Barkley

After being groomed

I can see his eyes now

"Aren't you going to share that graham cracker with me?"

I love my dog. He is now three years old and we have bonded. It took awhile.
There were two times that I really considered giving him away but that was  before I understood his personality. He is territorial about his house and garage.  He is a little protective of me around other dogs especially if he sees me giving them too much attention. He does not seem to want to protect me from people. 

He was the cutest little puppy on the website I was looking at and I thought --what a great combination-Greyhound and Great Pyrenees.  Denise, my daughter-in-law had a beautiful Pyreness with a great personality and a very loving dog. Greyhounds are known to be couch potatoes.  How could I go wrong with this puppy?

After having lived with labs for many years I expected Barkley to behave like a lab.  Labs love the water, love to be near you, and love to eat. They love to bark and chase squirrels. They also shed continuously. Barkley did not fit this description.

It has been a slow process but we are now like an old married couple, keeping each other company, taking walks together and occasionally having a conversation.

I took him to the vet today to have his teeth cleaned! I never thought I would say that. The vet told me a couple of years ago that Greyhounds were susceptible to teeth problems.  On the  last visit to the vet she showed me how stained they were and if not taken care of he could loose them.  Since he would have to be anesthetized the cost is higher for an 85 pound dog--estimate $375-$750.  The higher estimate is in case there are problems. That was a shocker! I checked the internet and talked to a few people trying to come up with a less expensive solution. One of the women in my book club  gave me information about a vet in Windsor who has a man come in once a month and can clean the teeth without anesthetics.  I signed him up!  It was truly amazing.  It took about 15 minutes and cost $150 (still unreal to be paying that much but he is family now). I was able to peek in the window to see  the vet--he was on the floor with Barkley's head in his lap and his arms wrapped around him.  Barkley was very calm. The receptionist told me that this man (I don't even know if he is a vet) travels to many states and just came back from a month in Hawaii.


Those who have children are always so proud when someone compliments them. The same with dogs. Everyone at the clinic marveled at how beautiful and well behaved he was.  (That was even after he marked (peed) on the edge of the chair in the waiting room--he had never done that before!) The man doing the teeth cleaning asked how much I paid for him ($60) and said people would pay a lot of money for a dog like Barkley. I was beaming inside. I just had to share this and it also gave me a good excuse to post some pictures of the star of this blog.



I had only intended to write about the clinic visit today but got carried away.