Monday 7 December 2009 photo 1/2
![]() ![]() ![]() |
Monday 7 December 2009 photo 1/2
![]() ![]() ![]() |
Daddy is 15, which means he’s getting old. I’ve known for a while that I would have to adopt another pit bull. When the time came — about a year and a half ago — I took Daddy along. Any newcomer in our house would first have to get Daddy’s approval.
That’s how we wound up at the home of a friend whose female pit bull had given birth to a litter about two months earlier. One puppy, all gray with just a little dash of white on his chest, caught my attention immediately. Some people — the Dali Lama, for instance — have this calm energy. So do some dogs. Daddy has it, and I quickly realized that this little gray puppy had it too. In fact, he reminded me of Daddy when he was a puppy. So the puppy passed the Cesar test — but would he pass the Daddy test?
Daddy was already elderly, and because older dogs sometimes just don’t want to deal with an energetic puppy, I wasn't sure how he would react to a young dog. You wouldn’t believe how well it went! The puppy immediately lowered his head, surrendering to the older dog and allowing Daddy to smell him all over. Then, amazingly, he started following Daddy around. In a second, he had transferred his loyalty from his littermates and his mother to Daddy. And Daddy accepted him! It was like Daddy was telling me: He’ll be just as good as I was!
When I left my friend’s house, Daddy followed me — and the puppy followed Daddy! I quickly introduced the puppy (who didn’t have a name yet) to our 30-dog pack. He just lowered his head, wagged his tail, and waited patiently as they checked him out, one by one, smelling him all over. Some of them even rolled him over on his back. None of it bothered him. He was welcomed automatically. We had a brand-new pack member.