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Thank you! We’re lucky today-only 95-and there may be rain by the weekend.

A couple of weeks ago, my neighbor up the hill mentioned that they were going to adopt another dog to keep their poodle company in the house while they are at work, which I took to mean that they would be getting another less than 30 lb dog. He just came by to return a book I loaned him to read, and the poodle, who was in the cab of the truck started barking and wagging because I always give him treats-as a huge gray head with yellow eyes popped up right over him, leaned out the window, licked my face, smiled and drooled on my hand.

Their new dog is a huge, lovely gray female mastiff they got from a rescue place outside Austin. She is a bit less than 2 years old, and a darling-she ate treats from my hand just as politely as the poodle does, just a bit slobbery. My neighbor said she’d been living in a condo in Austin, so she hangs in the house with the poodle and is very well mannered and gentle with their 3 cats, as well.

I mentioned that I’d heard what I thought was another neighbor’s bullmastiff baying last night when I took Husky girl out, when here were lots of fireworks going off, and asked if that was his mastiff barking instead. He said no, that she had been cowering with the poodle between the couch and wall the whole time there were fireworks going off.

Mastiffs are such sweet dogs (except with intruders), but that bark of theirs is one hell of a scary sound-hound of the Baskervilles...

Oh boy, I can't imagine the amount of sedation an animal that big would require! We increased our amounts to premedicate Gatsby and he still barked up a storm at the noise. He was getting mildly agitated all day so I think he heard things in the distance that we didn't. He's been a little off all day today and I blame that on the meds. There is no getting around side effects.
Someone in my sister's family had a bullmastiff named Bully who ultimately died and they replaced him with another, named Dozer this time. They insist he is fabulous with kids but he's enormous. And slobbery.