I'm Famous!!

Well... at least I'm known within my community... Honestly? It's more like I'm recognized... Zeus is really quite an awesome creature. He's very tall, very white and his blue eyes really stand out when you look at him. So, once you've seen him, you never forget what he looks like and he's easy to recognize when you see him again, even if it's from a distance.
Last night, I took him for our typical walk/run. It's only about a 25 minute walk (if we don't do any running). We got onto St. Paul Blvd. and after about a minute, a female jogger came towards us, she took off her Ipod ear buds and stopped jogging to say "I see you walking your dog ALL the time... He's SO beautiful!" And I politely thanked her as I held him by the leash and the collar so that he didn't try to get too close to her. Although she thinks he's beautiful, she may not want him to approach her since his large stature can be frightening when his face is only inches from your own... We smiled at each other and then kept going in our opposite directions. Zeus and I jogged down a few streets - not being able to actually see what we look like running side-by-side, I can only imagine how interesting and comical we may look together - me practically sprinting and Zeus just trotting along, as if to humor my pace...
As we got to the end of our run, we are about 6 houses away from our home and a man on a bike comes around a corner from a side street and he shouts out "Hey, Zeus!" Now remember, Zeus can't hear him, so he didn't bother to look at the biker, but I looked at him and smiled saying "Hello"... and I thought to myself... 'I have no idea who that guy is - yet he knows my dog??'
One time about 6 months ago, I went into Breuggers to get lunch and I went through the line ordering and waiting to pay. When I finally got to the register, the manager (who was cashing people out that day) said "How's your puppy?? Is he getting any bigger?" I looked at him and said "you know my dog?" and he replied "Oh yeah, I see you walking him on St. Paul. You can't miss him!"
So this is now my identity... I'm Zeus' Human  :)

Cats and Dogs

I think it's funny to watch Zeus with my 2 cats, Smokey and Mittzy... When we first brought Zeus home, he was just 11 weeks old, but he towered over both the cats. And Smokey didn't like that at all! Smokey is a very independent male cat who wants to dominate the house and for a long time he did just that! He's 6 years old (and Mittzy is 3 and a 1/2) and he's used to dominating her docile self. She's just a lovable lugg and she's easily pushed aroung by Smokey's controlling personality. If she walks by him, he hisses at her. It's pretty sad to watch. But she keeps on doing her thing - which is usually... nothing :) 
Anyhow, Zeus used to chase the cats absolutely everywhere in the house when he was a puppy. I think he thought they were playmates that were playing hard to get. Smokey would hide and hiss. He'd even try to hurt him by batting at his face with his large declawed paws. That was comical to watch!
Now that they've lived and survived the last 15 months together, I think they've come to realize the order of dominance in the house. This is how it goes: Steve, me, Zeus, Smokey, all of the kids... and then Mittzy  :) Although I'm sure it was hard for Smokey to succumb to Zeus, he's managed to get his groove back. He spent months moping around, not playing, not wanting to be pet by any of us, and pissing randomly throughout the house  :(   Now, he's back to playing and purring. He comes up to us for love when he wants it... and he's peeing in the litter box again. Ahh... harmony... And, by the way... we had our furniture professionally cleaned several times!

Zeus' Greatest Trophies :)

Living with a Great Dane is sort of like being at a picnic... You know how when you're eating outside, you have to constantly watch your food to make sure flies and ants don't 'take over'? Well, same thing is true every day in your house if you have a Great Dane. Great Danes average 30" tall at the shoulder (I read this yesterday on a dog chart at the vet's office while waiting for Zeus' anal gland to be expressed in another room). The average kitchen counter tops out at 36". The bottom of Zeus' jaw measures 38"... You do the math... That gives Zeus 2" of height to overlook the counters and procure whatever tasty morsels might be on them.
In the time that we've had Zeus, he's been able to capture a few good finds: a blueberry muffin taken from on top of the stove, a Lean Cuisine meal from the counter top, a piece of pizza off the table, and 1/2 a tray of brownies also from the top of the stove. These are just a few items that come to mind - there are many others... most of which I have blocked from my memory.
We bought our house in October and we've had our kitchen remodeled. We decided to put in high counter tops in some of the areas and they reach 42" and 44.5"... So if we have to walk out of the kitchen, we put our food up on those counters now. We also have a bar height table with tall stools - that's also 42" high  :)  It's funny to watch Zeus walk around with his head up looking at our plates and sniffing the air to take in the aromas. His nose twitches and you can just see it in his eyes. He's waiting for the moment one of us forgets to put our food out of his reach. And it does happen every now and then.

The Anal Gland - a necessary evil

I feel as though I could be considered an expert on anal glands now. I've learned alot since having Zeus... unfortunately. There are anal glands inside the opening of a dog's rectum. Yeah... we're going there... These glands secrete a lubricant that make it easy for the dog's feces to pass through when it's 'duty time'. Sometimes these glands get backed up, or impacted, with extra lubricant IF the dog's feces isn't hard enough to push up against the gland and force the liquid to be excreted while passing the poop, for lack of a better word. When there is a system 'back up', it's not a good thing. The dog will most likely start licking his butt excessively, he mighty start doing that butt scootch thing where they rub their butts on the floor and drag themselves along (that's so disgraceful - have they no shame??) but most of all, dogs with impacted anal glands will start to smell like dirty dog ass!
You HAVE to do something when it gets this bad. You can go to your vet's office and have the glands expressed... meaning the vet will stick a finger in the hole and squeeze the glands until the stuff comes out (it'll make the whole office stink!), you can express it yourself if you are so bold (and sadistic) OR you can just try switching the dog's food. We like the later option.
Zeus has gone through impacted anal glands probably 4 times now. We got him on a GREAT food that costs a small fortune... and we haven't had any anal issues since he was about 7 months old  :)  BUTT... lol... for some reason... it's back and in full affect!! YUCK!!

People always ask us...

How much food does a Great Dane eat? That's a bit of a sore subject for me... When we first got Zeus, he was eating Iam's Big Dog Puppy Food, which you can pick up at Wegmans, Target or most pet stores. And it's reasonably priced! But he's had some 'sensitive stomach issues' (I'll go into further detail another time) that have caused us to shop around and find a really high quality food that has little to no filler in it. We ended up with Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Venison. This stuff is expensive - $58 for 28 lbs.! The amount of food he eats makes me want to vomit, too! Large dog means large stomach... He used to eat 6 cups of food a day when he was a small puppy. By about 7 months, he was eating 9 cups a day! A bag of food didn't last me 2 weeks. I could pay for a new car with the amount of money I spend on pet food (I have 2 cats that are on a prescription diet, also!).

Now that Zeus has grown up, his appetite is different day to day. Some days he eats less than 6 cups, other days he still has 9. It's hard to predict. We've noticed that when it's really hot outside, he eats less. Drinks WAY more, but takes in less food. He's not supposed to get any taller at this point, so I imagine whatever he eats will be used for just energy... and he's got alot of that still  :)

Top 10 List of Comments We Hear When Walking Our Dog

1) You got a Saddle for That Thing?

2) Who's walking Who?

3) What kind of Dog IS That?  btw, my favorite answer is "a BIG one!"

4) Is That a Dalmation?

5) Do you let the kids ride him when they get tired?

6) Where'd you find your Pony?

7) Oh My God ! He's HUGE!

8) I've never seen a dog THAT big before!

9) That's not a dog - that's a HORSE!!

and my favorite one... what another dog owner says to his own dog...

10) I wouldn't get too close... he'll eat you for lunch!!

'Talking to a deaf dog'

It's actually quite challenging owning a deaf dog. I knew it would be a challenge, but I didn't understand just how difficult it would be, especially in the beginning. Zeus hadn't been taught any commands by his breeder. He was sort of being thrown into the pack with his litter mates and parents. He just followed what all the other dogs did. I know that this is how dogs in the wild function as well... but being deaf made this different for Zeus, I'm sure...

As soon as we brought Zeus home, we started teaching him (and ourselves) signs that are relevant; bathroom, stop, sit, good... and the much needed 'no'. We used bathroom and no the most  :) 
In the research I had done before actually deciding to get Zeus, I had read on-line that you can teach dogs American Sign Language - that's the most common language of the deaf community in our country. The average 5 year old dog can understand 50 or more signs. I find that fascinating! Zeus right now is almost 17 months old and he knows the ones I mentioned above plus food, water, lay down, bite, treat, ok, walk and leave. That's only 13 signs. I'm currently trying to teach him collar and play. Part of the challenge is trying to sign to him while he's outside on his leash. Signing takes 2 hands and I only have one available cause the other is holding onto the leash. You know what I mean?? That in itself is a challenge  :(

Our Adventure at Stony Brook

We spent a day at Stony Brook Park and, of course, we took Zeus. It was interesting, to say the least. It was early June, so Zeus had only been with us for about 6 weeks. We were still dealing with some diarrhea issues but figured we'd take our chances. The weather was gorgeous that day and we so badly wanted to take a hike at Stony Brook, so off we went!

The trip seemed like it took forever. Zeus sat in the middle seat with Alicia and Sara. Alicia loved sharing the seat next to him, Sara was disgusted every time his body touched hers. At the time, I couldn't figure out what her issue with him was. All I knew is since she didn't want him initially, she wasn't willing to warm up to him at all. She was really stubborn about getting her point across - and she was very successful at it, too.

Once we finally go there, we unloaded out of the vehicle - all 6 humans and one large, very clumsy puppy. Since it was a warm day, we made sure we carried a few water bottles with us and we took poop bags, too. About 1 hour into our walk, Zeus found it necessary to squat... and really soft poop was left behind. I bagged it as best as possible, but it's not easy to scoop up anything too mooshy. I'd say about a 1/2 hour later, he squatted again. This time it was diarrhea... Not pretty, and not in a good spot. He hadn't quite learned yet that he is supposed to go off the beaten path when he goes to the bathroom. So he'd squat right where he was walking and, of course, where we humans were also walking. Ever notice the look of disgust you get from the general crowd when your dog is taking a crap? Try imagining it happening in a highly populated park... it's 100x worse... I was embarrassed and Steve was angry. It was now to a point that we couldn't pick up his 'poop'. We ended up pouring our drinking water on it in hopes of washing it away. He squatted probably 10 times that day and at one point, we had run out of water to pour over it... so Steve covered the spots with leaves  :) 

Zeus, asleep on the ride home. He was pooped!

How He Was Named

When I found our puppy on-line, his breeder had named him Tundra which means ‘a treeless plain of arctic and subarctic regions’. This was sort of appropriate since he was mostly a vast white region… he has very few dark spots on his body. However, we hated this name with a passion. It just didn’t flow from our mouths. It seemed awkward saying it. So we renamed him and called him… Newman! Paul Newman had the most beautiful blue eyes and Steve thought that naming our blue-eyed baby ‘Newman’ would be fitting. But we tried that for a few days, and that didn’t seem to flow either… So we held a sort of contest within the family to come up with the best names for this puppy that so badly needed an identity (even though he’d never know the difference since he couldn’t actually hear us call out his name). We came up with all kinds of names. I spent hours on the internet searching for rare and masculine names; something that would be appropriate for an exceptionally large 4-legged creature. We had a list of over 20 names and then by a show of hands we narrowed it down to 10… and then down to 4 names. And then the pressure was on. There were 7 of us voting and the name that got the most votes was gonna be IT!! I couldn’t take it anymore. For days we’d been calling him Newman or puppy. And quite honestly, puppy felt better than Newman – and I knew puppy wouldn’t cut it for long… So we did another show of hands and there were 2 names that tied; Zeus and Zander. Personally, I really wanted Zander to win. It is Greek for ‘Defender of the People’. I thought that was sweet and everyone else thought it was questionable… because how would a deaf dog defend its people?? So, needless to say, Zeus won out. In Greek mythology Zeus is the‘God of all Gods’.

In the First 3 Days...

We found a new product we fell completely in love with; Cesar Millan's Natural Odor and Stain Remover.
Why did we love this? Because it really cleans DIARRHEA out of carpets and wipes out any scent of it!! Oh Yeah... for 3 days our new puppy had the nastiest diarrhea. Not to mention that the breeder hadn't house trained him at all! She had said that it was way too cold outside to have the puppies going to the bathroom outside (he was born Jan. 23 and it was now mid April) - so they were all using newspaper as a potty  :(  We made every effort to nip that in the bud immediately. Every chance we had, we took him outside and he was successful with it at times. But I can't even remember how many accidents we cleaned up, and the pee spots on the carpets. It was very frustrating and every time I had to break out Cesar's spray I mumbled obscenities directed towards Hazel.
We kept the puppy in a crate in our bedroom and on the second night I woke up to his barking and whining so I let him out of the crate and before I even had a chance to get him out of our carpeted bedroom, he started squatting and squirting instantly. Then after I thought he was done, he ran a few steps away and squatted again directly over Steve's sneakers!! OH NO!! I couldn't get there quick enough to pull the sneakers out from under him, so the squirts went on and inside Steve's sneakers... it was disgusting. And I was so impressed with how Steve responded. He didn't get angry, he was patient and compassionate towards this creature that had no 'shut-off valve' that night. We must've cleaned up at least 8 different crap spots that night, including inside his crate. I'm not sure who I felt sorrier for, him or us??

It wasn't easy at first

...and it's still not easy today. Getting the whole family interested in having a deaf dog, that is. I truly believed that having this puppy would bring us closer together. I was sure that we'd all take the time to be patient with compassion and unconditional love for this creature that didn't ask to be born and didn't ask to be deaf.

When we first told the children, my 3 children and Steve's 2 children, about this puppy and asked how they felt about getting him, they were thrilled... until we mentioned that he's deaf. When I saw the disappointment on all of their faces, I was heartbroken. I guess I expected everyone would be on board and feel like he deserved a good life and that WE were the one's who could give it to him. But they didn't. Instead they asked questions like "how was he born deaf?" and "how will we talk to him?". Since I was the only one who had done research on raising a deaf dog, I was the 'expert' who answered their questions. My oldest son and Steve's daughter seemed to be the most leary and uninterested. They felt it would be a mistake and came right out saying "no, I don't want him"... My heart sank even further.

Being that I can be a stubborn woman (I won't admit that very often), I was determined to make this work. I still believed he would bring us closer. Little did I know what lied ahead in the days and months to follow.

Fate Brought Us Together

I believe in fate and have believed in it for many years. Fate has been a guiding factor in my life, especially very recently. A couple of years ago, I started working on a deaf couple; she is hard of hearing and he is completely deaf. Initially, I was very nervous to spend time with him because I had so many questions about deafness and when I’m unsure of something, I get nervous about it. Anyhow, I would meet with him, Ronnie, twice a week and our communication was in writing. I would write everything and he would have to write back to respond; how was he doing, did he have any body pains/issues I should work on, and also stuff about his social life. It got to be really frustrating, not only for me but for him as well. So I made a decision to sign up to learn American Sign Language at the Rochester School for the Deaf (RSD) and my classes were scheduled to start April 14th, 2009. About a week before my classes started, I felt an urge compelling me to get on my computer and look at puppies on a website called Puppyfind.com . At this point in my life, I had absolutely no interest in having a dog. I liked my life the way it was and I didn’t want to be bothered with raising a puppy, no matter how cute it was! But something still pulled me to the computer to look at this website. When I opened it up, I did a search for puppies in New York – I definitely wouldn’t want a puppy that I had to drive too far for or would have to have it shipped it to me! I remember a few puppy profiles showing up on the screen and I scrolled down through them until this one caught my eye. He was almost all white with a big black spot on the left side of his nose – it kinda looked like a booger! His left ear was flipped back in the photo exposing his pink flesh inside… and his eyes were as blue as the sky! He was adorable and pathetic looking at the same time. I opened up his profile to find out that the breeder was looking for a very special family to raise him because he was deaf. Aww… My heart immediately went out to him and I started crying… I had never heard of a dog being deaf. It seemed like an outrage that this could even happen to a dog or any pet for that matter. I wondered how does one even relate to a deaf dog…? I immediately opened up my browser and did a search for how to raise a deaf dog and loads of information popped up! I couldn’t believe there was so much available on this topic. It made me wonder just how many deaf dogs are there??

What I found out surprised me… You train a deaf dog with hand signals and American Sign Language… the very thing I was to start learning the following week. I absorbed as much information as I could in a couple of hours and when Steve came home that day from work, I told him about the puppy I found and I explained that this dog was meant to be mine… Fate literally drew me to him.

The Day He Came Home with Us

Zeus at 11 weeks old

It was a day in mid April that we met Zeus. His breeder, Hazel, agreed to meet us 1/2 way since she lived in Green, NY and that was about a 4 hour drive away from Rochester. We drove to a plaza of shops and met her parked vehicle outside a McDonalds. As soon as we pulled up, I could feel her eyes sizing us up and down. She wanted to make sure that someone special was going to take care of her 'baby'. I knew in my heart that I was the one she was looking for - I was destined to be his owner. We all got out of our vehicles; Steve and I got out of my car and Hazel and her son (his name escapes me now) got out of his SUV. We greeted each other cordially like strangers even though we had spent weeks emailing and talking on the phone... It was awkward, I'll admit. We walked to the back of the SUV and they started opening up the window so we could see the puppy. He was covered with dog feces on his feet, legs and a little on his face. He had thrown up what little food he had in his stomach and he had scratches in random places on his legs, back and ears). He stunk like dog pee and cigarette smoke... and I fell in love. He was beautiful! I knew he'd clean up like a shiny penny. His eyes melted my heart immediately. Steve and I both looked at him like he was our new born baby - a 42 lb. baby, that is! He was enormous for an 11 week old puppy.

I was a little nervous to pick him up so I had Steve scoop him into his arms (which was not easy due to his size) and he carried him into the back seat of my car. I promised Hazel that I would love him and give him everything he needed. I also assured her that we'd be patient with his deafness. She asked that if by any chance we decided not to keep him, that we call her because she would take him back in a heartbeat. I agreed... I paid her $200 for him (his littermates who were all hearing dogs were being sold for $375 - Zeus' defect made him a discount puppy) and then I got into my back seat with my new, very scared little puppy. We sat in the car with him for about 20 minutes just letting him get used to our car, us and the idea of not being with Hazel. Even though we knew he couldn't hear us, we still spoke to him in gentle voices reassuring him that he was ok and that we were going to love him. Eventually he laid down and I inched my body close to his, but not too close. I wanted him to come to me when he was ready. Before the end of the 2 hour ride home, he had fallen asleep some, looked out the window some and put his head on my leg some. I remember crying - tears of happiness, sadness and fear of the unknown. It's been a journey ever since.