Mighty Zeus

My family was looking for a watchdog back in 1968. We went to the Bide - A - Wee in Wantagh, Long Island, NY since we adopted our first dog, Duchess, there a year earlier, and we were very happy with the results.

We were looking for a strong, assertive, dog that could be Duchess' companion, work with her and like her too, as well as guard our home. We found what we needed in this dog we named after the king of the Greek Gods, Zeus.

The story was that my father had eyeballed a number of pens that the dogs were in and he was trying to figure out which dog he wanted. All of a sudden, Zeus, jumped on top of his two siblings, knocked them aside (without hurting them) and finally my father realized he found his boy.

Originally, I wanted to name him Hercules, but my father wanted a short, snappy name if he needed to give a quick order to the dog. So we gave him an even more exalted name and a promotion from the Prince of the Greek gods to the King of that pantheon.

Zeus was not the biggest German shepherd, he weighed about 80 pounds but he was low to the ground and built like a tank. He had a very big chest that used to jut out like a professional bodybuilder's. I used to get a kick out of play wrestling with him.

My father employed an obedience trainer to make sure that Zeus would be a good, useful, dog. He also was a very loving member of our family. He took to his training very well.

We lived in a house on the corner of the street, surrounded by three houses all of which were robbed. We, on the other hand, were never targeted largely due to Zeus' presence in the house and also due to the fact that I was a competitive weightlifter who could bench press 400 pounds. Between Duchess, Zeus and me, burglars just decided to bother a less troublesome house to rob.

One day, our next-door neighbor complained to my Dad that his house was robbed and our dog Zeus didn't do anything about it. My father informed the neighbor that "Our dog gets paid to watch our house, not yours."