Skip to main content

Giant Gus turns one

Gus arrived here last April, only 6 weeks old and taken from his mother and litter and everything he knew in the world.  Poor wee fella.  He was much younger than Taz when she first arrived, and we noticed the difference, he cried at night and when we left for work.  The first week he was here, Pete had to go to a course in Brisbane, so I was home alone with the dogs and had my first week at my new job.  As I left for work on the first day, Gus was crying and Taz was barking at Gus.  Not a great start (if you get a young puppy, plan to be home with them for a few days until they get settled! we got Taz at 12 weeks old and she had been separated from her mother for a few weeks).

Gus grew and grew and grew.  He's a Great Dane cross Bull Arab (a "pig dog" bitza, I like to call him my boer hound, he is also known as Horse Dog and Gustopher).  We realised after a few days that he needed to be fed more than once a day.  He was walking around with his mouth open and eating anything that he ran in to.  We started feeding him morning and afternoon, and at night if he woke up crying.  He was eating twice as much as Taz and he needed it!  (We have been feeding them both minced offal, grated veges and eggs)

I think at first Taz was a bit irritated with the little puppy, especially when he decided to start sleeping on her bed (I started to find her in the puppy box instead).  Then he got big enough to play with and she didn't mind that.  But it wasn't long until he was bigger than her, which has ruined some of her games (hard to win tug of war and rough-and-tumble now that he's twice her size).  Taz maintains her dominance by being more nimble and at last resort, she does bite him on the face if he gets too cheeky.

Gus has absolutely no fear, loud noises and new situations do not worry him, he will move towards something new to check it out (the complete opposite of our scaredy cat Taz, her nickname is "little mouse" because she is scared of everything and squeaks a lot).  He is pretty keen on "swimming" (mostly just wading and sitting) in the dam to cool off.  And he greets all visitors with excited leaping at the gate.  Fortunately his size deters most people from opening the gate (he is supposed to be my security system!).  He loves humans and at any opportunity will jump up on a chair or the back of the ute to get access for a sneaky face lick,

Last time we weighed Gus he was 45 kg, I think he had filled out a bit since then.  Luckily he has finally mastered jumping on the back of the ute instead of waiting to be lifted up.

I am so glad that we taught Gus manners right from the start.  Before he eats, he must sit and "give me five" before the command "tucker", then he can eat.  He is pretty good at sitting and he only jumps when he's very excited.  I taught him to walk with a front clip harness, so he learnt not to pull on the lead and he is lovely to walk with (I did not want a big dog towing me down the road!).

He has chewed odd things.  While Taz had a collection of socks and gloves and sunglasses, Gus likes to destroy cardboard boxes and egg cartons (none are safe outside) and he takes the shoelaces out of boots and undoes the ties on our outdoor furniture cushions.  He loves ropes.  He is learning fetch, but is very uncoordinated and Taz always gets there first.

Its hard to believe now that he was once only a few kilos, just a tiny little furball who couldn't get up the stairs by himself, and now he is a giant shiny black laid-back horse dog.  I keep reminding myself that he's still a pup really.  Even though he's now 1 year old and full size, he still has a lot to learn and will become mature, coordinated and calmer as he ages (we noticed that with Taz, when she was two, she suddenly could "walk behind").

And here's lots of photos of our boy.  Have you raised a pup?  Or a few?  Did you notice that they take a few years to fully mature?  Any differences between breeds?


April 2016

May 2016

June 2016

July 2016

August 2016

September 2016

October 2016

November 2016

December 2016

January 2017



Comments

  1. Gus is such a handsome dog!!! It's so nice to see how he grows so nicely. Thank you for sharing his beautiful pictures with us:)
    Jessi

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, Gus. What a character. Happy birthday little fella. You know what I mean. ;)

    Good training skills Liz and Pete. Starting young sets them up, for when they're big and burly. Our Rotty x German Shepherd, was a people lover too. Never thought she'd hurt a fly, until some guy jumped our fence in suburbia and ran through our yard. She bailed him up against the house, and stood up on her back legs to look him in the eye, as she growled at him.

    It's good to have good natured, big dogs. But they sure know when to defend the family. Train them to be kind. But instinct will tell them when to defend.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks, I appreciate all your comments, suggestions and questions, but I don't always get time to reply right away. If you need me to reply personally to a question, please leave your email address in the comment or in your profile, or email me directly on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com

Popular posts from this blog

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here .  You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!).  I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months.  I'm very excited to share this new website with you!

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog.  I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people.  I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts.  I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo.  Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about chicken tractor

How to make soap with beer (and tallow)

I may  have mentioned this before.... soap making is addictive!  Once you start, you just want to keep making more soap.  And not the same soap, you want to try all sorts of different soaps.  I made the mistake of joining a facebook group called Saponification Nation  and now my facebook newsfeed is full of glorious soaps, in all colours and shapes, which makes it even harder to resist the urge to experiment.  One soap that kept popping up a few weeks ago was soap made with beer. I generally prefer not to use ingredients just for the sake of it, I like to know that they are adding something to the properties of the finished soap.   As you know, I don't like to use artificial ingredients either (colours or fragrances).   When I read about beer in soap I found out that beer adds sugar to the mixture, which increases lather.  I use tallow in my soap, which has limited lather, so anything that adds lather could improve the soap.  It also contributes a tan or brown colour to