Poor Starson. This was his New Year’s Eve night. A passed out wife and a freaked out 120 pound Great Pyrenees.
New Year’s Eve 2019
Country living brought out guns and fireworks starting at 10pm last night, and I guess Gunnar, our Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog, who’s purpose is to stay outside and protect our animals, is not a fan. That’s him between us on the bed, hiding out for the night. I am passed out and poor Star is “alone”, awake, and being pushed off the bed by a 120 smelly dog that usually isn’t even in the house.
About 30 minutes into a movie last night, (NYE is crazy up in here at the farm house, let me tell you) we started to hear a ruckus downstairs. We thought the pups were scratching at the door, or the cats were playing on the stairs, but no, it was Gunnar. He was leaning up on and scratching at the door, he has NEVER done that.
We brought him in thinking maybe he was out of water. Nope. Put him back out and went on watching our movie. A few minutes later while getting some pie ( I know, now we are just getting crazy) we heard large “booms” and “pop, pop, pops”. Shoot (pun intended), maybe this is what had our pup on edge.
I immediately thought of a post I saw about a Great Pyrenees over the summer. The dog was so freaked out by fire works he went through a glass window trying to escape the sounds. The photos were bad, as you might expect. These dogs are gentle giants but are also powerful beasts when provoked/scared.
Gunnar with me and some of the pups.
Gunnar again started to paw at the door so I put boots on over jammies and went out to check on all the dogs and reassure Gunnar. I found Runa asleep right next to the puppy pen with all 8 pups sound asleep inside. Runa was desensitized to fireworks as a pup, she is also a lot mellower than Gunnar. I am glad the pups saw momma sleeping through all this midnight madness and hopefully hold on to this steadfast behavior as adults.
Gunner on the other hand, was panting pretty heavy, while a lot calmer with me out there, he was not relaxed. I gave him a few good pats and he finally settled so back inside I went. Not five minutes later he was pawing again. Gunnar is a really good guard dog and likes to do his job. Even if he is solo. When Runa was inside for weeks with her pups he stayed out alone no problem. Most dogs would be at the door asking, “hey what about me?” but not him. We knew if Gunner wanted in, it’s something to take notice of, and with the broken glass story in my head, we decided to let him in.
Gunnar, the puppy that smelled like a goat, brought in for Christmsn photos.
Gunnar has not been on the bed but maybe once or twice as a pup for cute photos, that’s it. We have tried to call him on the bed inThe past four giggles and he just looks at us like we are crazy. Runa, on the other hand, will jump up for a quick snuggle and Gunnar will look on with disgust.
This is not surprising as Gunnar was born with goats, outside, and the only time he slept inside was when we were waiting for gates to come in at the new property and were still living in the RV while the house was getting finished. I would take him out, in the freezing cold , where he would do his business and then happily plop his 10 Wk old belly down on the cold ground. Most of the time I was picking him up and bringing him back into the RV when all he wanted was to stay put in the cold. Great Pyrenees are bred for the cold, if you don’t believe me- let them show you.
Runa, as a puppy, sledding with the kiddos.
Knowing all this about our dog and watching as he bounded up the stairs and right into bed was pretty shocking! Needless to say, we knew this giant dog was not going back outside tonight, and we sure weren’t gonna kick him off the bed. He acted like he had done this a thousand times and fit perfectly between us. We are a bunch of softies, in our old, staying in, age. We quickly settled in, I fell asleep and so did the stinky dog, leaving poor Starson on his own and the champagne in the fridge.
