Finally, Someone Bigger

We were at the West Seattle dog park this weekend, and Larry finally found a dog that he was willing to admit was bigger than him. It was a Mastiff, an 11 month old Mastiff “puppy” to be exact. While it wasn’t quite as tall as some of the Great Danes he plays with, it definitely had more mass. Still, recognizing the dog as bigger than him did not mean he recognized the dog as top dog. No, Larry still wanted to take on the Mastiff.

How did we know Larry actually recognized this dog as bigger than him, since he still went after it? His tactics. Even with the Great Danes, he stands on his back legs and tries to be taller, to get their head down in submission. Not with the Mastiff. There was barking, there was darting in sneak attacks. At one point, he even got a pretty good grip on some of the loose skin.

I’ll be honest, if the Mastiff had squished Larry, he would have deserved it. The dog did nothing other than be a big puppy and Larry decided he needed to be taken down. Larry was the one who needed to be taken down. But it seems that Mastiffs, or at least this Mastiff, don’t take little 25lb terriers to be any kind of a threat. In all honesty, I think what annoyed Larry most was that the other dog ignored him. No matter how much he barked, how many times he darted in, the Mastiff was much more interested in playing with dogs much closer to his own size.

Still, we walked away, directing Larry away from the poor puppy, who certainly did not deserve to be picked on that way.

But it was nice to learn that Larry can, in fact, recognize that some dogs are bigger than him. If only he could figure that out about Great Danes, which are much more common at our normal dog park.