Let's Get A Mastiff, I Said...

Round up the usual suspect

Okay, I'm aware that some people are going to read this and then chime in and be all You don't deserve such a beautiful dog.  You shouldn't have gotten a dog if you weren't prepared to give it your whole heart.  You suck as a person.  You *fill in the blank*

Just...don't.

She has our whole hearts, but there's a caveat.

I'm about to disclose one of the secrets of mastiff ownership that many of us miss or willfully ignore or downplay, when deciding to take on one of these gentle but slobbery giants for a lifetime.

Yes, I'm talking about the slobber.

For the love.

Guys.  I did the homework.  So, so much of it. Believe me, if there's anyone who's more RESEARCH ORIENTED than me, I haven't met them yet.  I research the heck out of things.  Pros and cons.  Blogs.  Lists.  Talk to people with experience.  Wiki-pedia, *yourtopic*.com, "what to know before xyz", ALL of it.  And I still somehow missed it.

We got our beautiful English Mastiff when she was 10 months old; she is now 4+ years old.  She is considered a "dry mouth" dog, which means she isn't drooling all the time (win!), but she IS definitely a drool-y mess EVERY SINGLE TIME SHE DRINKS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE FOREVER AND EVER AMEN.  No breaks.  Oh, and there's also lots of drool whenever she gets excited or nervous, or eats snow.  (*cough* snowiest-winter-ever).  We knew this would be a thing, and we knew that, sure, we'd need some 'drool rags' around at the door and by her food area.  We literally told ourselves "How hard can it be? You just wipe their mouth now and then."

hahahahahahaahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaasoNOTtrue

Seems perfect...

....until you zoom in a little

 What we were NOT ready for was the fact that every time she gets up from a nap, (or sometimes just randomly, because she's a dog) she does that head-shake move that you might recognize from either famous big-dog film -Turner And Hootch or Beethoven - and even from another room, you can literally hear the *smack* of slobber slinging onto the walls, doors, floor, bookshelves, framed open photos, windows, ceiling and anything else within 10 feet.  I've had her do it while I was in the room, and literally had it fly past my face to hit the wall above my head.  You also learn to cover your drink.  Fast.

So, yeah...not as excited about that.

Here's the drink routine.  Every time she needs a drink, (and I mean, every.single.time), one of us (and when I say us, I mean ME) needs to drop what we're doing and rush into the kitchen and stand there until she comes up for air, like a moose in a swamp, then swoop in quickly before she can swing her head around and fling the mess onto the kitchen cabinets, wipe all the drool off, take the slimy bowl back to the laundry room utility sink, rinse it out (it's ...stretchy??? ewwwwwwwww) refill it, and let her do it again.  This usually needs to happen about three times in a row.  Every time she drinks.  Every DAY of your life.  Once she's done drinking, you'll need to wipe her mouth really well two more times before she walks out through the kitchen, then go and repeat the bowl rinse-gag-refill procedure.  By that time, she's wandered back to the living room and is already usually dangling another 6" line of goo that needs wiped, a third time, before it drips on the floor or gets dragged across the arm of our new couch or the sleeping cat.  Unless she shakes her head, then you're too late.

*muffled gagging sound*

For the rest of the time when you're not waiting for her to finish drinking water, if you chose to ignore the several-times-a-day sound of the post-nap and/or random head-shake of the slobber, you also get to spend however long it takes using HOT water, a high concentrate of a strong cleaner, and more elbow grease than you'd expect, to scrub off the caked-on combo of saliva, dirt, and hair that bonds almost permanently to glass and paint and anything else.  I'm literally going to need to repaint my office walls and ceiling (where she sleeps), because I have almost scrubbed the paint OFF in some places.

                             Exhibit A - what I deal with about once a week in my office...

click on these photos to see what it REALLY looks like up close

Also, don't forget that you need to be OK with bringing a ladder INSIDE your house, so you can scrub your high living room ceilings and try not to drip Simple Green in your own eyes while scrubbing hard, directly overhead.  Not that I've done that  (much).

To their everloving credit, though, mastiffs ARE everything else you hear about.  Loving and sweet, gentle and kind, completely and unashamedly just IN LOVE with you (especially if you happen to be Shane--she's got an almost creepy crush on him).  They are sensitive and smart and dorky and fun to play with. They just want to lay on your feet (not "at" your feet.. "ON" them).  They are beautiful to look at, majestic and classic.   They don't require lots of exercise.  They only bark when there's something to bark AT, and then they sound totally badass.  They aren't aggressive and generally accept other animals well, and can be sweetly loving with their much smaller kitty friends.  They give great dog 'hugs' (when they're not covering you in slime).  They want to be wherever you are, no matter where that is.  Best dog ever.  Seriously.

I mean...how could we resist that face?

So there you have it.  A real-life tale from a real-life mastiff owner.