Training a Rottweiler can challenge your patience. Roxy’s downfall came with keeping her out of the trash can. We bought several different types of cans, none of which kept her from her goal. We mentioned our frustration to our family dog trainer. She suggested we put a mouse trap on top of the trash when we leave the house or go to bed. We eagerly tried this suggestion.
Terry placed the mouse trap gingerly on top of the trash in a nearly full trash can. We left the lid off. I happened to be in the kitchen, probably making some bread. I heard Roxy nudging at the trash, but didn’t look over my shoulder. I didn’t hear the snap of a mouse trap either. A few minutes later, I did hear loud crunching sounds from the great room. I went in to find Roxy gripping the mouse trap between her front paws and chewing it to pieces. I stood there in shock, just shaking my head. I made Roxy stop masticating the poor mouse trap and hollered for Terry to come up from the band room. He busted out laughing the minute he realized what she had done. He gathered up the remaining pieces of the mutilated mouse trap and placed them in a quart-sized Ziplock bag.
The next time we saw our dog trainer (at church the following Sunday), we delivered the pieces of the mouse trap to her and asked for a different idea for keeping Roxy out of the trash. She and her husband had a good laugh, even mentioning that perhaps the abused trap should be framed as she’d never before had a Rottweiler bypass this preventative measure.
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.
Muddy Roxy (May 2007)
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.
Until we found the Tuffie Toys web site, the typical life expectancy of any dog toy we purchased at a regular retailer amounted to perhaps ten minutes. Roxy had a particular fascination for brown hedgehogs. She usually managed to rip open the stuffing and find the squeaker within a few minutes of receiving the new toy from us. The duck shown in the photo at right did not last much longer than the ravaged hedgehogs.
Since we were dog toys about as often as we bought dog treats (like rawhide chews, dog biscuits, Beggin’ Strips, etc.), Terry and I thought we should approach this problem from a different angle. Eventually, we found the Mega Ring via some Googling and we bought one to try.
But first, let me give you some information on the Mega Series from Tuffie Toys so you can understand why we thought these dog toys would be the best fit for Roxy:
The Mega series toys are by far our toughest and most durable dog toys. These interactive dog toys are tough high quality pet toys that are lots of fun and will provide hours of play for you & your pet.
MEGA CONSTRUCTION: Seven Rows of Stitching. Each toy’s seven layers of material are sewn together with two rows of linear stitching and two rows of cross stitching. The four rows of stitching are protected with an industrial grade luggage material that is sewn 3 more times. Seven Layers of Material. Three layers of 600 Denier industrial grade material, three layers of plastic coating and finally one layer of soft fleece. All seven layers are rolled together and then sewn with a one inch cross pattern to prevent layer separation. Protective Webbing. Additional industrial grade luggage material is sewn around the outside edge with three rows of stitching to cover and protect the first four rows of stitching. Squeaker Safety Pockets. Each Squeaker is safe and quiet because they are sewn into a nylon safety pocket beneath seven layers of material.
When Terry and I found this site, the home page displayed a tiger playing with one of the Mega Rings. Tuffie Toys proudly proclaimed their dog toys were tiger tested. Currently, they display the Mega Rings gripped firmly in a Rottweiler’s jaws. And I can confirm, these dog toys are nearly indestructible. We still have the last two we bought, and they are at least three or four years old. The only thing that has given out (eventually in all of the ones we bought) was the squeaker.
Apollo would tease Roxy to no end. He would pick up one of the rings, sneak around behind her through the kitchen, and taunt her with it until she tore off after him. They would play tug-of-war in the middle of the great room, loud enough that if Terry and I were watching television, we would mute and pause the show we were watching until they wore themselves out. Apollo could only get the ring out of Roxy’s deathgrip if he cheated. He would bit her ankles, hocks, neck, ears, anything he could to get her to release her jaws just long enough to snatch it up and run off with it. Roxy would then chase after Apollo, latch on to the ring again and give her shoulders a shake, easily twisting it from Apollo’s weaker jaws. If Apollo really tried to pull it from her grip, Roxy would drop down on all fours and become so much dead determined stubborn Rottweiler weight and there was nothing Apollo could do at that point. So he would let go and walk off (to a neutral corner). Roxy would spend the next few minutes, cleaning her toy.
At other times, Apollo would simply lay on the ring, hiding it from Roxy. The first few times he did this, we couldn’t figure out what had gotten into Roxy. She would start circling Apollo, who lay innocently with his head cradled on his front paws. Roxy would get more and more agitated, first whining then barking at Apollo. Terry and I laughed when we figured out what Apollo was doing, but scolded him for being so sneaky.
Another Friday arrives, and another installment in my ‘Remembering Roxy’ blog post series. Last week I reminisced about one of Roxy‘s nicknames – Bear-Pig, which followed the inaugural post on Roxy’s talent for Circling the Wagons. This week I decided to focus on Roxy’s first trip to a dog park. If I remember correctly, this trip occurred before we rescued Apollo.
A friend of ours had suggested taking Roxy to the off-leash dog park at Shawnee Mission Park. This never occurred to us, being residents of Leavenworth County, more than twenty miles north of the park. We made a family outing out of it. Even though the park allowed dogs to roam leash-free, we kept Roxy leashed until we were certain she would behave around other dogs. She roamed free and played with many other mostly smaller dogs for a few minutes. Then we put her back on the leash and headed to the beach.
Roxy, and all of our previous Rottweilers, did not care for water or being wet. Yet Terry thought it would be a good idea to take her down to the beach, where we saw retrievers and labs and Newfoundlands cavorting in the water just off shore. The shoreline included several large, flat sandstone boulders. Terry led Roxy up onto one of them, hoping to entice her into a quick dip with the other dogs. Another dog snuck up behind Roxy, eagerly sniffing her nub of a tail, and accidentally (or intentionally depending on your perspective) goosed her. Roxy leaped forward landing four-square in the shallow water, almost taking Terry with her for a tumble. Terry managed to salvage his balance while Roxy just stood there, standing completely still, looking aggrieved and resigned to the fact that she was, indeed, now soaking wet.
We took Roxy back to the field above the lake and let her roam free for a few minutes, mostly in an effort to dry her coat. As the sun began to set, we returned to our car and made the drive home to Lansing, convinced we would return in the near future for more fun in the sun with an unfettered Roxy.
I can thank my son, Derek, for coming up with the nickname ‘Bear-Pig’ for Roxy. Back in 2005, Rachelle was a sophomore in high school and Derek attended a local community college but still lived at home. By then he had moved into the basement (don’t all young adult males thrive in those environs?) and only came up for air when he needed food or to leave for work or school. I often referred to him as ‘Derek the Destroyer who lurks in the Mossy Catacombs (or Dungeon).’ At that time, Roxy didn’t have a playmate or companion dog to annoy (we would rescue Apollo the following year).
Derek and Roxy in a Stand Off (Aug 2005)
Derek loved to tease and harass Roxy. She would wait for him at the top of the stairs when she heard him rising up from the basement. He would lean forward on the stairs from the lower landing so he was eye level with her and start making strange noises at her or woofing at her. Roxy replied with her own strange sounds, which reminded Derek of the sounds a bear makes. He would get her so worked up she would start to lunge at him. Then he would egg her on more by chasing her into the great room and wrestling with her. Roxy didn’t stand a chance by then, since Derek is an expert in nearly all forms of grappling – wrestling, judo and jujitsu.
That explains the first part of the nickname ‘Bear-Pig.’ The second half has more to do with Roxy’s typical Rottweiler appetite and the fact that when she sniffed around the house for anything remotely resembling a snack, she sort of looked like a wild pig. At least she didn’t ‘oink oink’ while she was rooting around for treats.
Roxy with one of her indestructible ring toys (May 2007)
I have many great memories of Roxy to share. I hope most of them make you smile. Some of them may even make you laugh out loud. All of them will be bittersweet for me, but still precious. So, I plan to share them with you on a weekly basis, probably on Fridays, as I will have the hardest time getting through a weekend without Roxy to cheer me up.
I dreaded walking up the fronts steps these last five days. Apollo met me at the door, but his tail didn’t thump-thump-thump against the dividing rail between the entryway and the dining area. He wagged his tail at the sight of me, but he wasn’t crowded out of the way by Roxy. She usually stood front and center, eagerly gripping her ring toy in her mouth, dancing back and forth in front of Apollo. I usually had to order them both to back up so I could squeeze through the screen door.
I would carefully thread the needle of swirling Rottweilers and unburden myself of my purse and laptop case in the great room. Once my hands were free, I could pet each of them, although Roxy would continually circle around me in an effort to head Apollo off from getting too much attention.
If I decided to sit down, Roxy would either approach me and plop herself down on my feet, facing away from me, or continue circling the great room with her ring toy. We affectionately called this parading around ‘circling the wagons.’ Sometimes Apollo would stealthily attempt to snatch the toy from her jaws and then the fun really began.
Roxy, being the nearly full blooded Rottweiler, could easily keep Apollo, the half-breed, from her toy. Her jaw strength and stubbornness exceeded his. But Apollo never played fair and used stealth and guile to trick Roxy into dropping it. Sometimes, he would even go so far as to lay on the ring toy, which drove Roxy into a fit of apoplexy. Eventually she would start circling him faster and faster and even go so far as to bark repeatedly at him. Unless Terry or I told Apollo to get up, he would ignore Roxy’s tantrum.
Roxy’s ring toys sit idle in the great room. I’ve tried a couple of times this week, as has Terry, to get Apollo to play catch and fetch, but Apollo only made half-hearted attempts. Apollo would much prefer to play tug-of-war with Roxy. He still doesn’t understand why she’s gone. If only I spoke better dog, then I might be able to tell him what happened. Perhaps it’s a blessing for him that I can’t.
The very last photo I took of Roxy (Fri 9 Mar 2012)
Terry and I are devastated. We lost Roxy yesterday, unexpectedly. I decided to stay home today and try to deal with this loss. So far, I haven’t slept much and I miss her terribly.
So if you don’t see much from me here for a few days, don’t panic. I’m just mourning the loss of my favorite ditzy Rottweiler.
Yes, that’s Roxy, my favorite Rottweiler, eyeballing you from my blog header photo, sporting her new pink collar.
If you squint just a bit to the right of her head, you can see an unfocused Apollo guarding her back. He’s my other favorite Rottweiler. But you can’t see his new red nearly identical collar.
Aren’t they cute?
Here’s a similar closeup of Apollo:
Apollo Posing for His Close-Up
And because I just can’t leave well enough alone, and will change my header photograph the next time I take a nifty photograph, here’s the photo I used to crop the shot above from:
