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I went to the local pet super store innocently enough on Saturday.  I’d dropped Sasquatch’s bowl and broken the edge off, so I was getting a new bowl for him.  It seemed a simply enough task, except for the rescue group being there, and that almost impossible to resist (at least for me) lure of dogs in need of homes.  I always feel compelled to walk over and check them out, but having lost two of our four dogs just last year has made the urge almost undeniable. Saturday was no different, no matter how good my intentions.  I was just going to get the new dog bowl and go right back out, sure I was; not. 

I actually prefer to look at the older dogs.  Puppies are cute, but the whole housebreaking is so time consuming, and the socialization and teaching them the household rules.  Older animals learn faster and settle in quicker.  I know this, it’s true and logical, but there is nothing logical about a pen full of puppies.  No, I think puppies are one of the most illogical things in the world.  They’re cute, fuzzy, fun to play with, fun to hold, and an all round cure for so many emotional ills; like being two dogs shy of your back for instance.  Against my better judgment I peered into the puppy pen, and found a rather large curled up ball of black and white fluff.  It really looked too big to be in the puppy pen, so much bigger than any of the other bouncing tiny bits of temptation.  Once I saw all that hair and the white with black markings I had an idea, but I just couldn’t imagine one of those being in a no-breed rescue.  So, I started cautious, and asked the volunteer, "How old is it?" "Eight weeks," was the reply.  I knew what it was, what it almost had to be, at least half of it, but I asked.  The answer, "Newfoundland and Great Pyrenees."  I’d known the Newfoundland part.  It was an eight week old Landseer (black and white) Newfie.  It looked every bit a Newfie except the eyes weren’t quite the right shape, the muzzle was a little too pointed, and the head shape just not quite that lovely blockiness of a Newfoundland.  It’s dark eyes held that confused newborn look to them.  Babies of all kind have that look when they’re little.  The look that seems to say, "Where am I and what the heck is happening?"  Yes, by that time I was holding the puppy.  It filled my arms from one side to the other and could look over my shoulder.  It was longer, taller, and heavier than our full grown pug, Sasquatch.  Eight weeks and it was bigger than Sasquatch.  Eep.  It was very fluffy, but it was trembling and the nice lady volunteer noticed.  We commented on it, and she said it had just had a bath, but putting fingers down through all that fur found that it was wet next to the skin, and the puppy was cold.  The volunteer got a towel and she and I dried him, but the problem was down deep in the fur and that’s harder with towels.  I wasn’t really impressed with whoever did the bath, the puppy was very wet once you felt past the first layer of fluff.  You can get a puppy sick leaving it that wet on a cold day.  But then I haven’t been impressed with this grooming area for a while.  I wouldn’t trust my dogs to them and I told the volunteer that.  They have some good people for grooming, but I’ve seen some real stinkers, too.  The volunteer got a blanket and I held the puppy sharing my warmth with what I thought was her, but come to find out the puppy was a boy.  Now all Newfies are big dogs, but the males are bigger.  Add that to Great Pyrenees where the males are both bigger and more dog aggressive than the females, and you have yourself a very big, potential problem.  Height range on Newfoundlands are 26-28 inches at the shoulders with a weight of 110-150 pounds.  Great Pyrenees are 25-32 inches at the shoulder and 90-125 pounds.  That is a lot of dog.

With a dog that large you must, absolutely must, do puppy class and follow with several classes of obedience work.  You must gain control of the dog while it’s littler than you are, because once you have 100 to 150 pounds of dog on the end of a leash it doesn’t really have to do anything you want it to do.  Now Newfies with work are good obedience dogs.  They aren’t flashy, and they don’t turn on a dime, but they like to work with you, and they want to cooperate.  Great Pyrenees on the other hand are more independently minded.  If you don’t prove you are dominant to a these big dogs, they don’t see much reason to pay attention to you.  The books recommend schooling for the breed for the first three years of it’s life and professional assistance is mandatory.  When you think about the fact that a Great Pyrenees original job is to be left with a flock in the middle of nowhere and defend it from all comers until the shepherd comes back, perhaps months later, you would need a powerful dog that could frighten off, or fight off, predators, and any human that didn’t own the flock.  It makes for a powerful, intelligent, independent thinking kind of dog.  On the other hand Newfoundlands are recommended for novice owners, the only two drawbacks in most of the books being huge size, which makes them powerful, and drooling.  Now some Newfs drool a little, and some drool a lot, but I am told that all Newfies drool some.  Some to the point where the breeders will talk about drool dried on the ceiling every day.  Every day.  Hmm.  I have to say the puppy in question was not a drooler, the difference in muzzle most likely, or maybe too young.  This was the youngest Newfie anything that I’d ever held, but I have had other slightly older Newfie’s drench me to my elbows.  My priest in California had a puppy named Shadrack, that was a real blouse ruiner.  Silk worn around him was forever gone.  But then if I liked the silk better than the puppy I wouldn’t have pet him.

If I could have been more certain how much male dominance and certain other Pyrenees personality traits the puppy would grow into, or if it had been all Newfoundland, well . . . Yes, yes, I confess it, we almost got a puppy this weekend.  We’ll be doing a lot of traveling this year both for business and for pleasure.  You can’t do a puppy that will need this kind of attention if you aren’t going to be home.  There were so many logical reasons not to get the puppy, but as I said, puppies are not about logic.  Sunday morning found Jon and I lingering in bed, in that nice cozy, weekend alone kind of way.  I didn’t get up to let the dogs out until almost ten.  I actually said, out loud to Jon before I got out of bed, "We couldn’t have done this if we had an eight week old puppy downstairs."  He agreed.  Then I bundled up, and got the dogs out.  Pippin goes on a leash, because I’m not willing to risk his life on the solidity of his come. He nearly jerked me off the steps, because I made the mistake of getting distracted just as this squirrel, well you know.  Pip weighs between 55-60 pounds tops.  And it was as if, he knew what I was contemplating, because he did everything he could to remind me how big and powerful a dog he really is, something he doesn’t do often.  He’s a good dog, but Sunday morning he reminded me he didn’t have to be.  Maybe it was Goddess’s way of throwing a little reality on my puppy moment.  If a sixty pound dog could pull me around like that, what would a hundred pound dog do?  I’ve often thought that Pip is my exclamation point on my dogs, my reminder that maybe this is enough, and bigger is not always better.  I also like the freedom of Pip and Sas staying at the puppy hotel, or with a pet sitter, so we can travel more.  I like the idea of not getting up during the night and walking a puppy out into the cold dark.  I like sleeping in on the weekends.  I don’t want to have to go back to cleaning up messes while the pup learns, and the bigger the puppy the bigger the mess.  Also, Newfies love water, and I look at my water garden with it’s water lilies and fish and other careful landscaping and I picture a dog bigger than I am wading through it.  No, I don’t think so, but I admit that I had planned to go back Sunday and look at the puppy and I did not, because I did not trust myself.  Puppies, especially big fluffy Landseer puppies are not about logic, they’re about how they feel in your arms.