My Sweet Guard Dog

 We rescued our American Bulldog Meatball, when he was 9 months old.  Well, we consider him a rescue.  He outgrew the family he was living with and spent his days tied up in the backyard and his nights sleeping in a garage.  He was 90 lbs of love (and has since grown to 125 lbs) and his owners needed to give him away.  Husband and I were in the process of buying a house with a yard (here in California, the yard part is worth mentioning) and had been considering adding a big dog to our family.  It was love at first sight.

 Just look at this sweet face.  

 

Besides being a wonderful companion, he is a fantastic guard dog.  He loves to sit on our back patio at night, or stick his head through the sliding glass door and watch what is happening in our backyard.  He has a nemesis, the opossum that lives on the roof of the house next door.  He likes to come out at night and torture poor Meatball.  But Meatball is plotting against him.  Just you wait, Mr. Opossum, just you wait!

Here he is, in all of his glory, at the dog park.  Unfortunately, at 125 lbs, he is often much bigger than the other "big dogs" (read: labs) that want to play with him. He still gives it a shot, but is not always successful. 

And people tend to get a little afraid of him, often confusing him with a large pit bull.  I know this because it is not uncommon to hear, "Wow, that is a big pit you got there," from intrigued passersby.  But I ask, how could you fear this?

And I must mention that he is so gentle with little dogs.  Before Petunia and Harriet swept into our lives, we had an immensely dignified pug named Turner (pictured below).  And Turner wanted to sleep in the big dog bed, leaving Meatball with, well, you can see below.

And sometimes they would just share the couch.  No, we were not happy about this. 

But what are you gonna do?