From Sunsets to Bluegrass: Our Growing Family

It has been altogether too long since the last blog post and there is much in the Ginn household happenings to catch up on. However, before we delve into the World of Baby, I wanted to do a quick introduction of our new (old) family member, Maximus Ginn.

Maximus Ginn

Here is the Maximus story for your reading pleasure:

Even before we actually owned a 4 legged friend, I always wanted two dogs instead of one. Growing up we had a small poofy, prissy Maltese named Sadie who was an only dog.... and you could tell. She basically thought she was more human than dog and was great around people but rather unsociable around other canines. Not wanting our dogs to be the mean yappy dog on the block, when we got Chewie we made it a point to take him to the dog park often to socialize. Well, it turns out he was the party animal of the park bounding from one dog to the other (and often jumping over the short ones and terrorizing the old ones!). Encouraging by his social behavior around other dogs and even more encouraged by the fact that he always came home incredibly worn out, I keep joking to Greg that Chewie was the type of dog that needed a friend. This is where Maximus comes on the scene.

It was around October when we finally had a nice schedule with Chewie and he was almost housebroken and wasn't eating every single thing in his sight (edible or not) that Greg came back from the dog park with a sly smile. "Someone is trying to give away their dog at the dog park," he announced to me (see, I'm not the instigator!). He went on to describe the situation. A two-year-old male dog needed a new home because his owner had switched jobs and thus would be traveling often. He was neutered, (check), grew up around young children (check), was house broken (praise the Lord, check) and was very social as he had been taken to the dog park as a pup (check). And...he's a German Rottweiler. Well, most people I know would have closed the deal right then, but thankfully, my mom's entire family has had myriads of dogs over the years including the loveable Natasha, my cousin's faithful Rotty. When people think of the bully breed dogs, a Rotty definitely comes to mind from all the bad publicity (*ahem*Dark Knight), but I've always known that both dobermans and rotties definitely defy stereotypes in their gentleness and desirability as sweet, loyal family dogs. Don't believe me? Here is what dog breed info has to say:

"The Rottie is powerful, calm, trainable, courageous, and devoted to their owner and family...A docile, natural guard dog with a laid-back, reliable temperament. They are highly intelligent and have proven their worth beyond question..." Plus, I always refer people to this wonderful encyclopedic novel:

Haha, a children's book that I read growing up and you can bet will be in our stack of baby nighttime reading as well. But it does a good job depicting the true nature of this breed!

Anyways, back to the story. So Greg gave the owner a call to get more information on the situation to see if he would be a good fit for our family (current and future). We found out that Maximus had a temperament very similar to Chewie, playful, but not aggressive with a tendency more toward fear and submission rather than domination. We also learned a lot about Maximus' owner, Craig Chen (sounds oddly like Greg Ginn, huh?). He bought Maximus from a reputable Rottweiler breeder and even had him AKC certified. He and his two young daughters decided after his job changed that it would be best for the dog not to be crated all day for long periods of time and although reluctant, wanted what was best for the dog. He also made it a point to advertise first at the dog park because he wanted to find another owner who would care for the dog the way he would which I think shows a lot about how the dog was treated and raised for the first two years of life. We had some deal breakers in mind such as food aggression, destructive behavior, separation anxiety, skittishness, not friendly toward people, aggressive toward other dogs, not good with small children, etc. but everything seemed to check out well so we agreed to meet first at the dog park. When we met we really wanted to see the two dog interact, but they seemed to be more interested in the other dogs running around. Wanting to get a really good idea of how they would get along we invited Maximus over to our house the following to see how Chewie would handle infringement on his turf. The two hit it off very well, playing hard, but maintaining that line between play and aggression. It was particularly hilarious to see Chewie basically get thrown down every few seconds as he was used to being the big dog at the park, but Maximus' muscular build plus an additional 20 pounds on Chewie left the poor boy in the dust. We also attempted to take them for a walk together and although they started out playing, they eventually got it together and later we remarked how it actually made Chewie walk better than normal!

Resting after their first romp session.

We agreed to meet one more time just to make sure that Maximus' owner was comfortable and that we were also prepared to take this next step. After a lot of consideration and prayer, researching about the breed and owning two dogs and talking to lots of fellow dog owners we were left to weight out the pros and cons. Pros: 1) companionship (this was huge because I always feel like humans cannot be the pack that dogs really need, plus with me at work and Greg at school it made for long days at home alone for the poor pup), 2) playmate (again, I can only play with Chewie in certain ways and for so long and the whole fetch thing was just not wearing him out enough!), 3) not a ton of additional work since we would still have to walk the dogs, feed the dogs, etc. and they can almost be done simultaneously. 4) Maximus can help train Chewie as the older dog (an older dog was ideal because I was not ready to repeat the puppy stage again. It was so much work! Plus one year difference makes them close in age but Maximus still young enough to be playful) Cons: 1) dog food and expense (we buy a huge bag each month, thank goodness for good but cheap dog food!) 2) expense for boarding (also a biggie) 3) additional time (this is particularly true when washing the dogs, but overall, not too much extra). 4) unknown entity (while we were confident Maximus was a good and safe dog, you never really know how the two will get along or if there are weird quirks about him that would be bad). After lots of deliberation we decided to take the plunge and welcome Maximus into our home on October 27, 2011.

Greg taking Maximus on a tour on leash.

Chewie says, "that's my bowl!"

The first night was pretty much a nightmare with the dogs constantly playing for hours on end and running amok in the downstairs. I wasn't sure we made the right decision I was so stressed out by the noise and constant movement and supervision. By the end of the night they were exhausted, but that didn't keep Maximus from keeping us up in the night whining. However, went we work up the next morning we realized he wasn't whining to be difficult, the poor guy had drunk so much water the night before that we basically forced him to pee in his crate! We definitely learned to curb the water intake a night from that point forward. Initially we kept the two apart, having them both sleep in their crates and keeping Chewie's schedule the same while Maximus stayed in the crate in the living room during the day. Then slowly over the course of a month we let them spend more and more time together both supervised and unsupervised until we finally left them alone in the kitchen for the whole day only to come back to a perfectly calm, death-free home. Success!

Thus Maximus was integrated smoothly into the Ginn family and has been a wonderful contribution ever since. He is actually a much better dog than Chewie, more obedient, more eager to please, likes to be around you more and is more affectionate. Plus he is already trained on the invisible fence! He has done wonders in making Chewie jealous for treats and thus quicker to obey for fear that Maximus will be rewarded instead. And they actually help each other walk much better than if they were alone. Every day after their walk they play and romp around so that we never feel like they will become bored and destructive. And Maximus and Chewie have both become more muscular and toned from all the exercise (Maximus came to us at 95 and now is down to 90 pounds!). We are also happy to report that peeing in the house is now a thing of the past and I think partly due to Maximus Chewie is officially housebroken. Maximus is also a much better gaurd dog, barking when he hears noises outside. We always joke that we will never need a home alarm or pepper spray as long as Maximus is with us! I think the only drawback is that they have shared with each other the bad habit of grass eating which for Chewie was ok, but for Maximus leads to him spitting up about every other week. Also, in the beginning Maximus would wake us up whining in the morning, but ever since we let him roam the house on the weekend evenings that bad habit has stopped. Also, a common complain of mine is that his name is a little cumbersome and long (we refuse to call him Max), but being named after a character in one of Greg's favorite movies (Gladiator) and one of mine (Tangled), it's not a bad choice. We are so thankful for our new addition, Maximus "Maximoo" Ginn! Too bad we now have two of the top ten most dangerous dogs! HA!