I  put a photo of Hot Rod and Ed the Dog so you get some perspective on how big Hot Rod is.  Ed is a 50 pound boxer.  Hot Rod has a head the size of a playground ball.  He is an Argentinian Mastiff and looks very scary.  He is a gentle giant.  Jeff adopted him for the shelter in Santa Barbara where he worked after getting to know him for some months.  He is rarely aggressive.  I can’t say never (and Jeff is aware of that, Mom, and keeps him muzzled when he takes him for a walk…) because:

His first encounter with Twister the Cat last year was not a peaceful one.  She, as usual, gave a hiss and a nasty cat swipe at his face when he came up to say hello and forever after when he got a whiff or her or a glimpse of her all hell would break loose.  He didn’t just look scary and there’s no question he would have killed her or maimed her had he gotten his paws on her.  When Jeff came back last summer we decided to find a temporary home for Twister.  Of course, Terri agreed and by the end of the summer she was referring to her place as Terri’s Summer Camp for Twister.  Jeff went off to KU at the end of the summer and took Hot Rod with him.  Hot Rod has a little female beagle roommate who doesn’t scratch him in the face but lets him know who’s boss.

Last Monday night (and we’ll just touch on this lightly) Kansas lost to Kentucky in the NCAA National Championship game. As you can imagine the whole campus, after drowning their ecstasy two nights earlier when they beat Ohio State to be in the showdown, now drowned their sorrows at the loss.  Most of the campus was passed out somewhere, except the guys who walked in the unlocked back door of Jeff’s house and stole their TV.  I know you are all dying to know right now – are they still alive?  Did they escape with just barely their lives as well as the TV?

Both Hot Rod AND Sylvia, who howls like a beagle at anything that moves, DID NOTHING.  Fortunately they only wanted the TV (I still wonder if it wasn’t someone they knew, it’s awfully suspicious that it’s so random) and left the bikes, the computers, the phones etc.  Not they couldn’t have made numerous trips out to a waiting van with everything else, as far as Hot Rod was concerned.