So anyone who knows me, knows I love love love puppies. I’d probably go as far as saying that puppies are my favorite thing in the world, even over food and Nathan (just kidding Natey Poo, I love you!). 

That being said, I want to tell you all about my favorite puppy, Zeus, and share photos of him because he is the light of my world. 

Zeus is my family’s 4 year-old German Shepherd and my parent’s only baby that still lives at home. He does his part of protecting us from the bad guys, and sometimes the not-so-bad guys. It is in his nature to be overly protective of his owners, and sometimes he thinks that anyone walking our way is a threat. When we take him for walks, we have to make sure we keep a good distance away from anyone who comes walking the other way, or Zeus will go into protective mode.

I remember two summers ago when I went home, I decided to take Zeus for a walk by myself and my parents had told me to make sure I have a good hold on the leash when people go by. Well, we were walking, everything was fine and dandy, and then some guy comes walking along and I try to pull Zeus out of the way, but the guy comes at Zeus like “Hey there big guy!” not heeding my warning, and he about lost his hand. Zeus went bezerk! When the man was gone and I had Zeus under control, I knelt in front of him and was like “What was that!?” He just sits and wags his tail ferociously and licks my face as if he did nothing wrong. And in his eyes, he didn’t do anything wrong, because he thought he was protecting me. He’s definitely the dog I would want to have around if I actually were in any kind of sticky situation. But this is a great opportunity to say that if someone says stay clear of their dog, they mean it! We’re not trying to be mean, we just don’t want you to get hurt. Zeus isn’t a mean dog, but he will be if he thinks we are being threatened.

Otherwise, Zeus is a big mama’s boy. My mom spoils him like no other, buying him new toys every few weeks and giving him belly rubs every day. My parents even bought him a special little bed for their room at night so he could go sleep with them. I thought it was funny, my dad said he had to demonstrate to Zeus how to use the bed because he didn’t know what it was! I wish my mom had sent me a picture of that, because I would have gotten a kick out of that. 

If Zeusy has a fault, it’s that he doesn’t like to snuggle. When we first got him, he snuggled right into you. For the first few nights we had him, he would fall asleep on my lap on the couch. Now, he’s too macho for that, and won’t let you snuggle with him anymore. The second picture below is about as close to snuggling as we can get with him, and I’ll take what I can get! He’ll let you scratch his butt until the end of time, but trying to get him to sit still long enough for a good cuddle is out of the question. He does love to play with his toys though. And he will make sure you make time for him every day, even if he has to physically come up to you and drop the toy in your lap, or swat your hand off the table and stop you from doing whatever it is you are doing. Zeus is taller than our dining room table, and my parents have told me that Zeus has come swat them with his nose or his paw plenty of times. Don’t they know by now that Zeus is the boss?? When he says it’s time to play, it’s time to play!

Earlier this year, Zeus gave us a bit of a scare. Back in March, Zeus had started limping quite a bit. At first, he was only really limping when he was on his walks, and my parents thought maybe his paws were just getting too cold. Of course, Zeus wouldn’t let us put booties on him, so they just started going for shorter walks. Soon though, he was limping a lot more frequently, and my parents decided to go take him to the vet to get him checked out. Zeus is not very good about going to the vet, because he doesn’t like strangers. We had to partially sedate him so the vet could take an x-ray of his leg. And when they did take the x-ray, they said it looked as though Zeus had osteosarcoma. If you don’t know what that is, it is a very intense form of bone cancer where the cancer basically just eats away at the bone until there’s nothing left and your bone just shatters. It is pretty common in German Shepherds, and when they do get it, it is usually a death sentence. There is no cure for it, and if you let it get to the point where the bone breaks, it can be one of the most intense kinds of pain imaginable. Of course, this really freaked us all out. At the time, Zeus was only three years old. He seemed way too young to be getting this kind of cancer, and we hadn’t gotten to spend very much time with him. The vet told my parents to bring him back in 3 weeks to check again, but to be prepared to put him down. 

We were all very upset when this happened. I was especially upset because I had literally just bought plane tickets to come home in August, and if I had known this was going to happen, I would have come home sooner so I could see Zeus again. I was so upset by the fact that I would not get to say goodbye to him. My parents are awesome though, and they knew how much it upset me that I couldn’t come home to see him. They facetimed with me literally every night for three weeks so I could see Zeus. It obviously wasn’t as good as physically being there, but plane tickets to SD are too expensive, and I couldn’t afford to buy another set of tickets, not to mention take that much time off of work. This was enough for me, and at least this way, it was kind of like being with him.

The night before my parents took him back to the vet was hard. I didn’t want to say goodbye because we didn’t know for sure if we would have to put him down or not, but it seemed like a possibility at the time. The day they did bring him back to the vet seemed to last a lifetime. I remember checking my phone every few minutes to see if there was any news. And when my mom texted all of us with the best news ever, I literally felt a weight fall off my shoulders. This time, they had fully sedated Zeus so they could get a good x-ray. They were able to get a better one this time, and it was a false alarm! He did not have cancer, he had a torn ligament. It was the best news we could have ever gotten. He got the surgery to fix his leg and he was almost as good as new. Unfortunately, we can’t take Zeus on runs anymore, and his walks have to stay relatively short because we don’t want him to get hurt again, but we will take it. We didn’t know if we were going to get to bring him back home at all. Now we get to continue to love him for a long time to come!

I am going home for Christmas in a few weeks, and I’ll be home for an entire week. I can’t wait to snuggle (or at least attempt to snuggle) with my big boy and spend some time with him. He’s the world’s best dog, and I’m not biased, I’m just calling it as I see it! 😉 

Until Next Time 🙂

Megan Reiffenberger