This is Tipper in my Brother's backyard with Daisy. Now, Miss Daisy is not actually, his. She really belongs to his elder daughter. BUT, that's another story. Daisy is supposed to be a Teacup Chihuahua, but my Brother and I think there's a Rat Terrier in the wood pile somewhere.
I really think this pic of the two of them standing up shows the true disparity in their sizes better than the 1st picture.
Now this picture includes Paco, the blind Pomeranian. Doug was just about ready to have Paco put to sleep before Daisy came to live with them. But now that Paco has a playmate, his vet says he's doing better than he's seen him in YEARS!
Tipper actually behaved politely and with great forbearance while we were at Doug's. All 3 of his dawgs, I didn't get a pic of Bonita, his old Bitch, growled, barked and snapped at Tipper when all he wanted to do was play. They'd never seen a puppy as big as he is. But that's OK, he'd never seen a blind dawg, like Paco, or a dawg as tiny as Daisy. He did finally manage to charm Daisy into chasing him around the house and the yard. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot to tell y'all. Doug has a pet door. Tipper had never see a pet door before so he didn't know how to use it. He'd watch the other dawgs hop out and then come back in. Finally, after Doug and I both "encouraged" him, he followed the other dawgs out. He very cautiously put one paw and then another and then his head outside; then he pulled his midsection through, then the back legs came out one at a time. As LaP said when I told her, "It must have been like watching the doggie dog give birth to him." Indeed. Although half the time, if the door wasn't locked, he'd wind up getting caught on the seal and opening the whole door.
He also had never seen toads. When I took him out for his last trip outside Sunday night, he saw a tiny toad and a mid-sized toad hopping around the yard. He kept trying to catch them. I kept herding him away from them. Toads secrete a chemical that will make your dawg foam at the mouth. It's a type of poison, I've been told, but I didn't want him gettin' Doug's carpet dirty, so I just kept him away from the frogs.
Doug also has a cat. Tipper hadn't seen one of those before since Ben and Boo did a good job of scaring all the cats away from our house. Maybe it had something to do with the command the Dearly Beloved and I would give them whenever we'd pull up in the driveway/open the door and see a cat using our yard/flower garden/veggie garden as a litter box; "Kill The Cat!" Whatever, Tipper saw his first cat. The cat took one look at the HUGE puppy and lit out for the back yard, not to be seen inside the house again. When Tipper would see Kitty in the yard, he'd try to approach this exotic creature. Cat wasn't havin' it. Low growls, hisses and once a vicious slap on the snout, with no claws [he was de-clawed, in the front, when Doug got him]. Tip backpedaled after the slap with a "Why'd you do THAT?" expression on his face.
I think it speaks quite well of his easy-going temperament that he did not use any of the skills Ben has been teaching him when Doug's animals got uppity. He didn't bite anybody's throat. He didn't use one of his monster-sized paws to pin another animal and then bite or claw him/her. Most importantly, when they snapped at him, he didn't grab them by the scruff of the neck and shake 'em til their spinal column snapped!
He was an excellent travelling companion, too! He'd never been in the car for more than 30 -45 minutes. He'd never been out on the highway before, either. This was definitely a couple of days of new experiences for him. When we first got out on the Interstate, and got up to 70mph, the top was down and he started snapping at the air. I have NO idea what he thought he was snapping at, but it seemed to amuse him. By the time we were 45 miles from home he was a tired puppy, so he curled up on the back seat and took a nap. When he woke up, it was time for a rest stop. I unhooked his harness from the seat belt in the back, snapped on his leash and we walked for a while. After he had sniffed all the leaves, blades of grass, other dawgs' piles of poop, empty beer bottles, the trash can, barked at the golden retriever pup 30 yards away, he finally whizzed. I didn't try to rush him, I figured it was as important for him to stretch his legs as it was to take care of those "other" functions. So even after he did that I still let him walk around and sniff some more places he found interesting. Then we went back to the car. I gave him some water and then, I put him back in the rear seat and got his harness secured. I gave him another rest stop when I stopped for gas in Huntsville.
He was just a Champ the entire trip. I am so proud of him! I'll gladly take him anywhere I need to, anytime. He's a good "little" traveler. And...I don't have to worry about car Jackers or burglaries when he's in the back seat.
