Toto
Let me switch gears for a moment and tell you about Toto.
First, Toto is our oldest dog, in middle age at this time. She is also the soprano in our dog choir.
She too, was a rescued, humane society puppy, and is a Terrier mix of about 17 lbs.
She is very cheerful and very scatter brained.
Toto at home
When thinking about Toto, I’m can recall when Kuma was young, and I was starting to train him.
If anything could mess up a training session, it was Toto.
I let her participate in training at times, but eventually had to keep her away as she usually ended up trying to run around in random nuttiness.
The problem was, as a young dog. Kuma would want to follow her.
Later on when Kuma was grown, we used to let her run around with Kuma in what we thought was a safe situation.
Well it was safe enough for Kuma, but Toto ran off by herself and managed to get mauled by a pack of dogs.
She barely survived emergency surgery and a long convalescence. (I was her nurse!).
You’d think she would remember that it’s not always safe out there, but recently she ran off again, thankfully with no incident.
At times, she uses her soprano bark to sound the alarm and get the rest of the dogs noisily riled up.
Often we can perceive no reason for her original high pitched bark and call to arms.
When Kuma or Balto sound the alarm, more often there is evidence of some cause for it as they will run to that part of the fence closest to whatever alarmed them.
Often, Toto will stand on a high deck and encourage them at a distance with her soprano bark.
Toto sleeps on our bed. Toto, you have to love her.
Remy
And finally, our latest addition. (If you’re starting to see a pattern here, I plead guilty.)
Well my wife and daughter surprised me again!
This time with Remy, a giant breed young puppy.
She is a female, Landseer Newfoundland, and quite different from any breed we have had before.
When she was in her first puppy class at Petsmart, she wowed the class with how much pee a giant breed puppy can produce!
Remy was 100 lbs before she was a year old.
Remy at home
At this time she’s about 1 1/2 years old and I estimate around 120 lbs. It’s hard to tell exactly.
Oh and by the way, Remy howls bass in our choir, and I mean basso profundo.
She also makes a few other interesting noises, In other words, she is another “talker” like Balto.
We’ve read that her breed is not mature till age 3. She has been starting to act like a teenager at this time of writing..
Training Remy is a unique experience.
Her bodily structure is greatly different from Kuma and Balto. It is much more massive in general.
The result from a training standpoint is that her bodily movements are very much slower than the other dogs.
So slow that she so far cannot work with them directly. She cannot pull the scooter with them because her movements are so out of synch with theirs.
As a result she wears a harness and trots with or behind us but is not attached by any line or leash.
She has become pretty good at this in a relative sense.
By relative sense I mean for a breed that was not intended to have much trotting or running ability.
Most Newfies (Newfoundlands) probably run and trot very little, so she is probably doing better than most of her breed.
The Newfies were originally working dogs, trained to pull heavy fishing nets and carts or wagons. All slow work.
Remy may be able to pull a scooter by herself, but I have not had an opportunity to work on that. (Kuma and Balto can each do that.)
The issue is not strength or power, she has plenty, but of speed and endurance.
I suspect she may be a bit pigeon toed in her front feet. If so, it might make working at speed more difficult for her.
Newfie breeders are not likely to consider running ability in their breeding programs.
And for comparison purposes, Kuma and Balto are much faster than Remy, even when pulling me on the scooter.
It will be interesting to see where Remy’s training and abilities end up as she matures.
By the way, the Landseer Newfoundland was the original dog “Nana” in the Peter Pan book, play and Disney movie. If only I could get Remy some fairy dust from Tinkerbell! LOL!