And So It Begins
My puppy wasn’t born yet, but I needed a house soon. I wanted a proper fenced yard where Magnus could play, be safe, and never escape. A kind and gentle doggy Alcatraz. This required home ownership, not a rental, and certainly not an apartment. At that time, I had a friend who worked as a mortgage broker and his roommate was a real estate agent. No, really. They were excited to help and we immediately started looking for a suitable home. I lived in a suburban university town surrounded by the great rural. Up to this point, I had always lived in apartments near the university or at least in town, but I considered living in the more open spaces.
The agent started by showing me a home located a few miles south of town. This quaint house sat on a flat property of lawn surrounded by a four-foot-high chain link fence. For many dogs, a four-foot-high fence might be fine, but I felt pretty sure that this would be too short for my purposes, and worse, the chain link would allow Magnus to see every barking target for miles in every direction. I passed. The next day I got a call from the agent and he told me that he found an unlisted house in town. If I acted fast, I might be able to nab this house before anyone was the wiser. During a Monday lunchtime I slipped away for a few minutes. The agent wasted no time and met me at the property to show me around.
The house appeared to be a small post-World War II starter home adjacent to the university. The yard was a mass of overgrown shrubs and long forgotten fruit trees. Around the back and sides were bits of picket fencing and short garden and chicken-wire fencing woven through shrubs. The patchy back lawn was covered in deer droppings and the house had no back door, just a side and front door.
Entering the house put you in the front room not an entryway. From there, doorways led to the kitchen and a hallway. These doorways had actual doors. In fact, the tiny hallway had four doors making up most of the wall space. Two doorways led to small bedrooms, one to a tiny bathroom, and the last to the front room. The front room took on a triangular shape after accounting for traffic lanes to the doors and its total living space could barely hold a couch and a TV. The kitchen floor was covered in green and yellow linoleum and the bedrooms sported shag carpeting whose colors have no names. The kitchen had a second door that opened up to the basement stairs. At the top of those stairs was an exterior door that opened to the driveway. When fully opened, the bottom of that door hovered a few feet above those stairs. The dark and mostly unfinished basement had little rectangular windows near the ceiling and its main features were a sump pump and a fake fireplace.
However – this home resided in a mature and quiet neighborhood next to the university. I could walk to work. Best of all, the road out in front of the property swerved in a way that made the property longer than all the neighbors’ properties. This made the back yard rather large. Importantly, the price was low. In fact, it was below the appraised value. I offered the owner their asking price, but I required a response before the end of day. I worried about a bidding war when the house got its listing the next morning. My description might not have convinced you, but this house was a steal. The owner agreed to my offer on the stipulation that I close the loan in 10 days. It helped to have a friend who was a mortgage broker. I signed the paperwork on my way to the airport exactly 10 days later and 4 days before Christmas. I hadn’t chosen a name for my dog yet, but I now had a home.
I moved into the house on January 6, 1996, and Magnus was born on January 12. I didn’t know that at the time, because my new puppy could come from any of the three Simba litters then on the ground. The final choice of which puppy became Magnus, came about 5 weeks later. A black and tan boy born to Lady; a beautiful and large gold female.
The breeder knew I wanted a large dog, but given the rarity of this breed, any puppy that was both large and showed breeding promise was going to be kept by the breeder, or traded for a similar high-quality puppy from another breeder. Reality determined that I was either going to get an awkward giant, or a beautiful mid-size. I didn’t know anything about this stuff at the time, so I just lived the dream.
Now that I had settled into my new home, I started thinking about everything that needed to be done before the puppy arrived. I needed a back door and some way to contain the back yard while I constructed a fence. The fence project might have been better accomplished with less snow on the ground. Thus, the back door became my first priority.
The kitchen, located at the back of the house, was designed with a breakfast nook just under a window. Fortunately, exchanging a door for that window meant a way out back and I didn’t eat breakfast anyway. Unfortunately, the door would open about 3 feet above the ground. One thing at a time. I found a contractor to do the work just in time. I really wanted it done before Magnus arrived. I gave a key to the contractor and flew to Los Angeles in the second week of March to pick him up.
Life changing events seem to come in bunches. I think we all want to spread them out so they can be navigated or experienced at our chosen pace. But we rarely have a say. My current events, however, were all self-inflicted: my graduation, my new home, and a puppy that was going to dominate every moment of my life. I had no idea.
I flew out on a Friday and stayed at my mom’s place in Laguna Beach. Magnus was located in Pomona, where Lady lived, and the breeder was located in Simi Valley, north of Los Angeles, where Simba lived. We planned to visit the breeder’s place on Saturday, drive back to Laguna, then pick up Magnus on the way to the Burbank airport on Sunday. My mom provided the transportation, so she and a friend of hers had then to drive back to Laguna when this was all done. Now, if you’re from LA, you’re laughing your ass off. The distances between these locations are ludicrously long even if we weren’t traveling over LA freeways. But that’s okay, I was on a mission and mom was being mom. I have no idea what her friend was thinking, but she did get to meet puppy Magnus.
If you haven’t figured it out already, up to this point, I had never seen a Tibetan Mastiff in person. That was about to change. On Saturday, my mom and I drove up to Simi Valley to meet the breeder, Simba, other adult Tibetan Mastiffs, and a bunch of puppies. We arrived in the late morning. It was sunny and warm, no need for coats. The breeder led us to a fenced-off back deck. In the yard beyond the fence were several adult dogs, but on the deck and at my feet swarmed a litter of giant and enthusiastic puppies. It was sensory overload. I mean, I went from never seeing one, to seeing lots of them in an instant. I’m sure that the breeder shared tons of useful information, but I know for a fact I didn’t hear a word.
At some point in the proceedings, I noticed Simba‘s absence. I asked, and the breeder told me that Simba was in the garage, but that he would be glad to bring him out so we could meet him. Drumroll please. Simba stepped out into the yard. I probably looked like a kid seeing Mickey at Disneyland. I had never seen a dog close to that size before, nor could I have imagined a more beautiful animal. Simba crossed the yard and the breeder opened the gate to let the golden giant onto the deck. Simba walked right up to my mom; lifted his leg, aimed, and fired. Before I could register what had happened, the breeder grabbed Simba and forcibly relocated him back into the garage. Yep, that really happened. The breeder scrambled to find a towel for my mom and apologized profusely. I don’t know if I laughed audibly, but inside I was roaring. Unfortunately, Simba was in timeout and I wanted more.
We stayed for a while longer, but there wasn’t much more to see or talk about. On the drive back to Laguna I regaled my mom with chorus after chorus of, “Simba peed on mom” – to the tune of Ring Around the Rosie. At one point I turned to her and said, “You his bitch now.” She was not amused.
Sunday – the big day. We drove to Pomona and parked across the street from Lady’s house. I remember walking up the driveway and seeing a woman at the back of the garage holding up a puppy. He looked like a giant belly with four paws sticking out. Magnus. We stayed for a while, met Lady, and watched all the puppies play in the back yard. Magnus appeared noticeably larger than all the others. He was just over 8 weeks old and already weighed 25 pounds. Despite being playful, he fell over a lot. The awkward giant.
In the airport parking lot, I walked Magnus around hoping he would at least pee before I had to turn him over to the airlines. He hadn’t peed since I met him. No go. I didn’t realize at this point that he could go for days without needing to pee. I don’t know if this is a dog thing or a Tibetan Mastiff thing. All my dogs could hold it forever.
When I arrived at my home airport, I realized that I had no idea how to reacquire him, nor how I would get him out to my truck. I hung out by the oversized luggage return. Sure enough, a door opened and someone brought out the crate. Two thumbs up. I really think that puppies at that age are more concerned about losing mom and littermates than flying in an airplane. Magnus seemed fine with both. I wasn’t sure about how to maneuver the crate onto the parking lot bus, so I just started walking. Rolling luggage with my left hand and lugging crate and puppy with my right. Turns out, airport parking lots are really big. When I finally got to the truck, I gave Magnus another chance at relief. Nope.
Magnus slept on the long drive home. I had let a few friends know my arrival time earlier and asked them to meet me at the house. I needed an extra set of hands to get set up for the night. I arrived at the house around midnight, and thankfully, folks were there waiting to see him and give me a hand. Still grateful.
I let myself into the house to see that I now had a back door. Magnus finally dropped a nugget on the front lawn and this relieved some of my anxiety. He wasn’t broken. My friends said their goodbyes and now I had to settle on sleeping arrangements. I decided to sleep on the couch and Magnus slept on the floor just under my hand. Every time I turned off the light, though, he would whine. I was not ready to argue. I tried to sleep with the light on; Magnus slept just fine.