New alpha

Tomorrow, I will be 16 months old. A lot has happened in the past week. I'll not get into details, but the alpha position in the park was transferred to me relatively peaceably. Also, Mom is keeping me on a leash most of the time now. She said my pack mentality and my dislike for all unneutered dogs including puppies forces her to take away my leash-free time. I also hurt a little male pug a few days ago. We'd been friends for months, and had a lot of great games together, but he was still intact at almost 1 year old so I started having mixed feelings about him. I guess I upset him playing too rough, and he told me off. I took the abuse as always, but the other pack members tried to stop him. Well, I couldn't just stand there, I had to show everyone who's boss. I grabbed him and roughed him up, but Mom jumped on my back and I could tell she was mad. I let the pug go, and the other pack members tried to carry on the attack. I tried to get back into the fight, but Mom had me down on the ground. So now there's only a few dogs she'll let me play with, bigger dogs like labs and german shepherds and of course my sister who I would never dream of hurting. I will miss my little friends.

Showing my Tosa colours

Just before I turned 14 months, I discovered that I don't like other large, dominant, unneutered males. In my park, there was this husky that kept growling at me when we first met a couple of months ago. He was about my age and much smaller, but he seemed to think he was boss. I let it go, but sometimes I did growl back. Late one night, I was playing with my unlikely friend Lestat, and along comes the husky. Mom told me to stay, and so I didn't go over to the husky. But Lestat did, and he gave him a bump to show him who's really the boss. The husky didn't submit, and growled at my friend. That was too much for me. I got over there in a hurry, and confronted him. He didn't back down from me either, so in one second flat, I grabbed him by the scruff, pinned him and gave him a good shake. I saw Lestat try to grab him from the rear, but his Dad stopped him. Suddenly I felt my Mom grab me by the waist, and she was talking harshly to me. I let go right away, wouldn't want to make Mom mad. I had done my job anyway, the husky had his tail between his legs. He wasn't hurt at all because I only had about 5 seconds with him.

Days later, we were in another park. In comes a Greater Swiss Mountain dog, strutting around like he owned the place. I went over to him and got in my alpha pose. Too bad Mom was right over my shoulder and she grabbed my collar. She told the Saint's Dad to grab his dog, and they started to put some distance between us. I'm not sure who lunged first, but I wanted a piece of that dog. He was bigger than me, but I didn't care. We put on quite the show, but we just couldn't get at each other. A few small dogs got scared and started crying.

So now I only get to play with my known friends, thank goodness I have lots! Anytime a new dog comes into the park, Mom puts the leash on me until she's sure I won't be my Tosa self.

I'm 1 year old!

And what a year it has been. I've seen so much, and met so many nice dogs and people. Mom takes Georgie and I everywhere she possibly can, and then some. I guess you could say I'm "super-socialized". Mom takes such good care of us, I feel like a king.... except without the big castle. So far, I get along great with everybody, and everyone seems to like me a lot too. I find though, that some big dogs especially Great Danes want to fight with me. I'm not scared of them, but Mom makes sure that we don't come too close to those dogs. For a fighting dog, I don't think I like the idea of fighting at all. Much better to play! Last night I even played with the alpha dog in the park, a 105lb, 7 year old German Shepherd. His name is Lestat, after the bloodthirsty vampire, and let me tell you, his name suits him well. Mom kept me away from him for the most part, but lately he seemed not so grumpy and like he wanted to play. So, she let me hang around him. At first I was a bit nervous, and just kept on the defensive. But after a while I could see that he was in a good mood and wasn't going to bite me, so I started pawing and bumping him back. We played pretty well for a half hour, then it was time to go in for bed. Maybe next time I'll try giving him a chest slam and see how that goes! haha

Everyone knows a bigger dog

There are breed standards for a reason. Good breeders who strive for these standards keep a breed intact. I don't want my Tosa looking like an English Mastiff and I'm sure it works the other way too. Everywhere we go, we get comments like these:

"We know a 1 year old 180lb Great Dane"
"My Bullmastiff was 160lbs"
"My sister has a 150lb Rottie"
and my favourite of all time, "My neighbour has a 240lb Cane Corso".

While a few breeds have only a minimum height and/or weight, there is such a thing as TOO big. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Giants within a giant breed often are of poor conformation and health, and tend to be short lived. Bad or ignorant breeders allow perpetuation of oversized dogs, and while they're doing that, they're most likely helping along the genes for poor health and temperament too. And when people are bragging about the weights of these dogs they've had or known, how many of these are just plain fat? And how many of these dogs are purebred for at least three generations back? If it is such a prestige to have a giant dog, why don't we all have 300lb fat English Mastiffs?