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It took Julie and I almost a year to decide what breed of dog we felt would best suit our needs. We were recently married and in the process of looking for a house. We needed a dog that was good with children as we had already begun trying to have kids just after being married but wanted a large dog with personality. Based on the research we conducted, it soon became apparent that the American Mastiff was the obvious choice. We got on the waiting list with a breeder in Ohio. We put in for our preference of a fawn male and were told that there would be about a 6 month wait. It wasn’t too long when we got an email from the breeder saying that she knew of a puppy that was available in Michigan from another beeder, but he was brindle. Something just felt right about it and my wife confessed that brindle was actually her preference, so we jumped on the opportunity and that is how Magnus Ver Mastiffson (Magnus) came in to our lives.
When we picked Magnus up he was very subdued and calm. It didn’t take long to realize how emotional he was. He laid on the floor of the car all the way from Michigan to Ohio and wanted very little in the way of water or food. He was understandably upset from leaving his home and family. We did all that we could, but this was a wound that only time would heal.
He did eventually come around and we would play in the back yard all the time. He used to get so flustered from falling over his own feet when he tried to run that he would sigh openly and lay down waiting for someone to come rub his belly. The “sigh and lay down” routine always worked in his favor of course, so he never did see the need to stop doing it.
Since we knew that we would be having kids soon, we wanted to be sure that Magnus was well trained, so we took him to puppy kindergarten to begin socializing him and then we took him through two levels of obedience classes. He picked up the training very quickly and through the use of tiny pieces of Pup-Peroni as a training aid, he discovered his absolute favorite treat. There wasn’t a whole lot he wouldn’t do for Pup-Peroni. During his training, he discovered that he loved to run through the fabric tunnel that they used for agility training. Although he never pursued a career as an agility dog, it didn’t stop him from running through the tunnel even if he didn’t quite fit. Magnus graduated from obedience and even won an award (a stuffed duck which he chewed into itty bitty pieces) for being the dog that could sit and stay the longest. Any American Mastiff owner should be able to appreciate the humor of this breed winning an award for sitting down and not moving.
The training paid off well and through his life Magnus would take on new commands with the greatest of ease. Our couch at the time had its back to the door so when he needed to go out, we couldn’t see him. He never barked or pawed to go out, he simply sat down and waited patiently and then he would sigh openly and lay down. We didn’t want him to have to wait until he felt the need to get disgusted with us so we put a bell next to the back door, lifted up his paw, rang the bell and then opened the door. We only had to show him this twice before he was doing it all on his own so, being the clever owners that we were, we had this issue well in hand. Magnus was, however, more clever than we were and he realized that if he rang the bell, we would come and open the door, but more importantly, we would come. He had us trained. On many occasions we would be in the basement working (he would not go down the basement stairs) and hear the bell ring. We would come up to let him out, but then he would lay down and roll on his back so that we could pet his belly. This trick also worked well for him, so he saw no need to stop doing this ether. It did eventually get to the point where we could tell the difference between an “I’d like for you to pet me now” ring and an “I really need to visit the back yard” ring. The former of the two usually happened after about 3 minutes after going downstairs. Some of his more notable tricks were:
Go to bed, Go to your couch, Go see Mom, Go see Dad and Bedtime
We tried to keep it practical and functional. We never felt that he needed to be “shown off”.
It wasn’t long before our son Dominick came. As a matter of fact, they’re birthdays were almost exactly one year apart. Magnus always looked after Dominick. Not in a protective fashion, but more in a caring, tending to his needs kind of way. Magnus slept, in our room on his blanket, with a stuffed kitty that he stole from our cat but after Dominick came he would sit outside of Dominick’s room until we checked on him. We had to go in to Dominick’s room and look in on him before Magnus would go lay down for the night. He would never go into Dominick’s room until he was much older, but he would sit just outside until he knew all was well.
That was Magnus’ way of things. We never even really heard him bark until a girl selling door to door tried to touch Julie’s belly when she was pregnant with Dominick. For some reason, that upset Magnus, but he never made a move towards her, he just barked one time. He was always very calm in that manner. There was even a time when a little dog (who was off leash) at a park come running towards the stroller that Dominick was in. This dog was aggressive and barking, but Magnus calmly put himself in between the dog and the stroller and just sat there. The dog bit Magnus and even then he just put a paw on the dog and stared as us, almost smiling, as if to say “Puh-lease”.
That was how things were with us for years. Magnus was just a regular member of the family. He had his spot on the couch. He had his spot to sleep. He always put his front legs on the bed at night to get his cuddles before bed. He would sigh openly when he wanted attention and then he’d jump on the couch in between Julie and I when we acknowledged the sigh. He had his family. He had his friends. He was at the door when we came home. He was in the room when we went to bed and he was there when we got up. He never got as big as the majority of his breed, but he had more heart than any dog we ever knew.
One day, seemingly out of no where, we were working in the yard and noticed that Magnus had a slight limp. We were pretty much expecting this eventually because the vet had told us that when he got older, he would most likely have arthritis from a surgery he had as a puppy to correct elbow dysplasia. We took him to the vet and from the initial assessment we were told that it was most likely arthritis and we proceeded to treat it accordingly. When Magnus’ limp worsened, we took him back to the vet for x-rays to see if there was a possibility that he might have gotten injured. We were not expecting to hear that Magnus’ had osteosarcoma, which is just a long way of saying bone tumor.
Of course we got a second opinion and sadly it was confirmed. We only had two choices at that point. We could choose to have the leg amputated and prolong, but not prevent the spread of the disease, or use medicine to keep him comfortable. We chose the latter fearing that he would only recover from the amputation in time for the cancer to spread and take its hold which would only make him suffer longer. Whether we made the right choice or not is still a mystery and one we sometimes question, but had we gone the other way, we would still question it. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no right decision, just one that we have to make.
The tumor grew fast and soon made it so that Magnus could not function on his own and could do little more than lay in our room. I don’t have much of an appetite for describing the details of what this disease is like or how it affected all of us, but I would like to mention that Magnus never complained. Never. Magnus continued to have the same undying, unconditional affection for everything and everyone around him. He merely tried to go on about his daily routine and when he found it challenging, he would simply sigh openly, lay down and wait for us to come rub his belly. We were right back at the beginning.
Eventually the tumor got to the point where it took control. Magnus was thin, frail and could not get up without assistance. It was time. We could not sit by and watch our family member and friend suffer in silence any longer with something that was never going to get better. We made arrangements with our vet for a private cremation the next day. We spent most of that evening laying with him and then after a sleepless night, we broke our son’s heart in the morning. We tried to go to work, but ended up coming home early to lie beside him until it was time.
Magnus would typically jump when he saw his leash but on this day all he could do was wag his tail. We got him up and he tried to walk but had a lot of difficulty. We took the leash off, got him steady and then he limped himself out the door and into the car. Even at the vet’s office, he seemed to prefer to limp in on his own after I picked him up out of the car.
In the end, Magnus left us with a full belly of Pup-Peroni, an open sigh and a well rubbed belly.
We will miss you my friend.
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