This series of stories will be titled 'I'm surprised I turned out as well as I did, given my childhood ...' 48

At some point, this is going to have to transmogrify into: This series of stories will be titled 'I'm surprised my kids (and pets) turned out as well as they did, given their childhood ...' but for now...

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Every pet you get throughout your life will be different to any other. Even sisters have their own characters, like my two Bengals.

Over the years, we’ve had six Rotties and I can honestly say, though they all have the same loyalty and playfulness Rotties are renowned for, they have all been entirely different where their personality is concerned.

Nina was our first Rottie and I went through a trial to get her, I can tell you.

Trev (@s0u1) didn’t want a dog. He didn’t want any pets, but I reasoned, cajoled and debated with him. We had just moved in to our first house together and I was quite a way from my family and support-network. He worked shifts and I was alone at night for one week in three.

Just before Christmas, we got our first Rottie and we called her Nina (after the B side to Marillion’s Kayleigh).

80s hair!

Oh boy... we were young... so young! :)

Her mother’s KC registered name was Gretchen of Edelweiss and we called her ‘Mountain Star’ (mountain star is another name for the edelweiss flower).

When we went to see the puppies, we were told her mother was ‘attack-trained’ and if we wanted to see, they were happy to show how well Rotties could be trained.

We all went out onto the field close to the house and the guy took a padded ‘sleeve’. He put the sleeve on and stood waiting. The woman gave the command to attack and though the guy was obviously part of the family, the dog went right for him, took hold of his sleeve and flipped him onto his back like he was a doll.

You can imagine how impressed we were.

We took Nina home and I began her training. We always knew a big dog like a Rottie needed a lot of training and discipline and now we knew how well they could be trained.

Nina knew the basics before she was even allowed outside (we don’t take the dogs out until they are fully vaccinated). She also went to puppy classes.

‘Sit’, ‘Down’, ‘Stay’, are absolute musts for any dog (in my opinion).

She was always ‘MY’ dog however, and though Trev also trained her and walked her etc, she remained loyal to me first.

On the eve of our wedding, I was rough-housing with Nina and she caught my eye with her claw.

I had a black eye for our wedding (although you can’t see it) – well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, it was a tiny bruise but it was certainly sore!

Trev’s mum and dad were a little sceptical when we said we were buying a Rottie. They’d heard lots of bad stories about them and weren’t sure at all.

Once we introduced Nina to them, they fell in love, and they looked after her whenever we went away and couldn’t take her with us.

One night we were playing with the puppy and she gave her first bark. She was so excited at the rough-housing, that she leaned on her front legs, rear-end up and she gave a little bark. She sat up immediately and looked at her own nose as though trying to figure out where the noise came from.

As I said before, she was loyal to a fault and if she was on the lead, she assumed the guard mentality. She wouldn’t allow anyone too close to me, whereas if she was off the lead, she’d be fine. I didn’t teach her that, she took came about it naturally.

Well, she was brave most of the time…

One day, we had taken Nina for a walk on the park close to our house. A couple of whippets (small greyhounds) came running at her. They weren’t being aggressive and she’d seen them before, with no issue. Perhaps it was because they were running or perhaps she just didn’t feel like playing. She took off from us and ran all the way home. We found her under the car, shaking like a leaf, poor little thing.

The film The Omen didn’t do Rotties any favours and we noticed it when we took her out where other people were. Even though she was a polite and well-behaved puppy, people avoided walking close to her. One woman said to her child in her pushchair, “I bet that doggie would like to eat you!”

I mean, what the hell!

“I’ve not tried her with a whole one, yet,” I said.

The silly woman looked at me as though I’d grown an extra head.

Why would you put the fear of anything into your kid like that? Some people don’t have the sense they were born with.

Nina had a docked tail and the first time she got close to a dog with a tail, she was curious about all that wagginess going on back there.

The other dog, a border collie, was kind and gentle with her and they played nicely together. When she got to see the tail close-up though, she just bit it to see what it was made of.

Ooops.