What Life Is Like With a 250-Pound Dog

The Rottweiler's owner would have a baffled look on his face, so I’d have to explain that my kids’ frame of reference was slightly askew: Our dog back home is a 250-pound American mastiff.

Okay, first things first: When folks find out you’ve got a ridiculously large dog, they always say three things.

1. “Wow, that must be a lot of poop to clean up!” (Answer: Yes. Yes, it is. But y’know what? The number of piles is probably the same as your little dog — only I’m never in danger of accidentally stepping in a pile that’s visible from Google Earth.)
2. “Do you take him for walks, or do you ride him?” (Answer: Duh, I take him for walks. People think it’s witty and clever to ask that question, but after hearing it the first 50 times, it got old.)
3. “How much do you feed him?” (Answer: A whole lot. And you gotta take time to prep food for a dog like that — eggs, chicken, and much more. We actually bought a separate icebox to store all his food.)

See, I’ve always wanted a dog, but growing up, we never had one. All we had were cats. (And one of our cats didn’t like us, so he left our house and moved in with a neighbor who had a cat door. Very embarrassing.) Once my wife and I moved to Tampa and got a house with a fenced-in yard, I wanted to get a dog ASAP.

But what kind?

I always thought Saint Bernards were the largest dog breed, thanks to the persuasiveness of all that “Beethoven” propaganda. But when I started thumbing through a dog book, I discovered this other breed called an English mastiff. Whereas a Saint Bernard might get to 150 pounds, an English mastiff could hit north of 200!

So that’s what I told my wife I wanted.

My wife is very smart. She speaks five languages fluently, but unfortunately, one of them is English. (This leads to a lot of arguments.) She did her own research and told me no.

“An English mastiff drools too much. I don’t wanna live with a dog that drools all the time! It’ll be messy. We’re in Florida, Scott! It gets really hot here.”

That’s when she told me she discovered another breed — one that’s just as big as an English mastiff, but has a tighter lip and drools less.

It’s called an American mastiff.

The sales pitch went like this: English mastiffs were the world’s largest dogs. They were bred to guard royalty, so strength and size were accentuated. For a long time, they were a popular breed in England.

But then, in World War II, the country was in chaos. Food and supplies were limited. For many reasons, feeding a dog the same amount that you’d feed two or three soldiers was no longer a viable option.

Over the next four or five years, the English mastiff breed nearly vanished from existence.

When World War II finally ended, the breed began a comeback, but alas, its bloodlines had significantly narrowed. Suddenly, health problems, hip issues, a shorter lifespan — and more drooling — became commonplace.

That’s what led to the creation of a new breed, the American mastiff. It’s 7/8 English mastiff, 1/8 Anatolian. (Which somehow makes it… American?)

Anyway, that was the sales pitch. Looking back on it, I strongly suspect it was bull[spit]. I just can’t imagine that those backyard breeders were genetics experts.

But I didn’t say that to my wife.

Instead, I enthusiastically agreed: “Yeah, that sounds like a perfectly plausible solution! Let’s do it!”

That’s when Leon came into our lives.

Normally, you wanna wait at least eight weeks before adopting your dog, because it’s healthy for the puppy to have time to bond with its mother. We got Leon at six weeks, because he was already 14 pounds — and if we waited any longer, he would’ve been too big to fly on the seat with the breeder on the plane.

I weighed him weekly. (It was a cool science experiment!) Some weeks, he’d grow five-plus pounds. When he was six months, he weighed about 100. By the time he was one year old, he was over 180.

Originally, we tried crate training him, because that’s what the dog books recommended. But that didn’t work: He’d cry all night long. (The dog books also recommended squirting him with vinegar-water when he cried, but that didn’t work either. It just made me hungry for pickles.) Finally, we gave up.

Every night he slept right next to me.

It annoyed my wife, because she was the one who got up in the middle of the night to let him out, when “we” were housebreaking him. (Meanwhile, I snored contently.) But Leon picked me. I don’t know why. It wasn’t anything I deliberately did. It’s not something I earned.

But out of all the people on the planet, I was his human.

It was the honor of a lifetime.

I figured I was stronger than Leon, because we’d sometimes roughhouse, and I’d always win. Or, when we’re going on a walk, if I pulled hard and insisted on going a different way, he’d dutifully comply. He had never overpowered me, so I was (stupidly) overconfident.

I was hastily disabused of my naivety when Leon was about 16 months and weighed about 200 pounds. There was a big SPCA event in town, and since Leon loved people, I figured it’d be fun to take him.

But at the event, there was a guy in a chicken suit. I think it was a San Diego Chicken outfit. Leon took one glimpse of the giant chicken, said, “Nope!” and took off running in the opposite direction in abject terror.

The way the leash flew out of my hand at warp speed was comical. I realized, then and there, that he was ONLY walking with me because he wanted to — because, if he felt like leaving, there’s absolutely nothing I could do to stop him.

As he got older, his strength kept increasing.

If you sat on the sofa and played tug-of-war with his rope toy, he’d spin you — and the rest of the couch — in wide circles around the house. He loved being with people, so he’d run between the legs of houseguests, pick ‘em up, and carry ‘em around. With just the flip of his head, he could launch someone!

(Women in dresses didn’t care for that. It’s a miracle he wasn’t #MeToo-ed.)

We adopted Leon one year before the birth of our first child. The first night we brought Daniel home from the hospital was the first night Leon didn’t sleep by my side.

Instead, he slept under Daniel’s crib.

He loved both my boys. They’d feed him Cheerios, jamming their fingers in his mouth (and occasionally his eyes). They’d yank on his tongue. He never stopped grinning. Never once did he growl or snap.

Leon was so peaceful that he actually used to share his meals with those giant birds in Florida. I’m glad I took a photo of it, because it’s difficult to believe:

I only saw him lose his temper once: I was taking him for a walk while pushing my boys in a stroller. It was one of those jumbo-sized modern strollers that weigh a ton.

While we were walking, there was a loose pit bull. I had never seen the dog before. But the pit bull saw us — and my babies — and aggressively charged in our direction, barking ominously.

I tried to spin the stroller around and put my body in front of them, but the stroller was so heavy that I was struggling to reposition it.

That’s when Leon broke free, jumped in front of us both, and unleashed the deepest, scariest GROWL I had ever heard.

Like a rampaging silverback, he pounded his front paws on the ground — and as God is my witness, the whole ground shook.

Look, I get it: I’m an unreliable narrator. My kids were in danger; I was flooded with adrenaline, too. But I’m just telling you how I remember it:

And at that moment — when my babies were in danger — Leon doubled in size. His eyes were ablaze with the genius of Hiroshima; his fangs dripped with bloodlust.

In all my life, I’ve NEVER heard an animal growl like that. I can’t even describe it.

But mid-charge, that pit bull got a glimpse of Leon and rolled to its back, skidding several feet, stopping just before he reached us.

The pit bull also began urinating uncontrollably, shaking like a leaf.

Leon stood over him for several seconds, with that dreadful glint in his eyes. His whole head vibrated; his mouth dripped in anticipation; and it looked like he’d snap the other dog in half at any moment.

But he didn’t. He let the other dog scamper away. 

And then he returned to our walk, content and perfectly at peace. The face of a monster was gone; in its place was the silly, happy smile of my best friend.

Lots of kids are scared of “bad people” breaking into their house at night. Not at the Pinsker house! I once heard my kid explain to his friend, “If a bad guy breaks into our house, Leon eats him. Ha, ha, ha!”

Every now and then, he’d remind you how strong he was. When we moved to a new home, I guess he wanted to leave when we weren’t there: By the time we got back, he had completely mangled the doorknob with his teeth. Like, he just pulverized it. Turned it into a pancake. I don’t know what modern doorknobs are made of, but his jaw strength was off the charts. 

He’d decimate those “unbreakable” dog toys in seconds.

As he got older, his size and strength worked against him. When he turned 10, his hips began giving him trouble, so we tried to keep him as lean as possible. But he kept on deteriorating. And nobody on Earth is strong enough to carry a dog like Leon if he won’t let you.

His hips hurt. He didn’t want to move anymore. 

Instead of sleeping by my side, we tried to have him sleep closer to the backyard door, so it would be easier for him to use the bathroom. He wouldn’t cooperate: When his rear legs hurt too much to use, he’d drag his body to my bedroom with his front paws and sleep by my side. More often than not, he’d pee and poop himself at night. I know he hated that, because he’d moan and whimper, but being near me was more important than anything else.

I’m not a “pull the plug” kind of guy. I’m just not. (I’m a “get me an extension cord” kind of guy!) I’ve already told my wife that I won’t pull the plug on her. Don’t care if the whole world disagrees with me. Death is forever. 

It’s permanent.

And as long as you’re alive, there’s still a chance, no matter how small, for a miracle.

But after my wife, my mom, and my dad all told me I was being cruel by prolonging his suffering, I finally relented. The very last thing I’d want is to hurt my friend.

His final night, I slept right by his side — just like the good ol’ days. I even kept my hand on his body. The following morning, I cleaned him up (he couldn’t control his bladder or bowels anymore), got in my car, and brought home some of his favorite food — Taco Bell — to enjoy.

He gobbled it all up.

Four or five hours later, the vet came to our house. (Leon was too big to move.) He rested his enormous head in my lap, I told him how much I loved him for the final time… and a few injections later, my boy was gone.

He was 11 years old. It was the first time my kids ever saw me cry.

I’m still not over it. The whole thing sucks.

I miss my friend.