Keren Rosenthal knew bringing home the dog she had dreamed about since childhood would require some changes.
She just did not expect them to include moving to a larger home and buying a different car.
The reason is Paddington, her one-year-old Irish Wolfhound, a giant dog who has become almost impossible to take anywhere unnoticed.
“People constantly say to me, ‘What is that, a horse or a dog?’” Rosenthal told ynet. “Everyone thinks they’re the most creative person in the world. They also tell me he’s bigger than I am.”
Irish Wolfhounds are among the world’s tallest dog breeds and were originally bred to hunt wolves. According to Rosenthal, only six currently live in Israel.
For her, owning one had been a dream for years.
“It was a childhood dream after I read a book about the breed and fell in love,” she said.
Paddington resting at home
(Photo: Keren Rosenthal)
Rosenthal has long been involved with dogs, adopting and fostering them and volunteering at a kennel. After her previous dog, Humi, died, she began looking for another dog but could not find the connection she wanted.
“I kept thinking about what kind of dog would have the same personality as Humi, and the Irish Wolfhound kept coming to mind,” she said. “It had been my childhood dream, so I started looking.”
That search eventually took her overseas because there are no active Irish Wolfhound breeders in Israel.
“There’s no active breeding in Israel, so you have to bring one from overseas,” Rosenthal said. “I contacted several breeders and they weren’t willing to send me a puppy because I live in Israel. Maybe it was antisemitism, I don’t know. Then I found him, and a breeder in Slovakia was willing to send him to me.”
Paddington arrived in Israel about six months ago.
By then, Rosenthal had already reorganized her life around the enormous puppy she knew was coming.
(Photo: Keren Rosenthal)
“My previous dog weighed 30 kilograms, and I lived in a 15-square-meter room,” she said. “I moved specifically for him and bought a car specifically for him.”
And Paddington is not finished growing.
At just a year old, Rosenthal says he is expected to get significantly bigger.
His personality, however, is far less intimidating than his size.
“He is so calm and friendly. Everyone who meets him falls in love,” she said. “He has zero awareness of his size, and he’s always sitting or lying on top of me.”
Sometimes that lack of awareness becomes a little more physical.
“The other day he just ran me over outside and knocked me down,” she said.
Paddington has also become a hit on Rosenthal’s social media accounts.
“Everyone gets excited about him, and every picture gets hundreds of likes, even thousands,” she said.
But life with an Irish Wolfhound also comes with a difficult reality: the giant breed has a relatively short life expectancy.
“The life expectancy is very short,” Rosenthal said. “I started studying complementary medicine for animals because there’s a major emphasis there on maintaining a dog’s health over time.”
She also spends heavily on his diet.
“I give him natural food, and it’s very, very expensive for a dog this size,” she said. “But I don’t care about the money. I buy natural food, I cook for him.”
For Rosenthal, all the changes were worth it.
“He is my whole life,” she said.