This series of stories will be titled 'I'm surprised I turned out as well as I did, given my childhood ...' 52

When you have big dogs, like Rotties, you have a responsibility to everyone – friends, family, the public and the dogs themselves. Dogs are pack animals and follow the ‘Alpha’s lead in everything.

Big, smiley Rom

An aggressive ‘Alpha’ will ‘mentor’ aggressive dogs and a large dog such as a Rottie can be intimidating if it is aggressive.

We always train our dogs – at the very least, they know ‘Sit’, ‘Down’, ‘Stay’, ‘Leave it’, and ‘Heel’.

Our kids were rarely on their own with the dogs (the story of Haydn losing his burger was one of those rare occasions). Our kids were always placed higher up the hierarchy than the dogs and both kids and dogs ‘know their place’. The dogs know the kids are higher in rank and the kids know they have a responsibility to behave well with the dogs – ie: no cruelty, teasing, nastiness of any kind – EVER!

Nero

Haydn found out the dogs loved their back scratched
This is Nina

Bearing all that in mind, we had a problem one day.

Nero was standing in the narrow part of the kitchen (a galley-style with worktops and cupboards down one side of a narrow(ish) kitchen). Danielle, our daughter stood behind Nero and Nero was looking back at her with a grumble of a growl deep in his chest.

“No, Nero, you don’t growl at Dani!” he was reprimanded and he seemed to understand because the growling stopped – or at least, paused - for a moment. But he began the grumbling again. “No! Nero, that’s bad!”

Well… that was when we realised why he was grumbling.

Dani was standing directly behind him… with her little hands gripping his ‘dangly bits’.

Poor Nero, no wonder he was grumbling!

We prised her little fingers off his bits and let him outside.

Nero - not chasing, just following...

Nero ran around the garden a couple of times (probably to ‘walk it off’) and then he came back to Trev and chomped his hand – just once, gently… as if to say: “Keep your kid’s fingers off my bits, that hurt!”

Nero, as I’ve shown before, was a gentle giant and our other animals were all safe with him – rabbits, children etc.

Not all our dogs have been quite so ‘understanding’ and gentle, though. Rom was a stealth-Rottie.

We’d just brought Piper home (remember, the rescue cat, our first one). She was settling in beside us on the sofa, just drying out from her first bath and Rom was watching her.

And watching her…

And watching her…

He didn’t move for ages!

He doesn't look very agile, does he?

And then he POUNCED! We didn’t see it coming, we didn’t realise he had been stalking her. He moved perhaps an inch in an hour! (OK maybe not, but you know…)

It was only luck, her reaction speed and my own reaction that stopped Rom making a meal of her! Poor little kitten!

We were wary of him with her for a few months until the first time she swiped his nose and he learned to leave her alone!

I thought he’d learned his lesson (should have known better, I suppose). Haydn and Dani had a hamster and when we were cleaning out the cage one evening, I showed the hamster to the dogs.

Rom sat all quiet and calm and I showed him what I’d got on my hand. He was interested, but not overly-so…

Then – and I can’t describe it because I don’t know how it happened! – the hamster was in Rom’s mouth He’d taken it off my hand so swift and gentle that I couldn’t have prevented it (well, I could have, I shouldn’t have shown him the hamster).

I reached forward, opened that big Rottie’s mouth and took out the hamster. It was a little damp and not chewed at all. It happened so fast that the kids didn’t realise what had happened until I got it back.

Lesson learned. Rotties are faster than they look!

Rom, as I said, was a stealth-Rottie. He escaped from our fenced back garden. I had no idea how he got out, there were no damaged or missing panels around the garden, but I was short of one Rottie.

The next-door neighbour came round. “Michelle, one of your dogs just trotted up my garden and out onto the street."

Rom (front) and partner-in-crime Ninus

PANIC STATIONS!

I went out to try to find him. I went out on foot to begin with but he wasn’t within shouting distance and so I went home, got in the car and went driving round the area to see if I could find him.

I was so stressed that I thought he’d been stolen, that I was almost in tears.

We had a fax machine back then and a piece of paper stuck out of the top, I’d received a fax.

Rom had our number on his dog tag. The person that found him looked at the tag and rang the police to tell them she had found my dog.

The police faxed me and I went to pick up the escapee.

The lady that found him said he was really polite and friendly and had followed her and her poodle home.

Always had an eye for the ladies…

How had he escaped though?

We had a coal bunker on the back, next to the fence. Rom had climbed on top of that to eat the bread left for the birds. Then it obviously seemed like a grand idea to hop over the fence (a 6ft drop on the other side) trot off up the neighbour’s garden (where she saw him) and go off on an adventure.

Ninus showing they like to be 'up' just like the cats

Heart-attack moment for me! I can only imagine what our dear neighbour thought!