What Now!?

Here it is the 7th of July. The 4th was 3 days ago. We decide to go ahead and take Sadie out front to work on some retrieving exercises for her water title and what happens? We hadn’t gotten off the front porch when the people 2 houses down from us start blowing up fireworks.

Of course this freaks Sadie out, as well as our Pyr, Ursa, who is in the house and now she doesn’t want to do anything but get back into the house. Wonderful, an evenings work out the door before we even get started.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good evening of blowing up fireworks as much as the next guy but on the 4th of July, not on the 7th. I get rather tired of that and now we have to deal with getting Ursa to come out from in the closet as well as hoping that tomorrow Sadie will have forgotten and want to go out front.

We thought we had avoided that whole scene this year as we decided to go out of town for the 4th of July weekend and had put the pups into a kennel we use all the time that is in city limits where fireworks can not be shot off. I guess we forgot about the other days around the 4th being a problem as well.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

This will be sort of neat as the last post was her first day just last week. So you can see the changes such as going to the boat this time and pulling it in, which she wouldn’t do last week.

This weekend Sadie started her Water Rescue training. It’s an informal group that is getting together every Saturday to work on training our Newfoundland dogs to get their Water Rescue titles.

Sadie did pretty well as one of the "beginners". There were clearly things that need to be worked on but overall, not too bad for a first time at this.

It seems a Newfoundland breeder in an attempt to make the breed look better to the casual internet cruiser and posted this on their website:

“One of the not-so-obvious advantages of owning a dry-mouth Newf is reduced smell and therefore, grooming costs (likely your largest expense with these dogs).”

“Our experience has shown that a typical, healthy Newfoundland dog, costs, on average, $100/month, or $1200/year in food, training, grooming and veteranarian bills. Being a large, long-haired canine, regular grooming is essential to the health and beauty of your pet. We live in a temperate climate with four distinct seasons and find that the dog will require its greatest grooming needs in the spring and autumn when things are wetter.”

“Newfoundland dogs tend to be quiet dogs that don’t have a reputation for chewing or digging”

Let me tell you and show you about that!

First, let me address the cost statement. If we take the Newfs to the groomer, who gives us a very good deal, it will cost us $140 to groom both of them. This is about half of what most groomers charge!

Second, Dry mouth. Let me tell you, if I could figure out a way to harness the drool that comes out of Fargo’s mouth and fuel my car, I would never have to buy gas again! Sadie on the other hand very rarely drools but she still does on occasion. We consider ourselves very fortunate that so far she hasn’t become a drooler but I suspect that as she continues to grow, that will not be the case.

Third, digging. While they may not naturally be diggers, it can be taught and our Pyr, Ursa, has done a fine job of that! Just see our past posts on our backyard.

And last but not least, quiet. All I can say is, hahahahahahaha! Here, I’ll let you be the judge…

Here are a couple of small video’s of the Newf’s doing a little swimming practice this weekend.

Sadie swimming and retrieveing her bumper

Fargo just swimming around