I imagine Savvy has had a pretty stressful few days. Earlier this week we were all over at S.'s place playing with all the dogs; Ted, Roger, Darby, Arlo, and Lady. Everything was going great until Savage decided to investigate some things hanging on a rack of pegboard and impaled his little nose on a metal peg. Immediately he started crying and bleeding all over the place. Immediately I started crying, S. ran for paper towels, and Savage started sneezing. After a few seconds of me holding the paper towels over his nose to stop the blood, my puppy began trying to eat them. So I figured he was okay, but it was a bit scary.
Then the next day we drove into town and I took Savvy out to run around on the point in the harbor. Tourists usually bring their dogs out there to roam, also, so we got to meet a really friendly Australian Cattle Dog. A local man brought his Lab/Golden Retriever mix out to chase tennis balls in the parking lot, and the dog seemed a little suspicious of the puppy. Even so, I let them hang out together while I chatted with the man. After 10 minutes or so, Savage decided to pick up the lab's tennis ball, and all hell broke loose! The lab grabbed him by the neck and threw him on the concrete, nipping and growling. Savage was scared to death, howling and peeing all over. Without time to think I grabbed the lab by the scruff of the neck and tried to pull him off, yelling and screaming.This probably wasn't necessary, since the lab had already taught Sav a lesson, and let him go. But my poor little dog came over to me shaking, and just stood and looked at me and cried for the longest time. I hugged him and he just tried to be as close to and protected by his mom as possible. I checked him all over to see if he was injured, and walked him around a bit checking for a limp or anything, but physically he was fine. He avoided the lab until we left. Well, then since he was covered in his own pee, my car smelled terrible all the way home. Since then I have aired it out and sprayed Febreeze on the upholstery. The whole episode was extremely frightening to me and Savage.
The good thing is he recovered in minutes, and happily joined his familiar puppy friends without trepidation later that day. He also spent time this week with my friend R.A.'s 2 year old female lab, Gabby, climbing snowbanks and running around in the mud. The weather is getting warmer and wetter. My little dane has only been out in very light rain once so the heavy rain we're getting now was overwhelming to him. A few nights ago I was at work and R. called and said "your puppy won't go outside". He saw the rain and heard a little thunder and was standing in the doorway barking like a maniac at the weather. R. was laughing his ass off. This morning I took him for a walk in lighter rain (no thunder) and he did well. We found some huge mud puddles and he splashed around in them chasing sticks. His beautiful coat gets all spiky when he's wet, which I think is adorable.
Yesterday when I took off his ear-tape, his ears only stood for a matter of hours, which is a big change from last weeks 7 hours. I'm thinking that his teething is robbing calcium from the rest of his body right now, which is why the ears are so floppy. At least I hope it's that and not my fault somehow. I'm hoping that the progress we've made so far with his ears is going to continue. He looks so handsome with upright ears. Of course he would be handsome anyway, but I've always loved that classic dane look.
I put his Drs. Foster & Smith Classic dog bed in his crate and took out the divider, so now he has the full 54" x 36" floor space. And he's beginning to need all that room to stretch out. At 4 and 3/4 months old he is now 65lbs! At first he didn't understand why his house's floor was so bouncy, but quickly realized how comfortable it was. I crawled into his crate to see how the bed felt and that's when R. and I realized that Savage does not like people invading his personal space. If I go into his house he runs in and tries to move me out of his way. Because it was so funny, R. and I both squeezed into it and Savage paced around outside, all worried and anxious. I felt sorry for him so we stopped playing that game. The confused look on his little face, though, was priceless!