Take it to the Max
Created | Updated Jan 13, 2009
Take it to the Max!
We have new family member - a puppy! Well, we're too old to have children.
We'd previously talked about getting a dog, but always put it off because of the cat. She's rather elderly (20 to be precise, which is ancient for moggies) and it didn't seem fair on her to have a boisterous bundle competing with her for our attention, and upsetting her routine. On the other hand, it was a bit morbid just waiting for her to die so we could get a dog.
We'd already decided we'd like a Weimaraner, although part of me wanted to go to the shelter and take home whatever dog took a shine to us. And then the bloke next door got a pup. A Weimaraner pup. From a litter down the road. So Dai raced off to see the remaining pups, and on Saturday afternoon we were driving to the farm to collect young Max.
Other choices of name were Sméagol - looks a bit gollumy with the pinky brown coat and green eyes - but give a dog a bad name and all that. Trooper was a serious contender for a while. But over dinner on the Friday night, I confessed that when I was younger I'd wanted a Russian wolfhound called Dmitri or Maxim, after the Shostakovich father and son composer and conductor. We both loved the idea of shortening his everyday name to Max, but giving him a proper title for the Kennel Club registration - so Maxim von Thunder he is.
I was a bit shocked at the size of him when we collected him - for an 11 week old pup he weighs in at just under 11 kilos, and stands about a foot high (excuse my mixed imperial and metric measures, but we're allowed to do that now in the UK. That's enough politics - Ed ). He was very nervous sitting on my knee in the back of the car - well, he'd never been inside a car before, let alone with these strange smelling people who were taking him away from his Mommy. I held him firmly and sang to him, which seemed to calm him a bit and reduce the howling. Funnily enough, my singing usually has the opposite effect. We gave him his bed, and some chewy playthings, not all at once in case he was over-stimulated. We showed him the big back garden he had to play in, and let him have a sniff and explore. We'd had a debate in the pet-store earlier about what food to get him, but decided to stick in the meantime with what he was used to, trying to minimise the changes he was having thrown at him.
And of course, he was introduced to Mittens the cat. They were very wary of each other, and there was an exchange of hisses and barks, but to be honest we were expecting worse, and over the next few days they seemed to become more tolerant of each other's presence.
The first night was painful. We knew he'd howl at being left alone, but also knew that we shouldn't go near him so that he learned what was expected of him. The next night was almost as bad, but after doing some research we tried leaving him alone for short periods during the day, so that he got used to there not being someone there All The Time (separation anxiety, the books call it). Ear-plugs at the ready, we settled down for night 3, when he slept all the way through to 6.30 am, a time which even I, a confirmed morning grouch, do not find unbearable.
First trip to the vets: and boy was he well behaved! They are intelligent dogs, but I was impressed at the difference a few days made to his behaviour in a car - from howling and being upset, to now lying calmly and quietly in the boot. There was a bit of uncertainty about his actual date of birth - if it was, as given, 14 July then he's only 8 weeks old, which makes him a) ginormous, and b) only due his first set of jabs, and not able to be taken outside for another 4 weeks. We took advice from the vet also as to:
- neutering - a free service provided by the council but can't be done till he's mature, at about 9 months. It obviously stops unwanted dogs, but can also improve temperament and protect against cancer later in the dog's life.
- micro chipping - again free, but able to be done right here right now, which we did, and
- tail docking - only done for cosmetic purposes rather than medical reasons, so we won't do that one.
He was so good at the vets - no yelping or struggling with any of the needles or being weighed. And of course, everywhere he goes he gets tons of admiration. "A real pulling dog", Dai calls him. They're much beloved by arts and media types - the piano playing dog in the Smirnoff ad, the Hounds of Love on Kate Bush's eponymous LP, and the dog with the tennis ball in Blue Monday are all Weims.
So, on with the toilet training! Newspapers at the ready...
