Puppies, Pets and Patio Doors...

Most of our dogs have been Rotties. I know the breed and I like their qualities. Faithful, indomitable, intelligent, forever-puppies (actually, that can go either way… a bouncy ‘puppy’ that weighs in excess of 140 lb can be a liability).

Nina and Nero, our first two had puppies – I promised some pictures and here they are.

Rom and Ninus were like brothers – inseparable except for when Rom went off on his ‘Stealth’ missions.

Rom was the one that worked out how to open the patio door.

He studied it – it’s fascinating to watch an animal studying something and working it out.

Rom would place one large canine tooth in the bottom corner of the patio door and he would push it sideways in exactly the right way to open it. To begin with, we assumed the kids had been leaving the door open until we realised exactly what was happening.

We’d close the door, leaving the dogs outside in the garden and come back to find the dogs inside, in the kitchen. Puzzling to say the least!

We eventually realised how to stop him and had to lock the door if we really wanted them to stay outside.

Our dogs have always had shelter outside and the present pair, Bear and Cassie, have their own room, the utility room, which is only locked when they are inside (or Trev is working in the garage and needs to use the utility room).

All our dogs have been able to open doors using the handles. They press down on the handle and either push it using their weight or pull it towards them. As I said, clever dogs!

Rom opened the patio door so often that the pressure of his tooth cracked the glass in the corner (the weakest point). We had to have a whole new door for that.

Another whole new door we had to have put in wasn’t even at our house!

Trev’s mum and dad used to look after the dogs if we went away. They fetched them when I went into hospital to have our children, too. They also looked after them when we had guests staying over, sometimes.

One weekend, we had 28 people staying here for our LAN party. 14 computers linked together down the centre of the living room, then a party on the Saturday night and the 28 staying overnight.

We woke up to people camping out on the lawn on the back, two people in the back of the Shogun long wheelbase (seats folded down to make a decent bed) and people strewn everywhere inside the house, on garden furniture, on the sofas, on the floor… on the stairs! That was a weekend!

What also happened was that Trev’s mum closed their back door while she answered the front door. Rom and Ninus were outside, down the garden and obviously didn’t realise it was closed. She NEVER closed the door when they were outside.

She came back into the kitchen to make the dogs their breakfast (yep, sausage sandwiches for the puppies!) The dogs saw her and belted up the garden for their breakfast. Rotties can’t half shift - *Translation – Rotties can move at great speed – and they did love their ‘Grandma’ – not to mention the sausage sandwiches.

Unfortunately, a combined weight of 280+lb at speed, hitting the door took it off the hinges and destroyed the locking mechanism – including the 6 point safety locks. The dogs and patio door landed in the kitchen on top of Trev’s mum (she was OK but a little shocked).

Trev and a couple of our friends had to go and pick up the patio door, make temporary repairs and check his mum was ok.

The dogs were a little subdued, probably due to concussion.

So, if you need to break into a house for any reason, at any time, all you need is a couple of hungry Rotties, a glass door and a supply of sausage sandwiches.

Of course, the house would have been safe from intruders because who in their right mind would break in with two Rotties looking at them? (The dogs have their own sofa each when having a sleep-over and granddad and grandma’s).

Although, we also know that’s not necessarily true. Trev’s mum and dad were market traders, they kept their stock in sheds on their garden. One night, when the dogs were there, they had someone break into their sheds.

There wasn’t much to take, but they made a mess.

“Did you let the dogs out?” we asked.

“No.”

“Why not? They would have scared them off.”

“We didn’t want to risk the dogs being injured.”

Yep, you can replace things but loved ones, not so easily.