A companion dog for my companion dog.

I recently performed the last service for my Rottweiler, Monsta.  Dog owners dread making that choice and some delay it as long as they can, which is arguably a diservice to the dog.  My German Shepherd, Falke, is the sole canine in my house now, a condition she has never known.  She is lonely.  She is anxious to greet me when I get home from work, but since I never do arrival and departure rituals, she is deprived of a greeting ceremony.  We play 20 minutes after I get home from work.

The question is whether to buy or otherwise acquire a companion dog for my companion dog.  I do not have adequate time to put into the training of a new dog.  I won’t have the time for approximately 3 years.  If I were to get a dog to keep Falke company,  it would be strictly my dog’s dog since I don’t have the time for a dog of my own. 

So I ask, what kind of dog would my German Shepherd like to have?  It isn’t like I can ask her.  I could ask myself, if I were a German Shepherd, what kind of dog would I want?  Maybe she would want a big, muscular dog like my Rottweiler was.  Being a German Shepherd, a female German Shepherd, she is in control wherever she goes.  She seemed to get perverse pleasure out of terrorizing my 105 pound Rottweiler, aptly named Herr Frankenstein’s Monsta.  He outweighed her by 30 pounds.

Falke cannot have another Rottweiler to terrorize because Rottweilers scare people no matter how well they are trained.

Falke cannot have any sort of terrier because I hate terriers.  After all, I have to live with the dog too.

Another German Shepherd?  No way.  Too much hair.

I think I will get her a hamster.  And a clear plastic hamster exercise ball.

Before I go to work each day, I will put the hamster in the exercise ball and put it on the floor for Falke to bat around the house all day.  I live in a tri-level so I expect that when I get home from work, Falke will have batted the poor hamster down three flights of stairs.  Poor hamster.  Maybe I will need a spare hamster.  Maybe two.

 This is a good time not to be a hamster.

~ by dogprint on February 23, 2008.