Griffin protects us from everything

You all have heard about the infamous Rottweiler prey drive? My big boy Griffin has taken this to a whole new level. While I have been working diligently to cure him of chasing cars, albeit while hooked to a long leash, Griff has become fascinated with just about everything that moves. First and foremost are the things that go BUZZZ. Griffin, Do Not Bite The Buzz!!! OK, that is a lesson he may have to learn on his own. And hopefully not ever. But when I sit outside on the deck with Griffin he never takes his eyes away from the sky.

Every bird that flies overhead excites him like maybe he's watched an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

But last night after it got dark out he found something new to catch his attention. Fireflies. And off he went charging around after every Firefly that flashed. By the time we came back inside he was totally out of breath like he just ran a marathon.

Griff caught the scent of something under a hedge by the front door a few days ago. Might of been a Rabbit. He literally dove into the shrub and I had to pull him out. Every time we went out the front door since that is the first place he stopped.

I think the Rabbit lives there. I got two pictures of it thru my bedroom window one day.

My baby Bess is 5-years old and we had another birthday party

Bessie's story.
A few people know that after Sassy died Ruffin went into deep mourning after losing the love of his life. I searched everywhere for an adult female Rottweiler to be her replacement. A friend who worked at the Kenton County Animal Shelter sent me a photo of a 7-week old female Rottweiler puppy that someone had surrendered to the shelter for adoption. The woman knew I was looking for an adult Rott but she wanted to know if I would be interested in a baby girl. I came down to the shelter with Ruffin as soon as they opened on Monday, August 24-2014 and after a brief introduction and a few kisses I decided to adopt her. In setting a date for Bessie's birthday, I backtracked the date from the info the shelter provided and figured July 1st was pretty close. These are the pictures I took that day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, the last five years have gone by pretty fast. So many things have happened that I won't try to dwell on the sadness. More recently I wrote about my big boy Ruffin crossing over the bridge and how miraculous it seemed that I found his replacement. Nevertheless, my baby girl Bess has someone new to keep her company and Griffin and Bess have become very fond of each other.

Keeping with the long family tradition we had a birthday party last night for Bessie. I baked a large meatloaf for a birthday cake, covered it with mashed potato icing and we all enjoyed it. Here are the pictures of our party.

That's it for the birthdays until next year. 

 

One of the best stories from the good old days.

In the later half of the 1990s my wife and I had settled in to our little old house in Kentucky and were just learning how to cope with 3 adult Rottweilers and 6 cats. We quickly learned that one of the prime directives of our Rottweilers second only to food was making friends with people they never met before. And the big male, Nikko Bear, was the most outgoing Rottweiler we had. So one day we were all out in the backyard and suddenly I spot Nikko heading up the hill in the back. The woman who lived behind us had just come home from the store and was carrying groceries into the house and propped her kitchen door open. I raced up the hill to catch him but by the time I got there he had already crossed our neighbor's backyard and had gone up her steps and followed her into her house. When I got there I heard her exclaim, "Well hello there, where did you come from?" So I introduced myself and made apologies for the unwanted intrusion. As we left she said, "He's a very friendly dog." This is Nikko and the woman's house is just to the right of the big tree in the background.

 

Numerology

10 years ago

I used to think nothing could predict the future, now I’m not so sure. Suddenly I find myself thinking a lot about the coincidence of numbers. I looked it up and found there is a pseudoscience called Numerology of which I know nothing about but unless I’m about to relive an old experience that gave me great joy I’m willing to suspend doubt for the time being. Fasten your seat belts and enjoy the ride.

In chronological order the events line up this way.

Ten years ago I had a 2-year old Rottweiler named Ruffin who was the biggest bundle of love and energy and all the flat out handsomeness you could ever ask for.

Ten years ago a dear friend offered me a chance to adopt an almost 8-year old Rottweiler named Axl who was the most gentle, lovable animal I have ever met.  I jumped at the offer. We brought Axl to his forever home in August 2009.

Ten years ago my BFF Ruffin became best friends with the old Rottweiler Axl. They enjoyed their days together playing and chasing each other around our backyard.

Ten years ago we had two Rottweilers, Ruffin who was 2-years old and Sassy, a Rottie girl who was 6.

Axl lived to be 16 and died in January 2017.

Ruffin lived to be 12 and died in September 2018. In those 12 years I never felt such a close relationship with any dog before as I did with Ruff. He was so much more than just my Best Friend Forever, he was my closest companion. During the tragic and stressful years caring for my dying wife Ruff was my rock, he was my battery charger, he helped make the sadness easier to live with.  I used to tell him every day how much I needed him and he would listen to me so attentively I just knew he understood. I will leave it up to speculation whether anyone else was listening.

My wife Jacqueline passed away the year before Ruffin.

I am still a little bewildered at how quickly things developed so soon after Ruffin died. Within a week I was told a 15-month old male Rottweiler (who looked a lot like my boy Ruff at that age) was available for adoption up in Ohio, about a hundred miles away. I convinced the rescue group to let me adopt him. I named him Griffin and the full impact of this event didn’t come to my attention until I was informed later that he had been surrendered to the rescue group for adoption the day before Ruffin died.

While my head is still spinning over how quickly Ruffin’s replacement came into my life I am also becoming aware of an odd feeling of Déjà vu. 10-years ago we had Ruffin, and we had Sassy, this year, 2019, we also have two Rottweilers, Griffin, who is 2-years old and Bessie who will be 5-years old on July 1^st. Almost the same identical mix as before.

Now Griffin, and yes, his name does sound like Ruffin, is just as much a bundle of energy as Ruff was at the same age. Griffin loves to run and play and burn off his unbounded energy every day and sometimes that is too rough to do with our Rottie girl Bessie. Seems like I recall that same situation with Ruffin and Sassy. There is another similarity, both Sassy and Bessie had injured their ACL's which limited their activity.

So what does the future hold? I am waiting for the phone call offering me an older male Rottweiler for adoption, one who will run and play with Griffin. Somehow this would not surprise me at all.

Over the past 25 years I have always noted that in our house the best arrangement we ever had were three Rottweilers, one girl and two boys. The girls were always in charge and Bessie’s future was seemingly planned when I got her 5 years ago and Ruffin raised her. The joke was he was training her to be a Warrior Queen.

 

Weather Report

In case you were wondering why all the photos have been indoors, we have had rain. Lots of rain. Historic rain. The weatherman said yesterday that May was the second wettest month on record.

Its already rained 6 of the first 10 days in June.

Sharing the ball

We have a half dozen balls just like this one in the house. You will never see them each playing with a separate ball. If I play catch with them and toss each a different ball as soon as they each catch their ball one of them, usually Bessie, will drop her ball and try to take the ball from from Griffin. They are so passionate in playing with one ball that Bessie will tease Griff into trying to take her ball.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catching up on some recent posts.

My two Rottweilers Bessie and Griffin love to provide me with a daily dose of entertainment. After lunch my two babysitters came in to keep me company. I love these guys.

 

 

 

 

 

Living With Rottweilers now has a video channel on YouTube

I have always wanted to share my old collection of home made videos of my Rottweilers. I just couldn't get them to work on this blog format.

Several times on Facebook I've seen funny dog videos and they are all reposts from personal YouTube channels. So over the weekend I decided to set one up.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfhiqkHODxBicRJq0HEPWYw/videos?fbclid=IwAR3B7_N8AOPmAYWUFXrjAZBdBgYM0Zq6TotrqfDy4b1Lcp5l1mAIjhydvYs

I have already converted 12 videos and posted them. If you are interested in getting update notices to additional videos click the subscribe button.

We had another birthday party last night.

My big baby Rottweiler Griffin was 2 years old yesterday. In keeping with our tradition I cooked a large meat loaf birthday cake and covered it with mashed potato icing. I used a regular recipe so all of us could enjoy it together.

The only thing I did differently this year was add a couple of balloons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next birthday party will be on July 1st when Bess will be be 5-years old. I hope the two balloons will stay inflated until then.