My dawgs from when I was young
My parents like dogs. We had two of them while I lived with my parents.
SCAMP
When I turned five, my birthday present was a smalish grey poodle, but it never really looked like one. Just a gray dog with curly hair. It was named the after the Danish "translation" of Scamp from "Lady and the Tramp". I was dead scared the night when they gave it too me, but that soon changed and we became the best of friends. Scamp was quite intelligent and could perform a load of tricks, fetch the mail without tearing it to pieces, shut doors, play games, etc. Really a nice dog save for a few problems.
First, it really did its very best to live up to the Disney character. Even the slimmest chance of getting away and Scamp was gone for hours. This was problem was semi-linked to the second problem, which was that Scamp, to put it politely, was quite enamored by female dogs. So, I had to develop a rather good sense of where every female dog lived in my neighborhood and make rounds of my bicycle to locate my obstinate friend, catch him and literally drag him home. It got be to really irritating at times. It also had its rather scary moments. Once, it was pretty clear that my Scamp had been underneath a moving car. Reasonably unscathed but still mauled over pretty well. Another time, we fished him out of a swimming pool. Not one of his most intelligent decisions because he clearly could not get out and was totally exhausted and about to drown. The third problem was a complete disregard for size, not just of his female prospects, which could be a rather comical sight to behold when the dog was three times taller, but also of angry dogs. Scamp would get into a fight, ANY fight if the other dog wanted it, and preventing big dogs with jaws to match their size from decapitating my best friend was a challenge. At least I had never been bitten by a dog and wasn't scared of them on bit so that helped, but it was close to a premature death for my dog on several occasions. Fortunately this never happened, and Scamp lived to the age of 14 before he developed a tumor on his tongue and had to be put down.
SEBASTIAN
A little gray poodle, no matter how alpha-male Scamp was, didn't quite meet the standards of a REAL dog for my father. He really wanted a Great Dane. On top of that my parents had to do a good deed so they picked up a Great Dane, which we named Sebastian for reasons that I cannot remember, from the police station. At that time, the police in Denmark had sufficient time on their hands to pick up stray dogs and dogs that had been abused. They would keep them for a month or so while trying to find a new home for the poor animals by listing them in newspapers etc. If they didn't succeed within this time frame, the dogs would be euthanized. My parents must have been following these listings and when a tiger-striped Great Dane showed up in the listings, it was too much temptation for my dad and next day Sebastian moved into the house. We soon realized that it would have been easier to house an extraterrestial.
I am not sure how Great Danes achieved their name. I hope it does not reflect on Danes in general, because if Sebastian was a remotely representative specimen, it would be safe to conclude that Great Danes are not terribly clever, or possess instincts to compensate. In addition, Sebastian was not merely an enormous dog by dog standards, he was too big for being a Great Dane. Not too tall, but way too long. He had been severely abused and malnourished. He weighed about 60 kilos (~140 lbs) when we picked him up and looked like something out of a concentration camp. The vet told us that we should aim for 80 kilos, which turned out to be quite a challenge.
OK, lets start with the dog being stupid. It resulted in all sorts of comic incidences, except that it wasn't always funny when you were at the receiving end. Up until Sebastian arrived, I had spent most of my evenings on the floor under the coffee table watching television. I could stay up as long as I wanted and, hence, mostly fell asleep under the coffee table. My parent would then drag me out and put me in bed. This was an arrangement I was perfectly happy with. Somehow, Sebastian, being pretty screwed up, must have had the same sense of security lying underneath the coffee table, and stole my spot. This would have been alright if the dog had been sufficiently intelligent to crawl back out along the floor in the same way he had to squeeze in order to fit. Instead, the stupid dog would just stand up with the rather heavy coffee table on his back and get all perplexed when whatever was on top of the table started to rain down. He got umpteen chances and every time we thought that Sebastian had finally figured it out, he would pull off the stunt yet another time. He never got a sense of his own size. My dad had a big Volvo and Sebastian could fit on the back seat. This would work until Sebastian got tired of lying with his head in one direction and wanted a chance of scenery. Having a 4-5 foot long dog with a brain the size of a pea attempting to make a 180 degree turn on a back seat of a car in full motion was nerve-wrecking to say the very least. Someone had to ride in the front passenger seat to help the dog figure out how to flip around without having head or limbs ending up in front my dad, while he was operating the 3 tonnes vehicle.
So then there were the problems with Sebastian being emaciated. That seemed an easy fix. Just feed the poor animal. Yeah right. Sebastian would eat incredible amounts of food; at least enough to compete with Michael Phelps during intense training. My mom and I would go once a month to pick up 80 kilos of dry rice. This just fit into the trunk of a mini cooper, the old ones. It made you worry that the car would tilt backwards on the way home. The rice was cooked and mixed with whatever sorts of meat that would not put the family into bankruptcy. All to little avail. It took at least two years for the Sebastian to put on some weight. Meanwhile, any edible item that wasn't intended for this monster dog had to be kept away. Most of the time the lack of intelligence would render this an easy task. However, from time to time, we would make mistakes. My dad was into cheese and once brought home 2 kilos (~4.5 lbs) in one chunk. It was left for maybe 5 minutes on the kitchen counter while someone forgot to close the door. The next thing we knew was that the cheese was gone along with the wrapping. At first we thought that perhaps it had been misplaced until I looked at the counter and saw this gleaming area where the cheese had been. That sight was all to common. At least Sebastian new how to clean up after himself.
Finally, the sequelae of a the dog being abused. Sebastian was the nicest and friendliest animal ever to walk on this planet. He got along with SCAMP and everybody else just fine as long as they didn't seem scary to him. We never found out who had owned him beforehand or what they had done to him but it must have been really horrible. It too next to nothing to scare the living daylights out of Sebastian. I particularly remember three incidences.
In the first, I am walking the dog on one side of the road when a little girl with a plastic bag crosses us in the opposite direction. Not sure how plastic bags can be scary to dogs but Sebastian managed to push himself sideways into the bushes next to him. They happened to be wild roses and I was sandwiched in between. My blood was all over.
In the second, we came home from a day-trip and what turned out to be blood from my best friend was left on the rug in the hallway and on a towel. There was a long apologetic note describing how a Beetle had passed by and scared Sebastian, who had started running without being held back by dragging my friend for half a mile behind him. Thankfully, his arm didn't come off or something worse but he did have bruises all over.
Finally, and the worst time of my life ever, was when I was walking Sebatian in the woods. I had no clue what scared him this time. After a bumpy ride across the ground my arm slipped out of the leash. The dog was gone for five days. None of us slept and we mobilized everyone willing to locate him. Surprising a friend of the family found not far from where he had taken off. My guess is that Sebastian had tried his best to find his way home...by running in circles. He had burned off 10-15 kilos in five days and was back to where we started.
It took four years for my dad to admit that Sebastian was never going to be normal or be able to live in a city, not even the outskirts where my parents had their house. So, after searching for a while, my mom found some farmers who were nice and willing to take over. I never saw him again but was told he did alright. After a little while of mourning, a sense of relief set in and I was happy with being alone with Scamp again. As a matter of fact, I had enough dog for a lifetime.
Sorry for any typos.
Cheers,
Steen
