My Maxwell (very long)

[Kittilicious]

Thought I'd post about my Maxwell Knuckles. I do have my "real" Knuckles now, but Max was first. And here is his story.

Max came into my life in 1992. I was looking in the paper for a German Shepherd puppy and I found an ad that was giving away German Shepard cross puppies. I think the mom, a GSD, was bred with a black lab & a golden. Max was the oddball. He did throw GSD marking puppies when he got a rottweiler pregnant a few years later. (My mistake.) There was my proof that I wasn't imagining that he came from a GSD - nobody believed me! All he had for shepherd markings was a stripe down his side, a longer nose than most goldens/labs, long pointy ears that stayed floppy but if you held them up you could see the shepherd and a set of jaws that made everyone fear him! I went to the farm and looked at all the puppies. All black. I didn't want an all-black dog. The owners told me one puppy was missing, that he was a loner. When I'd made up my mind to pass on getting any of those puppies, here comes this big ball of golden fur from a shed. Running as fast as his little legs (that you couldn't see under all the fur!) could carry him. He ran right up to me and it was love at first sight. He wasn't the German Shepard look that I wanted, but something told me I couldn't leave without him. That was my Maxwell. I had always planned on naming a German Shepherd "Knuckles" in memory of a German Shepherd that belonged to a friend of my brothers back in the 70s when I was just 6 or 7 years old. He was a mean, vicious dog that nobody could get near, but yet I'd climb into his dog house with him. I always said I'd have my own Knuckles. Max didn't look like a Knuckles, so that is how he was named Maxwell Knuckles. (and he knew he was in trouble when I used his full name! LOL)
He was with me through a marriage that was a mistake from day one. I had to leave him at the house my ex & I had when I moved into town into an apartment. I got a call from a neighbor that my ex hadn't been around and they were going to call the humane society if someone didn't come feed Max. I broke into the house that day to get him food & water. Soon after I asked Jason ("the husband" I talk about now) if Max could stay with him and then we went and "kidnapped" Max. I always joke on how Max moved in with Jason before I did! LOL

One thing that Max loved was snow. He had a dog house, but when it snowed he'd lay outside and let the snow fall on him until all there was was a big snow pile that would move if you called for him. Loving the snow & cold is partly what contributed to his sore joints & muscles later on.

(Please don't yell at me about where his dog house is in the pics... that was a temporary spot until the kennel was built... that was soon after he moved in with Jason. Max didn't like being inside when he was younger. Once he got older then he started wanting to be in the house more and more.)
He loved critters... more than once we caught him letting rabbits eat out of his food dish. And our cats.. but they had to be ours. The rest he'd chase away, but he'd never hurt them. He had 1 cat in his life that he favored more than the rest. The first one was a white cat named Milo. They would spend days with Max chasing Milo up a tree and Milo waiting until Max laid down and then he'd jump out of the tree... right onto Max and they would start all over again! Max was also his body guard. Milo liked to get into fights with other cats and he sooned learned to lure them into the yard. Milo would stand just inside of the circle of Max's tie-out and wait for the unsuspecting cat to round the corner of the house and right into Max. I suppose that was another game of there's.... teasing the neighbor cats.

A couple years before I made the final decision to put him down he started aching more and more. Then his bladder started giving out. This is a dog that would hold it inside the house for 24 hours (if he had to, which was only once!) because he was such a good boy and all of a sudden he just couldn't anymore. Then the pain got worse. It took me a good year to finally make that decision, but I remember the day like it was yesterday. He was laying on the couch with me and with ever breath he moaned. I looked down at him and said "Ok, ok, I get it. It's time." I remember the look in his eyes after I said that... it was like a look of peace that he knew would soon be coming.
Max was a "full boy" and loved to mark his territory outside and in the garage. Jason wanted to club him over the head with a shovel more times than not. But when I made that appointment and asked Jason to take him in for me because I knew I couldnt, he couldn't either. We had to get my brother to take him in for us. Right before he took Max away I gave Max the biggest plate of Thanksgiving leftovers a dog has ever had.

I still have Max's ashes in a box that has a "good dog" sticker on it, along with his collar that held his scent for a good 2 years. My heart broke when I couldn't smell him anymore.
For quite a while after he died I would hear his collar jingling in the backyard through the bathroom window. Always in the morning. I just got used to saying "good morning, Max". After awhile the jingling stopped. I still miss that, even if it was in my mind. Or was it?
If Max had to go outside during the night or early morning he would put his head on the bed right by my face and just stare at me. One night I woke up to the feeling of pressure on the mattress and I swear to this day, I smelled his bad breath. Maybe it was a dream... maybe it wasn't.

Soon after we got Saki, I was playing with her and she jumped up on me and put a paw on each of my shoulders. I pushed her down right away... see, if I wanted a hug from Max I'd say "give me hugs" and he would jump up and put a paw on each shoulder. She kept trying to do that and I just kept saying, "No Maxie hugs! Only Max gives hugs like that.". Was it Max's way of telling me it was ok to love Saki? I don't know. Now there are Saki hugs, which is just her head on my shoulder. There are no Maxie hugs anymore... there was only one dog who is gonna give me hugs like that.
Maxwell was my once in a lifetime. I've had other dogs throughout my life but nobody has ever come close to meaning as much as Max did - and still does - mean to me. There is just not another Max out there. I have my Knuckles now, but even he won't make it into the spot in my heart that my Maxwell Knuckles has.

[chelle]

Oh, aww, yes maybe he very well may make it into your same heart-spot. I hope so.

Thanks for sharing all of that. He was your heart-dog, but you CAN have another. Sounds like you have one well in the making!

PS He's beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Geeheim]

Thank you for sharing. Sounds like you loved Maxwell Knuckles very much and it's still a very sensitive subject to discuss. He was truly a beautiful dog. =)

Never say never. Baby Knuckles may just surprise you and steal your heart. :-P

[Daisy&Lucky's Mom]

Beautiful story, Max sounds like he took good care of you and yours .Thanks.

[Kittilicious]

Originally Posted by Geeheim

Thank you for sharing. Sounds like you loved Maxwell Knuckles very much and it's still a very sensitive subject to discuss. He was truly a beautiful dog. =)

Never say never. Baby Knuckles may just surprise you and steal your heart. :-P

Oh I did! Why he got to me the way he did, like no other dog, never did make much sense to me. I actually wrote most of that story a few years ago, but revised it a bit for here. But reading it, the tears were streaming again. Dumb dog. I called him my 'first born' because I had him before I had my human babies. He was so good with the girls, too. He was laying on the kitchen floor one day and my daughter was in a bouncy seat on the counter and she slipped out and fell onto him. It was like slow motion... but if he hadn't been there it could have been bad. He laid there as still as could be until I grabbed the baby.
Then when my daughter was about 3 years old we had a rottie that the girls would "ride". I guess my daughter figured if she could sit on Duchess, why not Max? So she sat on him... well he wasn't built like Duchess so it hurt. Another slow motion moment... he laid down, yelped, turned his head and his teeth went right for her face. As quick as he went to bite he realized he couldn't and pulled back, but his canine tooth just scratched her cheek. He stayed laying there until Taryn crawled off (crying, but she was fine... not even any blood) and he laid his head down (I would tell him "head down" if he was naughty). I didn't punish him for that one - he knew what he almost did wrong.
There was a day in his life I wish I could have been there with him. One of the puppies he sired, Bruno, we kept (my Knuckles now looks so much like Bruno - the main reason we got him). When Bruno was about 8 months old... the day of our wedding... Max & him took off to wander (they did this often, we lived in a trailer park in the country, not your "typical" trailer park). They didn't come back. The next morning Max was on the front porch and had cuts on is belly so I took him to the vet. The vet figured it was barbed wire cuts. So I went home and told my husband (of one day) to go walk the fence outside of the park. There was Bruno, dead. We don't know exactly what happened, we think he was possibly killed by the bull of the neighboring farm (they were too far away from a road for it to be a car), but what happened after is a mystery. He was facing home. Did Max pull him out of the pasture and try to get him home? We don't know. But we assume Max stayed with him until after he died, which explains the length of time he was gone. Max was never gone for more than an hour or so, never a whole night. He had to have stayed with Bruno.

Sorry, I get talking about Max and I could talk for hours! LOL