maxthesillydog

[maxthesillydog]

I had a dream about him last night. The baby was sleeping in her room (in reality we co-sleep) and Max was on this ledge outside the window, awake and watching but silent. He looked me in the eye. He had his concerned face on. I couldn't let him in, there was something in the way between him and the door. There was no emotion about this in the dream, it just was. He would watch but couldn't ever be let in again. When I remembered the dream at breakfast I cried.

[maxthesillydog]

This should have been for us too.

Video

[maxthesillydog]

[maxthesillydog]

About Max the sausage dog

So let me tell you about this dog. He was the worst dog. We got him when he was seven months old as a "private rescue", which means he was bought off an ad on the internets, from people who promised dearly that there was "nothing wrong" with him. I had a sort of feeling that he might be difficult, but I've had dogs since I was a kid, and I thought "how hard could it be". The answer is "very, very hard".

The thing with this dog was that he did not know he was a dog.

To start at the beginning: we were his fourth home, including the breeders (and I use this term very loosely). The longest he'd ever lived somewhere was three months. So when we got him, he was pretty much completely untrained. He knew how to shake paws, which he did at any other command, including "no". He didn't know how to walk on a leash. He didn't understand how to communicate with people. So his strategy for communicating was either to bark until we got what he was trying to say, or to bite. He didn't always bite very hard. He'd come up to us and bite us in different ways depending on what he wanted. At night, like a kid, he'd be too tired to go to sleep, and instead bark incessantly and nip at us. We'd have to hug him hard to calm him down. He fell asleep in our arms. He weighed 25 kg then. It took us a while, but we figured out eventually how to understand each other. But our arms were constantly bruised for months.

I think because he changed homes so many times as a puppy he never had that natural deference to being bossed around that most dogs have. We could never just tell him what to do. It was always compromise and negotiation. He'd have to agree that something was a good idea before he did it. And he never left a negotiated rule or boundary alone. He'd try to change the rules all the time. But he had a good heart. And it wasn't that he was stupid, he'd learn a new trick in an hour. He'd just have to be convinced our way was better than his.

Max was the worst dog ever. But he was great at being other things. He was an anarchist, a trickster, a self-appointed traffic cop, a finder of lost sticks and balls and kibbles that had gone under the bookcases. He was the best at making us smile when we were down. He had the softest ears and the wettest tongue and toes that smelled like chanterelles. He was my best friend.

//Annan

[maxthesillydog]

[maxthesillydog]

In memory of Max

After what feels like a lifetime we had to put our loving mongrel Max to sleep on the 2nd of april 2014.

[maxthesillydog]

[maxthesillydog]

A collection of random pictures from Max's dog daycare center around 2009. 

He refused to stay indoors so they wrapped him in a blanket and he just stayed at the yard, watching for heffalumps or whatever... and he had to wear a halter for... reasons (sort of, maybe, involving some tiny bit of nibbling).

[maxthesillydog]

This is from our second month with Max, january of 2007.

(I couldn't find the pic that melted our heart in the  when we decided to adopt him.. maybe sinistrare still have it stored?)

He tried to show us so much love after the adoption and was very attentive at first... he licked our faces, tried to figure out what the fuck we wanted and did his dogbest to sort things out. He wasn't that keen on being leashed (hence the chain and halter) though. I always thought he looked so cute and just a little like Herr Otto Flick in his fine ass raincoat. Being a shorthaired dog in sub zero winters made him freeze his ass off himself if we didn't put him in clothes.

We lived in a tiny apartment back then, right by the entrance. It had a long and narrow corridor which felt at least as big as the rest of the rooms. That corridor took up so much space...

He used to run along the corridor, bark intensely and try to keep us safe from all the potential intruders and unseen dangers his little puppy mind could think of. The only way we could calm him down was to have him curled up by the pillows at the headrest in our bed while we hugged him hard, shushing him to sleep.

[maxthesillydog]

This was the first picture we saw of Max in the ad for his adoption. He lived with a family with another dog and a couple of cats if I remember correctly. For whatever reason sinistrare and juliaskott went to take a look at him without me, x-a-z-a-x, and came back smitten. It didn't take long before we adopted him after that.

He was so adorable before all hell broke lose. We always thought he kept his shit together because of the frequent adoptions as a pup (we where the fourth home?)... which makes my heart hurt a bit. 

After the adoption he tiptoed around in our apartment, afraid of everything and keeping his head low for about a week or so. And from that point he totally... bloomed... and took over our lives completely.

Like a passionate madman.