I called Roxy a Ditz-Weiler almost from the moment I met her. Our previous Rottweiler had been a typical grouchy, large and aggressive male. More than ten years had elapsed since then and I worried about dealing with a temperamental canine and equally excitable adolescents. I shouldn’t have worried.
Roxy took to all of us as quickly as we took to her. She didn’t know what to think of our cuddles and hugging in the beginning, but eventually she craved the affection almost as much as she craved food. She learned quickly, especially if a treat appeared as a reward for a job well done. Roxy even learned how to speak on command (not easily taught to Rottweilers) and how to track (search and find or follow a path laid down by Rachelle in a field).
Roxy met me at the door each evening, usually with her toy clenched eagerly in her mouth, wiggling her nubbin of a cropped tail so much her back legs would dance and skitter around.
For Terry, Roxy preferred to jump up in his lap while he relaxed in his recliner, sometimes with a warning and sometimes not. Roxy never understood that ninety-five pounds does not a lap dog make.
I asked my husband and kids to suggest some of their fond memories of Ditzy Roxy and I’ll share them here:
There was the time Roxy got locked in the basement storage room. A dog that clearly knows how to bark, but yet she was quiet as a mouse the entire time we searched for her, inside and outside the house. For a couple of hours we roamed the neighborhood and drafted friends to drive and walk the streets. Rachelle finally found her in the basement about the time we’d given up hope.
One year we had several giant fifteen gallon plastic planter pots in the back yard, leftover from growing tomatoes. Roxy would play with the pots (this was before we rescued Apollo). She would throw them all over the yard, chase them, pick them up and shake them. Sometimes the pots would end up over her head and she would just keep running around the back yard, growling and shaking her head, until the pot fell off and she would start all over again.
The real icing on the cake (or rather the mud in this case) occurred in May of 2007. We received quite a bit of rain, which resulted in our sump pump running frequently. The pump is located in the basement, in the same storage room where Roxy had gotten lost in. The pipe exits the foundation in the northwest corner, still within the fenced in back yard. Whenever the pump would kick on, if Roxy happened to be outside, she would run to the pipe, and start barking at it. On the day we took the photo below, she had not only barked at the pipe, but dug down around it and even managed to disconnect the pipe in the ground from the pipe in the foundation. The result of her misadventure is clearly visible below.
So why did I nickname her a Ditz-Weiler? Simply because she really should have been a blonde. Roxy trusted us implicitly and enthusiastically. Being a family of practical jokers, we could not always resist the temptation to pull one over on our gullible Rottie (see my previous post on Derek taunting Roxy). And she rarely pouted, forgiving us instantly, showering us with her affection (and sometimes her slobber) unstintingly.
Click here for a page of memories and photos dedicated to Roxy.
