From eating entire bags of Hershey Kisses while everyone is sleeping to destroying my backyard on a daily basis, he keeps me on my toes. When it all started in July of 2010, I never thought that sweet little puppy would make my life a living hell 90% of the time. We will start from the beginning and see where it goes. I apologize in advance. This will probably be rather lengthy. I'm sure you will become bored and stop reading right about.....now. For those troopers who make it through the entire post, kudos!
In May of 2010, my wonderful grandmother passed away. I was devastated. My family bought her house and we began moving in July. It was difficult to live in her house, always expecting her to walk down the hall or see her in the kitchen making hot chocolate even though it was the peak of summer. To top it all off, my sweet Siamese cat Oliver ran away the day we moved. Needless to say, I needed something to take my mind of all the bad stuff. I tried fish with the thought that maybe having something to take care of would keep me occupied and prevent the waterfall of tears that always seemed to flow from my eyes. Well, the fish died. All 10 of them. (Yeah, plants and fish have a very high mortality rate when they are placed under my care. I've killed an air fern! It's truly pathetic.)
After flushing all of the fish and cleaning the two aquariums, I decided that aquatic pets were not for me. As I was lounging on the couch one night, I began thinking about the one pet I had always wanted: a mastiff. The gentle giant of dogs. I had seen the movie The Sandlot many times as a kid and the guard dog (an English mastiff) stole my heart. He was huge and slobbery. And huge. So I began my search. After about 15 minutes of internet research, I discovered that maybe a mastiff wasn't in my near future. $1500-2000 for a dog?! What the hell?! So I quickly logged off the breeder sites and clicked on the best place to find cheap crap: craigslist. Three minutes and four posts later, I found an ad: "Mastiff puppies/ half bull, half English/ must go ASAP/ $350." I think I was in the middle of a happy dance when I finally read the rest of the ad which gave the seller's location. Dallas, Texas. Happy dance cut short. Crushed heart. Thrown iPhone. Pissed Ashley.
I told the amazing boyfriend about this little puppy in Dallas, Texas, and how much I just had to have him. Long story short, (well I'm trying to condense, really I am) he told me that we were going that weekend to get my sweet puppy. Keep in mind that this is 490 miles. He was willing to drive five HUNDRED miles to get this dog for me. Spoiled? Why yes I am. So we drove the 500 miles to Dallas, Texas. I got my sweet little baby. At 6 weeks old, he looked about 3 months old. He wasn't so little. I took a pet carrier with me. He barely fit. But he was so cute.
Just at the Texas state line, I smelled pee. Awesome. He flooded the pet carrier. This should have warned me about the joys to come. After pulling over at a Walgreens at 2am (not all Walgreens are 24/7 stores, I discovered this at 2am when I need a 24/7 Walgreens) and cleaning up the puppy piddle with 3 Wendy's napkins, I was in a less-than-happy mood. The cute little puppy was quickly becoming not so cute. And then he looked at me with those big sad eyes, and I completely forgot about my pee-soaked backseat and pee-covered hands. Ok, so maybe not the hands. We rode around for 20 minutes, my hands held out in front of me so nothing touched my yucky germy fingers, trying to find someplace that was open at 2am on a Friday so I could wash and re-wash my hands. Fortunately, the rest of the trip was uneventful, aside from falling asleep too many times to count. Once home, all I wanted to do was sleep for 6 days since I had been awake for 24+ hours. But little unnamed puppy had other plans. Whine, pee, whine, pee, whine, whine, whine, pee.
Potty training was almost impossible. He chewed shoes, cables, cell phones, sunglasses, drink bottles, Xbox 360 controls, Xbox 360 games, and everything else left on or near the floor. No-name made messes a lot, pooed a lot, and peed even more. I went through 8 or so names before I finally settled on Titan. Everyone hated it. But I knew that he would grow into his name. And grow he did.
My sweet little Titan in now 8 months old and an absolute joy. Well, when he isn't eating my shoes or paint pens on the carpet he is a joy.
Guess what... you made it! You have read the entire first post! Yay for you! I'm sure something will happen between now and 8am that will make for a great topic later. I've already cleaned the back yard 3 times this week so I'm not sure what else he could do... Titan is snoring on the couch so maybe he is too exhausted from destroying books and glass jars to wreak much havoc tonight. That being said, I bid you goodnight.
Until next time....
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