Wow, I can’t believe another week has almost come and gone and I haven’t blogged a thing! I have been busy but I can’t say for sure with what…so I will just get to the searches. I usually do these on Thursdays but we’ll be going out of town so you get this a day early! 🙂

1. newfie lifting paw
   Ayla does this from time to time but it’s often just her faking an injury. If we go on a walk and she gets tired, she will limp a little bit but then forget about the “problem” 30 seconds later and take off running.Other times she actually has had something stuck in her paw. Generally something gets stuck under the webbing of her foot, between her toes. If this happens, she also will make frequent stops and chew at her paw in an attempt to get the stick, thorn, etc. out. When we see this we just tell her to “wait” and then assist her in getting the irritant out of her paw.
2. newfie a lot of work
   You can say that again! Having any type of dog can be a lot of work, especially a giant breed. Thankfully I work from home so I am able to give her the attention she needs and deserves during the day.The first time we see Ayla these days is at about 6:30 am. She has been sleeping outside so our first interaction with her is when Stefan is getting ready to leave the house. She greats both of us very eagerly after not seeing us all night :)When he’s gone I usually give her breakfast and then we take a walk for about 30 minutes. We go at about 7 am because it’s still usually very cool then and I don’t have to bring along a frozen water bottle for her.

   When we return home Ayla usually wants to have a drink of water and then play in the courtyard a bit. We play some fetch and I make sure she drinks some water at some point…and then I refill her water bowls since she will only drink from each bowl once. Of course they exchange slobber to water at about a one-to-one ratio in the bowl so I wouldn’t really want to drink from the same bowl again either.

   Between 8 am and noon, Ayla is usually pretty active. I usually play with her again at around 10 am and she will entertain herself a bit the rest of the time.

   From noon until about 4:30 or 5 pm, Ayla takes a nap. She does this nearly every day, possibly waking up for a little while if the doorbell rings or she hears something interesting…but generally she is out for the count.

   After nap-time she’s usually pretty wired and plays outside for a while. If I’m not in the middle of a work project I will play with her until Stefan gets home at about 6:30. Then she has dinner and we go for another 30 minute walk at about 7 pm.

   After the walk a bit more playing is usually required and she eventually settles down at around 8, napping or just laying in the courtyard. Between then and when we go to bed at 10:30 pm she is usually pretty quiet and entertains herself.

   This is just a daily routine with Ayla. There is also clean-up involved of hair (normally vacuuming weekly will keep things in order although when she’s blowing coat I could easily vacuum daily), water (water dripping off of her, slobber dripping from her, water from melted ice cubes, water when it rains), dirt (especially after she’s gone for a swim and comes inside to dry off – it’s like a sand pit inside when she’s dried) and anything she may have destroyed when you weren’t looking.

   And she generally should be brushed daily although you can get away with doing it less often but I wouldn’t really recommend waiting more than a day or two between brushings. It just becomes so much more intensive. And of course when she is blowing coat twice a year you will go insane if you’re not brushing every day.

   Then there are vet visits, buying pet supplies, preparing meals and snacks, training classes, visiting her fur-family (that’s just for fun of course), dog shows (if you’re into that) and extracurricular activities (carting, water work, agility, rescue training). Oh, and of course the moment when you get stopped by someone to talk about the dog…but those are generally fun 🙂

   I think that more or less encompasses everything that you may encounter which will take time from your day if you have a Newf…or most other dogs. I think it must be very similar to having children in many ways…but the child grows up and can take care of itself one day (usually) – the Newf will depend on you forever (although she may never admit that to you lol).

3. newf behavior
   General Newf behavior for Ayla is often borderline crazy. She may be totally normal one moment and loving…and the next she’s trying to gnaw your hand off and in full F.R.A.P. mode. Ayla is 1 year and 4 months old now and her behavior has drastically changed since she was a puppy. She is the smallest in her litter and has always had the most energy which has definitely not changed.When they are less than 6 months old, Newfs are often complete terrors. From what we hear, Landseers are even worse. Ayla constantly challenged us for authority, nipped at us all the time and was not always a pleasure to be around. We were very thankful for the moments she was sleeping (which is thankfully a lot of the time) because those were the only times when she was truly good. The first few days after we picked her up (at 8 weeks old) I actually cried because I was home alone with her all day and it was not fun. She was definitely a terror .Between 6 months and 1 year, there is more challenging behavior but at least Ayla was at a point where we could really start teaching her fun tricks (not just tricks for your own survival and sanity) and she was a very quick learner. They are definitely a sponge at this age and you don’t want them to get stuck with any bad habits. They sleep a lot less in this age range also so you have to be on your toes making sure they aren’t getting into trouble. We had Ayla restricted to certain areas of the house so we could always keep an eye on her and were not afraid to use time outs when she got out of hand.

   We are now in the 1 to 1 1/2 year range and Ayla had definitely started getting calmer already. When she is really acting meanly to us now (barking at us for no reason, gnawing on us, sitting on the couch but crawling over us at the same time, jumping up on us), it usually means that there is a problem and we need to check things out around the farm. Sometimes I think she is very intuitive emotionally and other times I think she doesn’t get it at all. If I’m in pain she often ends up hurting me even more but it’s usually not intentionally (I think lol).

   Our breeders told us that when the mother of Ayla turned two, she immediately became calmer, more laid back and assumed the typical Gentle Giant characteristics that we all hear about. At the moment, Ayla gets so excited around kids and new people (especially those that come to visit us at home) that she can hardly contain herself. She also seems to think that she needs to entertain our house guests because she will barely lay down the entire time someone is over. But she does seem to know when it’s really important that she behaves and we are very thankful for that. I restaurants, for example, she will usually lay down as soon as we get there and we barely here a sound out of her. But that also might have something to do with the filled rawhide bone she usually has in her mouth 🙂

4. homesick newfs
   I imagine this search was started by someone from Newfoundland who is looking for expats like him/herself who are living away from home and missing life there. But I will tell the tales of our own Newf being homesick…or rather not missing us at all.Ayla has spent a few nights away from us, once staying with her fur-mommy and fur-sister at her breeder’s house…and once
   with our former neighbor. Both times when we went to pick Ayla up, we had been missing her but we weren’t sure she really missed us. In fact, when we brought her home from the neighbor’s house, she didn’t want to go across the street with us. They apparently treated her much too well there!Otherwise when we are traveling with Ayla, she doesn’t get homesick but she does become exhausted and is usually very thankful to be home. When we are camping or otherwise traveling, Ayla keeps guard over everything all night while we sleep. She will nap a bit when we drive somewhere or when we are awake but she usually will spend a full day catching up on sleep when we return from our vacations. 🙂
5. newf fur
   Yes, they have lots of it. I wish I could figure out something to do with it but I have yet to find a solution. Actually I visited google just now and found that there IS something you can do with your dog fur – spin it into thread and make sweaters, socks, vests and other stuff from it! Wow, call me shocked. There are actually websites about the process of handspinning your own dogs fur into thread. The new name for dog hair is Chiengora (pronounced she-an-gora). Chien is French for dog and gora is from angora, the fiber the hair most closely resembles. Dog hair is now considered a luxury fiber along with mohair, cashmere (goat hair) and angora (Rabbit hair). I’m thinking doing this with cat fur would also be deliciously soft.I believe there used to be an organization that was collecting Newf fur and spinning it into thread. There were making products were made from it and then donating the proceeds from the sale of these products to Newf rescue organizations. But last time I checked they were no longer doing this.I also have heard that many people leave their dog fur outside in their garden or tuck it into the trees in their yards for the birds to use in their nests.