5 Things to Know About Great Pyrenees
1. Shedding (Or, alternatively, I Hope You Never Want to Own a Piece of Black Clothing Again)
Now, I know most dogs shed. I've had four other breeds of dogs prior to Luna and Argos, my Great Pyrenees. I used to think my Chihuahua shed a ridiculous amount, with her little dust bunnies of hair tufts that would gather in the corners of the house. We even had a Newfoundland mix, but he would generally shed his thick black and white hair only during the summer.
Here's the truth: I never knew shedding until we got Luna and Argos. They shed year round. They shed when it's hot outside and when there's snow on the ground. Sometimes they shed enough that you can pull out fist-sized clumps of fur with your bare hands. If you don't vacuum for a week, there aren't just hair balls in the corners—you've got a new carpet made of hair. They can't rub against you without a thick layer of white hair left along your pants. When you do laundry, you find hair balls interwoven in the fabric of your shirts and filling the dryer vent. You have to keep a lint roller in the car because you know you'll be covered again by the time you make it from the bathroom to the front door.
Oh, and did I mention that Pyr hair is long? So long that my brother once pulled a hair off himself and thought it was one of mine. If you're a girl (especially one with thick hair), imagine that all of the hair that you lose in the shower ends up on the floor of your house and multiply that by about 1,000. That's the kind of hair-pocalypse that I'm talking about.
2. Cuddling
In my experience, "lapdog" is the most misused designation given to dogs by by all the handbooks. My Chihuahua, Tinkerbell, was supposed to be a lapdog. For the first ten years of her life, she refused to be held, much less lay in my lap (old age has made her go soft, and she now never leaves my side). Luna and Argos are classified as working dogs, bred to guard livestock and live outside—as far from lapdog as they come.
When we picked up Luna and Argos, two big—big—wriggling puppies from a barn in Eastern Kentucky two years ago, the white fluff balls chose a person (Luna chose me, and Argos chose my brother) and immediately curled up in our respective laps and slept the whole ride home. As a new puppy to our household, Argos whined so much at night that I let him sleep in the bed, waking to find him cuddled against me, his head on my pillow. And these dogs never stopped being the biggest babies I've ever seen.
If you sit anywhere, Argos will immediately attempt to fit his entire 110 lb. body in your lap and Luna will lean against you until she falls to the floor, curled against your side, with a hmph. If you're in the room with the puppies, there's never a moment where they don't want your attention. Argos will physically shove his head under your hand, forcing you to pet him, and Luna will gently cradle your hand in her mouth and place it on whatever part of her she wants you to pet. And this is in addition to the infamous "Pyr paw." Argos' variation is whacking the full weight of his leg down on you after you've stopped petting him for a millisecond; Luna's is a punch to the gut that could probably hold up against a boxing champion.
Great Pyrenees are known to be incredibly loyal, loving dogs—the definition of gentle giants. Once they decide you're a part of the family (my boyfriend is ever-grateful that Luna has accepted him and doesn't hide in the corner anymore) and that you are their "person," they will guard you with an unwavering persistence—and yes, I do mean guard. Luna and Argos' favorite formation is Argos on top of me and Luna laying by the entrance to the room.
3. Barking
Are you a jumpy person? Do sounds loud enough to hurt your eardrums erupting right beside you at any given moment for seemingly no reason bother you? Then, I do not recommend having a Great Pyrenees. I love these puppies to death, but they are guardian dogs. When they were originally bred in France and Spain, they were meant to protect the sheep and goats from bears and wolves. They did this primarily by scaring the predators with their intimidating bark (and yes, judging by the faces of unfortunate souls who get greeted by this bark at doggie daycare, it is very intimidating).
Pyrs are also naturally nocturnal. Unless you have them on a very good sleep schedule, they will stay up barking all night long at things you can't hear or see, and it will drive you insane. Unfortunately, Pyrs, as with other dogs, are excellent listeners. We live right beside a busy highway and the interstate, which means we have lots of sirens going by our house nearly every day—the howling attests to it.
At the end of the day, all you can really do is thank your Pyrs for doing their job and protecting you from potential invaders. I, for one, like being able to tell whenever my mom and brother come home by the celebratory chorus of barking.
4. Awkward Forced Social Interactions
This is a situation I believe that most people with giant-breed dogs experience (in fact, I know my best friend experiences this phenomenon, along with #1 and #2, with her Great Dane). Basically, you can't take them anywhere without someone either talking to you about them or acting weird in reaction to them.
For example, last week I picked up Luna and Argos from doggie daycare, then needed to stop at a drive-thru to get some food for my mom and brother. I pulled up to the window and the teenager got through telling me the total before noticing Luna and Argos in the backseat. Then, his jaw dropped. He left and got a fellow employee, who approached the window, exclaiming, "There's two of them!" He then pretended to be afraid of them, opening the window only a sliver during the rest of the transaction.
As an introvert, even an introvert who never avoids petting a stranger's dog, it pains me to take Luna and Argos out in public because I know I'll be stopped and questioned: What kind of dogs are those? How do you keep them so white? How do you keep your house clean? Great Pyrenees. Funny enough, they have naturally dirt-repelling outer coats. We don't.
You can pet my dog, but please don't talk to me about it.
5. Obsession
I have been obsessed with a fairly long list of things in my 21 years of life: Doctor Who, YA-dystopia novels, trench coats, We The Kings, British youtubers, John Green, Harry Potter, every song Lin-Manuel Miranda writes, etc. However, I don't believe I've ever had an obsession as all-encompassing as I do with Luna and Argos. My boyfriend likes to joke that I love them more than I love him (I promise, I don't, babe—probably). I'm like a new mom who points at every single thing they do, from playing tug o' war for the first time, to Luna sticking out her tongue as she sleeps, and exclaims, "Look at how cute they're being!" I like to take photographic evidence of their cuteness and send it to my aforementioned boyfriend 100 percent of the time that I am in the same room as them.
If you look at my Instagram feed at any given time, four out of five pictures are bound to be from one of the numerous Pyr accounts I follow, and every time I spot a Pyrenees in a Buzzfeed Animals post or a random news story about a dog becoming mayor (that one is real), I screenshot it and send it to my boyfriend with the accompanying text: "Look! It's a Pyrenees!"
But you know what? My puppies do things like nudge open the door to my bedroom in the morning and lick my face before crawling up into bed and spooning me. There's nothing wrong with being obsessed with your dogs, especially when they're two fluffy, cuddly, giant polar bears.
Want to learn more about owning a Great Pyrenees? Go here to read the rest of my posts about this amazing breed!