Llewelyn's good friend Anton

A little over a year ago, we had the good fortune of meeting Anton, a lively, lanky and slightly looney Irish Setter, who - fortunately for us - comes with two very nice humans. Anton and Llewelyn quickly became very good pals, as they share a puppy-like playfulness and there is surprisingly little male rivalry between them.

They are always overjoyed every time they see each other, and then the antics begin...

 
Really, they love each other! This looks quite savage, but it's all play, no one ever gets hurt.




Llewelyn uses his shorter height advantageously by going for Anton's legs:

Tug-of-war is a favorite game:

"You may be taller, Anton, but I'm older!"





Inside, it's more of the same...

So much fun, so exhausting. Let's call it a truce for the day...

Anatomy of a Welsh Springer Spaniel

Or: "Deconstructing Llewelyn"


Some of the lovable parts of Llewelyn....

Black, leathery nose:

So dark and cavernous...













Ferocious, pointy teeth:
















Silky, almost feminine ears:

Not as attractive on the inside. But all the better to hear you with, my dear...














Hind paws, good for running, jumping and ear-scratching:

Front paws, when not at rest (as shown here), often used for digging holes, pouncing on toys, and keeping chew bones in place during chewing (although the lack of opposable thumbs is definitely a handicap):

Fluffy tail, mostly decorative (nevertheless we would never dream of having it cut off, as is done in some uncivilized countries!):

Put it all together, and you've got one irresistible dog....

This is one relaxed dog

One of the first things we noticed about Llewelyn is that he is a very relaxed dog. Or it's more like he's two dogs in one: a highly athletic, social, active, running-jumping-sprinting machine of a dog when he's out  in the wilderness, and a totally easy-going, malleable, sleepy, fluffy, do-with-me-what-you-may kind of dog when he's in the comfort of home and familiar surroundings.

As we abandoned the fight to keep Llewelyn from sleeping on our bed, we also gave up on trying to keep him off the couch. I guess we're bad dog owners. The books say you're not supposed to let your dog on your bed or living room furniture. But his persistence and total cuddly adorableness broke us down. And we don't really have any regrets about it; only when we're at other people's homes and he tries to jump on their couches. I don't blame him for his confusion...
















So this is indeed one relaxed dog, who enjoys his comfort. We've noticed that he usually positions his head on a pillow or cushion, like a person, and has no shame in lying spread-eagle and taking up one side of the bed, or half the couch.
















And everyone here finds this perfectly normal, especially Llewelyn.

Adapting to a dog's life

Getting a dog definitely entails a major lifestyle change, much more than I realized at the time. We had purchased (and even read!) a number of books on puppies and dog training, and thought we were ready our new arrival. But life with a cat had not prepared me for a puppy's destructive energy and almost constant need for attention, and I confess there were moments when I wondered what we had gotten ourselves into, and whether this was really such a good idea after all (in retrospect of course, the answer is a resounding "yes!").

During his first 6 months with us, until he reached about 1 year old or so, Llewelyn was into pretty much everything, including: shoes, especially crocs (which are still a popular chew toy to this day), socks, toilet paper (very fun to grab the end of the roll and pull), tablecloths (also pulled, until they came completely off - we quickly learned to clear the table completely, especially when we left him alone), sofa cushions (knocked to the ground regularly while we were out), magazines grabbed off the side table (despite being behind a barrier) and chewed to bits. He also like to steal the handbags of unsuspecting female visitors and run off with them.

He was a destructive force in the backyard, digging holes left and right whenever we had our backs turned. We soon had a sort of landslide developing on one side of the yard...

Who, me?

We had read that it's a good idea to put a puppy in a crate or pen when he's left alone, but Llewelyn had spent the first five months of his life on a farm in a state of almost total liberty, and being cooped up, especially when we weren't there, displeased him highly, and he was extremely vocal about it. We tried to persist for several days, we figured he'd eventually get used to it and accept the situation, but then he discovered that he could hurdle himself over the side of his pen, and we gave up. So came up with an alternative solution: we dog-proofed the first floor and made sure all of the bedroom and bathroom doors upstairs were closed when we left the house. This turned out to be an acceptable arrangement for everyone. Llewelyn still wasn't pleased to be left alone, but after several days of leaving him alone for very brief periods, and then, very gradually, increasingly longer one, he finally understood that when we left it wasn't for good and sooner or later we would come back. Thank goodness, because our vacation time was almost up and we had to go back to work very soon. I had radically revised my work schedule so that I worked afternoons only and could walk Llewelyn in the morning, and Henry would rush home at 4 p.m. to walk him again. This little dog had no idea to what extent we were (willingly) turning our lives upside down for him.

It took a number of weeks, but we did settle into a routine in the end, and eventually his destructive behavior all but disappeared as he matured. Now we look back fondly at his antics, and almost miss them. Except for an occasional stolen slipper or croc, he's now a very good and well-behaved dog. Which makes things easier to manage, but we laugh a little less often these days than we did during those first few months.

When Llewelyn met Bianca

On July 8, 2007, one week after Llewelyn's arrival, we had Henry's parents and their dog Bianca over for lunch and puppy playtime. Bianca is a couple of months older than Llewelyn; at the time these pictures were taken she was about 7 months old and he was 5 months. They seemed overjoyed to meet each other, and immediately started frolicking, running and playing together in the backyard, to our pleasure and amusement. Both of them were completely exhausted by the end of the day.

Dirty dog/clean dog

Pictures taken on the same day in March 2009.

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First days with our new dog

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I wrote this in an email to family and friends on July 3, 2007, two days after we brought Llewelyn home:

"He's a real sweetie: very calm and gentle, a bit timid and sensitive, especially in new situations, but also curious, playful and affectionate. The car trip home went surprisingly well, Llewelyn slept pretty much the whole way and seemed to feel quite at ease lounging on the back seat with me while Henry drove. In fact so far a lot of the milestones that we thought might be challenging have actually really gone well: he seems to be pretty much housebroken already, in any case we have't had any accidents yet, and we gave him a bath last night and he was so good and stood perfectly still as we lathered him up and then hosed him down. He devours his food even though it's different from what he used to eat, and is catching on to some commands already like "sit" and "come". But even with such a good puppy it's still quite a lifestyle change for us!"

How Llewelyn came into our lives

At some point in late 2006, I'm not sure exactly when, it suddenly seemed necessary to get a dog. We'd put our beloved cat Mirabel to sleep in May, after many long months of illness and suffering, and for quite a while I didn't feel ready to get another pet. But eventually the feeling of emptiness in the house overtook the feeling of loss, and it became increasingly important, even urgent, to find another furry friend. I had always considering myself to be a cat person, but living in a neighborhood that is a near a busy major road and inhabited by foxes, I knew I wouldn't want to let my cat roam freely outdoors. But forcing the cat to be an indoor cat is both complicated and frustrating for everyone concerned, as I knew from my experience with Mirabel (who had feline AIDS and therefore had to be kept indoors).

The idea of getting a dog instead arose when my in-laws got a new puppy but were concerned about being able to care for her in the long term. We promised that we would take little Bianca if ever they felt she was becoming too much of a burden. I asked Henry, why don't we get our own dog in the meanwhile? If we feel we can handle taking Bianca in the future, there's no reason why we can't have our own dog now. Henry required very little persuasion and was quickly and enthusiastically on board. We bought a book on dog breeds and started searching for the breed that would be the best match to our lifestyle. We did consider getting a shelter dog, but I feared that as first-time owners we wouldn't have the knowledge or experience to handle any potential behavioral issues that could arise with a dog that has a previous, and probably unknown, history. So we decided to go with a pure bred, in order to have a better idea of what we were getting ourselves into, but maybe our next one will be a rescue dog.

Henry was keen on getting a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, because of his parents' previous dog, Joko ("Yoko"), who was delightful, affectionate, smart and playful - really a wonderful dog on all accounts. But the problem with purebred Cavalier King Charles Spaniels is that they often have congenital problems (hips, eyes, heart); it's not the most hardy breed. After months of visits to the vet with Mirabel, I wanted a sturdy, healthy dog. I came up with a counter proposal: a Welsh Springer Spaniel. These dogs have a reputation for being robust, well-proportioned and generally very healthy, as they aren't as well known as some of the more popular breeds and therefore generally not over bred. They are the ultimate hunting dogs, which has advantages and disadvantages, as we would later find out.

Some further research and a visit to see a real live Welsh Springer Spaniel near Geneva finally convinced Henry, and reinforced my own conviction, that it was a good breed for us. Welshies, in addition to being handsome, healthy dogs, generally have nice, social temperaments, are suitable for inexperience owners, and are a nice size - neither too big nor too small. They're very outdoorsy and need lots of walking - at least an hour per day off the leash - which we felt would do us good as we would be obliged to get more exercise and fresh air.

So we had the breed, and even a name: from the beginning we thought a Welsh name "like Llewelyn" would be cute and clever... and we never managed to come up with anything else. So Llewelyn it was... we just had to find him. An unsuccessful (and rather annoying) visit to a breeder near Zurich was followed by an email exchange with a well-known breeder in France, Madame Bolze (who unfortunately had to stop breeding Welshies in 2008), who by good luck had a puppy that sounded just right for us. A seven-hour drive to southwest France one rainy weekend in July 2007 brought us to this little guy:

Actually he was only about 3 months old in that picture; we got him at 5 months and he looked more like this:

We spent a largely sleepless night with him (he kept trying to climb into bed with us... and in the end we broke down and let him) in a "gite" at the breeder's farm, and then headed home the next day. He was adorable and so well-behaved during the long drive back to Switzerland. After a few minutes of initial agitation he lay calmly on the back seat next to me, dozing most of the way, as Henry drove. We made regular stops, and each time we got out of the car he seemed perplexed but unintimidated by all the new things he was seeing. We finally arrived back home, and our house must have seemed terribly empty and quiet to him after life on a farm. We hoped he would nevertheless be happy in his new life with us...

Nothing like a nap in a sunny corner...

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