I didn’t know Roxy. Not really. Not well. Yet as I walked past, she stood up against the window and smiled. Her tongue was pressed against the glass, leaving a silvery wet residue upon it, while her paws rested upon the sill. How could I refuse such an invitation? I slipped through the door, knelt down by her and she rolled her large head into my lap. She contorted her body until she was half unfurled; so that she was not quite standing, but not quite lying down, while I scratched her ears. There was something oddly feline about her movements, something unmistakably cat-like in her affections, the only thing missing was the purr. If this, I thought, is her reaction to an almost-stranger, how might she greet a friend? 

There’s a breed-typical self-assuredness to Roxy, to her stance, to her walk, to her smile. It’s as if she knows that love is not something worked at but simply waited for; as if she knows that, for as long as she is herself, then affection and adoration will follow, as surely as spring showers beget bright blossoms. She smiles as if she might draw the whole world into her orbit – and so she might. Strangers? Friends? What’s the difference?

If her confidence is classically Rottweiler-y, then her unashamed daftness can be seen as typical of her Labrador heritage. Likewise, if the Labrador gives her her love of food, the Rottweiler gives her the desire to claim it as her own; if the Rottweiler gives her attentiveness and devotion, the Labrador softens the edges. She is a clear mix of the two, straight down the middle (even if her appearance is rather more Rotti-weighted). 

Roxy has a wonderful temperament and is unyielding in her loveliness and sociability. She walks nicely on lead and has a few basic commands too – Sit, Paw – even if she isn’t necessarily the most sociable with other dogs. There is an awful lot to love about Roxy, all it takes is a single glance through the window of a door and you are smitten. The passage from almost-stranger to lifelong friend is, it turns out, a remarkably short one. 

Written by Richard Grainger | Animal Care Assistant