The Life Of A Great Dane Mom

This morning, the snow is falling steadily & heavily, & the neighbors are out shoveling their sidewalks & clearing off their cars. For some reason, the corner of our yard has been deemed the best place to pile up the snow, & every day that the snow falls, this pile gets bigger & bigger. I have taken the shovel out & moved the snow from this pile around the yard so that it's not so high, but with people putting their unwanted snow here, my progress never lasts long.

Last week, as Lucius watched a friendly neighbor come over to our yard & add snow to this growing mountain, the light bulb must have gone on: I could run over that hill & say hi to that man!  And so he did.  But when he saw another person, he'd go say hi to them too!  The men loved him, calling out, "That thing's a horse!" & "Hey there, buddy!".  The women, though?  Most of them...not so much.  There were a few shrieks & a couple quick jumps backwards.  Oh great, I thought.  Just what I need.  Neighbors who are terrified of my 7 1/2 month old & 100 pound Great Dane boy!

I grabbed Lucius by the scruff of his neck & walked him back to our yard, practically forcing him back over the snow pile.  Into his kennel he went.

So what happened now?  The same man was putting snow on the same pile {which spans both sides of our fence now!}, & you guessed it!  Hey there, horsey!  I ran inside, threw on my Uggs, looked down to realize that in my haste I put them on the wrong feet...  Corrected my Uggs, grabbed a door key {so that I wouldn't have to coax him back over the snow pile like last time!}, told Layla to stay inside {Good Girl!}, & ran out to Lucius.  He was being friendly, not jumping or anything bad.  One lady said, "I'm kinda scared of him, he's so big!"  *sigh*  I thanked them & apologized, the man laughed, I grabbed the scruff again & off to the front door we went.  That wasn't terrible, I thought.  Key into the door lock, door swings ope......  Man!  I forgot to undo the chain!  Lucius had sat down by this point & was so cold {snow falling & 19 degrees!} that he didn't want to move, but back around to the yard we went.  And he did not want to crawl back up the snow pile, which was our only entry into the yard since the gate is frozen shut!  A lady, who wasn't at all scared of Lucius, along with the same man from before, kindly watched him while I ran inside, unchained the door, & grabbed his collar & leash.  Finally.  The End!, I thought.  But as soon as I went back into the yard & Lucius saw his walking gear, he was over the snow pile & at my feet in leaps & bounds!  We all laughed, & again I said thank you & apologized.

Back in the house, I told Lucius to go to his kennel.  Layla, with her guilty conscience, went into hers.  But Lucius just looked up at me with sad eyes.  I wondered if he'd even know, at this point, why he was being punished.  And so I let him stay out {& told Layla she wasn't in trouble.}

The punishment for him was that he didn't get to go for his walk.