Ben - Day One
Hi, my name is Julie and yesterday I added a new member to my family! His name is Ben and he is a Mastiff.
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Ben – Day One
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What??
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Happy Boy
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Are you sure Mom?
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Looking out the window
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Ben
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Tired Dog
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What’s out there?
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Pretty girl
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Big Boy
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Is that my tail?
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Ben
A little background now that you’ve seen some pics of the family!
I am no stranger to canines. My mother raised Weimaraners, showing them, training them for Obedience and hunting with them. I grew up with puppies and dogs formed the cornerstone of my childhood. I slept in their dog houses, romped with them outside and learned how they thought and behaved.
As a young adult I had dogs pass through my life, some lab mixes and an Eskimo mix. When I was in my early twenties I adopted a Weimaraner and I started to take notice of the dogs in my life. After I lost “Trooper” to my own stupidity and had to deal with his death, I adopted another Weimaraner, “Topper”. When I adopted ”Topper” he was six months old. In the next few years, he and I learned so much about training and competition.
Topper and I achieved:
- his Conformation Championship title (CH)
- a group placement in an All-Breed show
- his Companion Dog title (CD)
- his Rally Novice title (RN)
- his Rally Advanced title (RA)
- his Novice Retrieving Dog title (NRD)
- his Novice Shooting Dog title (NSD)
- his Junior Hunter title (JH)
- his Versatitlity title (V)
- his Therapy Dog International certificate (TDI)
- his Canine Good Citizen certificate (CGC)
I also achieved titles with the other Weimaraners I owned, including another Conformation Championship, and Rally, Obedience, Retrieving and Shooting Dog titles.
Sadly a year ago I gave up all of my dogs except my little Boxer because I was unable to financially, physically and emotionally care for them. They were all placed with friends and family and I am able to keep in contact with them.
Finally, after a very long year and a lot of recovery I have finally begun to feel again. I thought that perhaps my dog training interest had died, but, its been rekindling and it was beginning to get hard to ignore. Providentially, a friend recently contacted me about a Mastiff.
It was difficult for me at first, because I’ve wanted to add another dog to my home, but… I wanted to make sure I was ready. For the first time in my life I went about the decision the right way. I looked at my finances, I looked at the dog, I talked with all the people involed in the decision, including my landlord and I tried to take my emotion out of the decision, or rather give it equal rating to my intellect.
Yesterday, after almost two weeks of deliberating, I went to go get Ben. I am so pleased at how he’s fitting in with my life. Alley, my Boxer, doesn’t always see eye to eye with other dogs, but, she accepted him almost immediately. There are little hiccups, of course, like sleeping and potty break schedules, but, Ben is naturally wonderful and we’re moving along at light speed.
I want to train Ben in tracking. A new sport for me and something I’ve always wanted to do. After that we’ll see where we go. Obedience is most likely in his future too, as I can see he’s a natural.
Stick with me and we’ll see where we go from here.
If you’re still curious about where I’ve been, this is my old blog: http://novel-novel.blogspot.com/
