One last bit from the trip to New Mexico. My mom and I were in a shop, while John and my Dad kept Ty company outside. Ty was entertaining his adoring fans, as usual. As we were finishing up in the shop, my mom said to me, “Ty is having his picture taken.” I told her that Ty is always having his picture taken, then turned around and saw that the photographer was from the local paper. (I had seen her at an event the previous day, and recognized her.) Sure enough, Ty and John made the Daily Press in Silver City. I wasn’t mentioned, of course, but they were after a pic and a short blurb. Not really enough space to do a whole write-up. ;-)

I really do have larger toys for the dogs, but one of the Boys’ favorites is a plain old tennis ball. Ty is especially good at keeping himself entertained with one. He’s pretty good at dropping it to bounce once on the floor and catching it again. We caught some video of this in NM recently. He’s not used to tile floors, and it affects the bounce a bit, so he isn’t catching as many as usual, but he’s still having fun. (Click below to get to the Picasa album — there are two video clips.)

July 2007 - Video of Ty

One of the universal truths about sharing your life with Wolfhounds is that you must be able to handle being approached by total strangers who have questions about your dogs. If you can’t handle this, your options are to never take your dogs out anywhere, or to just not have them. Most wolfhound owners accept this as just the price to be paid for having these wonderful beasts in our lives. Yes, we’ve heard most of the questions a thousand times, but we’ll try to answer them in a friendly manner. Yes, he is very big. Just under 200 lbs. About 8 cups a day, but he’s still a young boy not quite done growing. Just over 36 inches at the shoulder. Almost two years old. They’re from Ireland. They were used to hunt wolves. No, they aren’t very common. Yes, they are generally taller than Great Danes. No, they live in the house. Yes, they sleep in the bed, sometimes. Yes, the lifespan is tragically short.

Another universal truth about sharing your life with Wolfhounds is that at least three out of every four people, upon seeing your dog and getting within earshot of you, is going to make one or more horse or saddle jokes. Only rarely will it be one you haven’t heard before, many times. Most people make do with “where’s his saddle?” or “put a saddle on that thing and we can ride him.” All too often it is simply, “that dog’s as big as a horse!” Well, sure, a very small horse. Some Wolfhound owners have snappy comebacks for these lines. Others of us simply paste on something we hope passes for a polite smile.

But in spite of our general annoyance with the never-ending horse jokes, the fact remains that Wolfhounds are extremely large dogs, and that we do on occasion turn to the horse world for solutions to some of the problems that arise from living with dogs this size. One example is the “wicket” some of us use for getting an accurate height on our hounds, which is a measuring stick designed for miniature horses. Horse stall mats can make pretty good mats for large dogs (for kennels or for crates or just around the house as a place to doze). I recently realized that a mounting block might be the perfect tool for assisting our older Wolfhound in and out of vehicles. Sometimes a horse product is a better solution to a problem.

And then recently I was cleaning up some stuff in the garage and came across an old Arabian halter I had stored. In spite of the general dislike of comparing Wolfhounds to horses, I couldn’t resist the temptation of slipping it onto Ty to see how it fit.

July 2007, Ty in a Halter

Clearly it doesn’t fit well, but it did fit better than I thought it would. I had to really shorten up the strap at the back of the neck, and it is too long through the head to hang quite right. But, yeah, there’s my dog, in a horse halter. Oh, and I apologize to everyone for not giving him even a cursory grooming before snapping these photos.