happened in the last 5 days. Our big baby has developed Kennel Cough in spite of getting a vaccination shot for Bordatello and has been doing a lot of hacking around the house. I took Griff to our Veterinary Clinic, Noah's Ark on Thursday, September 6th to have him checked out and begin a new treatment record on him. Several of the ladies there including Ruffin's favorite lady Vet came out to see him. He was an instant hit. A few of the girls said Griff looked so much like Ruffin. On the way home we stopped at the KentonCounty Animal Shelter and got his a dog license. And once again he was a big hit.

Update on Griffin, September 7, 2018.
Another trip back to the Vet today for Griffin. The hacking cough has persisted every day since he arrived and it sounds worse now. Vet prescribed Cephalexin antibiotic and Hydrocodone to ease his sore throat. Since he arrived on Tuesday afternoon he has had diarrhea, little or no appetite and several bouts of vomiting. I decided this morning to have a full workup done on him to see if anyone missed something. As we were leaving the Vet this morning Griff had a massive stool dump in the office, half solid and half diarrhea and a smaller diarrhea in the van. The Fecal exam came back clean and the Heart worm test was negative. So far so good. Waiting for the rest of the blood panel tomorrow. (it was also good except for some elevated white blood cells due to the kennel cough) Vet suggested boiled chicken and rice for dinner. With an empty stomach he must have been hungry. Griff ate it all and vomited it 3 hours later. I noticed on his previous Vet report before we got him his weight was 115 lbs on 8-30-2018. Yesterday it was 107 lbs and today it was 106 lbs.

Bessie and Griffin are getting along fine, Griff still wants to play and Bess has begun to show her command voice. She stopped one of his exuberant attempts to play with a few very loud barks right in his face. And the barks have a different sound to them, they didn't sound like the one's she makes at the front door.

 

 

 

 

Morning update on Griffin September 8^th.
Griff has become attached to me. He spends most of his day sleeping on the floor under the computer table. And I love the way he snores. He follows me around the house wherever I go and the last two nights at bedtime I was forced to use that to my advantage because he does not willingly go into the crate. Good thing I bought the extra large size because I found if I crawl into the crate he follows me and then I can back out and close the gate.

 

I found a way to get him to take pills.

It's still raining so I haven't gotten to the store with my shopping list so I melted some shredded cheddar cheese in the microwave and formed it in a ball and buried his pills in it. But he spit the whole thing out when I put it in his mouth. Not wanting to waste the pills I dropped the ball of cheese into the dog food bowl with a handful of kibble. Griff went over and ate the whole thing.

The other night I found Bess and Griff snoozing together in the hallway. They had their faces so close together it looked like they were smooching.

Last night I saw a major change in our sleeping arrangements.
Griffin may be only 15 months old but he is as smart as a whip. After three nights of coaxing and tricking him into the crate at bedtime, even to the point of me crawling in first and having him follow me, last night he wasn't having any of that. And this posed a major problem. I couldn't let him roam the house after I went to bed because he is so curious he gets into everything. This same problem would apply to him sleeping on the dog bed on the floor in my bedroom. So I tried letting Griff sleep on my bed. Which, of course, is where Bessie always sleeps but they wouldn't make any room for me.

So I put a 6 ft leash on Griffin and tied it to the corner of my bed so he could sleep on the dog bed where Ruff used to sleep. Bessie didn't like this so she left my room. Griffin found the leash gave him enough room to climb on my bed and after I turned out the lights he came over me (literally standing over me) and drowned me in kisses. When he tried to lay on top of me I forced him off and he ended up sleeping down at the end of the bed with his back pressed against my back. And thank God he didn't snore once. When I woke up this morning Bessie was sleeping on Ruff's bed next to mine.

 

 

I wish there was a way to publish a video on this blog. I just had Griffin and Bessie outside and watched Griff dance all around Bessie trying to get her to play. At first she would just lunge and snap at him to make him stop but he never gave up trying. Then she started playing with him and it was the most enjoyable sight I've seen in the 9 years since we adopted Axl and he played with 2 yr old Ruff. And they kept it up for almost 10 minutes.

Oh, I almost forgot. This was really uncanny. The other day I sat down in the leather chair in the family room and almost immediately Griffin casually stepped up on the arm of the chair and climbed on to my lap and gave me kisses.  Once before many years ago, when Ruffin was young he did the exact same thing. Back then my wife Jacqueline grabbed the camera and took some photos. When Griff did it I went and set up the camera on the tripod and sat down with the remote in my hand and Griff came over and did the whole thing again. Here are 2 photos of Griff and 2 photos of Ruff.

In 2008

 

And here's the really weird thing, in both photos I was wearing the same old work jeans.

 

We have a new name for our Rottweiler.

We have a new name for our Rottweiler. This is the last time I will mention the name Bruno. I discovered by accident that because he was getting into so many things that I was following him around telling him, Bruno NO. Then I realized the way I was pronouncing his name it came out Brew No which confused him from understanding No.

So from now on his name is Griffin and it will be Griff for short.

And now about the nose prints. On every thing located from the floor up to 4 feet high. I'm not complaining, he is just extremely curious and acts like a kid in a candy store. He wants to touch and sniff everything. He has gone through the house, put his front feet up on places like the kitchen countertop and desk just to see what's up there. I am just concerned he may be a klepto and start taking things.

Also, he is very curious about everything I do. I was cleaning the lamp shade on the night table in the bedroom and he jumped up on the bed and literally hung his head over my shoulder to watch what I was doing. I love his inquisitive nature. We are going to be good friends.

I have begun to notice a few minor problems. First off he doesn't care for (gasp) peanut butter. In 23 years I have never seen this before. I always believed that peanut butter was irresistible. But in a round about way I found his weakness. He adores my home made baked macaroni and cheese. Last night he had a very watery diarrhea and I had to give him some pills to dry it up. He didn't seem to know how take a spoonful of peanut butter in his mouth so I put the pills in some of the baked macaroni and he gobbled it up from a bowl.

Problem solved. Someone suggested he was a cheese lover so I gave him a slice of Swiss Cheese. Griffin loved it. 

This morning we had our first attempted play session. And Griffin has a very loud bark. He wanted to get Bessie to play with him so bad that he started leaping and barking at her. Bessie, for all her wild hand-to-hand combat sessions with Ruff when she was a puppy, stood her ground and starred at Griff as if to say "what's wrong with you."

And since I have not been able to show any of my video here on mt blog I am happy to announce I have added a link in the upper right corner to my Facebook page. Hopefully you will be able to see the videos I posted including the new one this morning.

 

We have adopted another Rottie

The most fortunate thing occurred a few days ago, a friend on Facebook alerted me to a young male Rottweiler that was coming up for adoption from a rescue group up in Ohio. I made contact with Molly Murray the founder and director of Pawsitive Warriors Rescue of New Carlisle, Ohio and after checking my Facebook page and this blog felt that I was the best candidate for the adoption.

Today, our latest Rottweiler has arrived. Many thanks to Molly Murray for transporting him almost 100 miles to my home. So here he is. His name is Bruno and he is 15 months old. He is a pedigreed Rottweiler and he was just neutered a few days ago. I mention that fact because he has a magnificent shaped head, just like Ruffin had after we waited two years to have him neutered.

And, if I may borrow the title from that old TV show, now I can finally say: Eight Is Enough

And he looks like the spitting image of Ruffin when he was Bruno's age.

And now we will have many new stories to write about.

 

 

Ruffin's ashes have come home

Ruffin came home the other day. In a way it feels good to have him back in the house where he grew up and spent his entire life. I received his ashes from Faithful Friends Pet Crematory in a fancy carved rosewood box.

I am waiting on the brass plaque to put on the wooden box and it will be held here until the time of my own death and per my instructions, will be placed in my casket, just as Axl's ashes were placed in Jacqueline's casket.

I am overwhelmed by the huge outpouring of messages. Thank you all for making my grief easier to bear.

The Rainbow Bridge

If you love dogs you've heard about The Rainbow Bridge. The story is told about a place where the souls of all of our departed pets go and wait for their humans to catch up with them after they die. The pets wait on the other side of the bridge in a wonderfully happy place where they are free from all of the pain and disease they endured while on Earth. The lame and crippled can walk and run again, the blind can see again and there is no more hunger or suffering.

Then on some particular day, one by one, each dog suddenly sniffs the air and cocks their heads to listen to a long remembered sound because one of their humans was walking across The Bridge and they run to greet them. It is a beautiful, heartwarming story that reveals the depth of love that exists between people and their four-legged pets.

You don't have to be particularly religious to believe in The Rainbow Bridge, while some people doubt that animals have souls, one recent Pope of the Catholic Church said while he had no proof they had souls he imagined that God would not have created such loyal and loving animals and not given them an Eternal life. Or you can just embrace the thoughts of Will Rogers, the American humorist who said:  If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. I sort of lean in this direction.

So I decided to visualize what I would find when my time came to cross that bridge. 

From the top: Nikko, Felony, Mocha, Sassy, Axl and his mom and my big boy Ruffin.

You are all invited to visit my Facebook page

The Internet is all about communication, news and information. It is a perfect place to meet and greet people.

I have been on Facebook for over a year and shared my library of Rottweiler photos and stories.

I invite everyone to visit my Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100015520213404

The eulogies and condolences keep pouring in for Ruff

Less than 24 hours since I posted the notice on Facebook that my best friend Ruffin had passed away over 1,000 messages of love, support, sympathy, condolences and eulogies have poured in from around the world.

Ruffin in all his quiet beauty had gathered a huge following everywhere.

It is no wonder that when total strangers met him and called him Handsome, Gorgeous and Beautiful and got to enjoy his kisses that others who merely fell in love with him from my photos would share their feelings.

Here are some of the sympathy cards sent to me since yesterday.

I am overwhelmed at the number of hearts Ruffin has touched.

Eulogy by Kimberly Michelle Anderson

Dee Bella Lail eulogy for Ruff

 Martha Gierschick eulogy for Ruffin

Beth Greenaway eulogy for Ruffin

Michelle O'Reilly eulogy for Ruffin

Sharon Jones Cote eulogy for Ruff

Judy Papinchak eulogy for Ruffin

Eileen Hughes eulogy for Ruffin