Derek Jeter Refers to Hannah Davis as "My Fiancée" for the First Time, Talks Puppy Love

Was a 100-plus pound Bull Mastiff what got MLB great to say goodbye to his bachelor days?

What was it that made Derek Jeter, once the ultimate bachelor, decide it was finally time to settle down? fiancée Hannah Davis, but a 100-plus pound Italian Mastiff named Kane might've been what prompted him to propose! In an interview with The Players' Tribune, Jeter acknowledges his engagement publicly for the first time as he gushes over Kane.

The adorable (albeit enormous) pup "was a Christmas gift last year from my fiancée," Jeter writes. (If you were reading too quickly or staring too deeply into Kane's big blue eyes, you might've missed it: The retired Yankees Legend just casually confirmed his engagement to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model—"my fiancée.")

Back to the pup, though—this was completely uncharted territory for Jeter. Although Davis' "family had Mastiffs growing up," Jeter had "never owned a pet in my life."

Kane picked up on Jeter's uneasiness around animals. "He was right to be suspicious," writes Jeter. "I've been scared of dogs almost my entire life."

Um, what? Apparently Cujo, a 1983 horror movie about a killer dog, is largely to blame. "I watched it when I was young and, man, it terrified me," Jeter writes for The Players' Tribune. "After that movie, I was not messing with dogs at all. Big dogs, medium dogs, little dogs—it didn't matter. I saw them all as threats."

Jeter "just wasn't comfortable around animals," he writes. His family didn't have pets and neither did his friends, and his busy MLB schedule kept him "on the road too often for the idea of owning a dog ever to be realistic."

I'm the best gift giver haha! #italianmastiff #gonnabeHUGE #KANE

A photo posted by Hannah Davis (@hanni_davis) on Jan 9, 2015 at 2:55pm PST

So up until Davis gave him a dog of his own, the fear remained. "When I first got Kane, I panicked a little," writes Jeter. "I'm lying. Actually, I panicked a lot."

But after what the athlete describes as "some epic standoffs at the beginning," Jeter and Kane found their groove. "Over the last year, the more we get used to each other, the calmer we've both become," he writes.

Jeter admits that "being a 'dog owner' is still new to me,'" but he's embraced his role as a puppy parent. "A little challenge is probably good," he writes. "I guess it's possible to learn new tricks."

It's also totally possible to become a dog person, and it's never too late for a perma-bachelor to say "I do."

Read Jeter's complete essay at The Players' Tribune.

On another note, Jeter's fiancée defends her sexy S.I. cover in the video below.