We got back from our morning walk a little while ago. The temperatures are still mild here and you really only need a sweater to keep of the chill in the morning. It’s a nice change from the extreme temps we had a few weeks ago but at the same time we’re a bit sad that the summer heat could be completely over now and won’t be returning until next year. I guess I was just hoping it would stick around a little longer but I guess that’s what living in Miami for a few years does to you lol.
The weekend here was good and it was a nice 3 day one since hubby had Friday off. I think it tends to be a bit harder to get back into the swing of things, even when the weekend is only one day longer but perhaps that is just because we sometimes overdo things around here lol.
Ayla learned a few new tricks this weekend. “Roll” is still quite beyond our grasp but the hubbers did manage to teach her “shake” & “give me five” and started to introduce a wave. What is the difference between all these you might be asking? Well for us, “shake” is done with the right paw, “give me five” with the left and “wave” is the right paw again but only her picking it up in a wave sort of fashion and not actually touching our hand with it. Needless to say this required tons of treats but both trainer and trainee seemed to enjoy it and since we stocked up on treats on Saturday all was well.
Speaking of treats, Ayla got to experience a new something that she apparently loves. I’ve read in the Newf-L list and Newf.net that people feed their Newfs sardines sometimes and they absolutely love them. Some even make the sardines a regular part of their diet. So we were at the pet store and I was looking for some new ammo to occupy her when she’s getting a bit crazy and I found some rawhide bones stuffed with salmon. Let’s just say, she apparently loves them and ate all of the salmon stuff out of the bone within the first half-day that she had the thing. She hasn’t eaten the rawhide shell yet but she still chews on it so I’m not giving up hope for it. There are also several other types of stuffed bones that apparently we will have to try as well. If it keeps her occupied and happy, that makes me happy too 😉
This morning is a rather quiet one so far. We took Ayla on a new route for her evening walk yesterday since there were a lot of people out when we went out with her last night. The new route resulted in a very long walk for her – about 45 minutes I guess when we were done and she normally has walks around 30 minutes. We could have shaved that done a bit but she seemed so wound up still after the first 30 that we decided to go for a longer version. So I guess that still had her a bit worn out this morning. I took her for another rather long walk this morning – around 35 minutes I guess. We had to make a slight detour at the beginning because once again there was a lot of doggy traffic out and if I can’t let her off the leash to run in the fields, the walk just isn’t that much fun for either of us.
Something I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet is blackberry bushes. Blackberries grow wild all around here and we’ve been eating at them for a few weeks now when we go out for our evening walks. A bit of an appetizer to dinner if you will. lol. I read somewhere that some people encourage their Newfs to harvest their own berries and I couldn’t resist seeing Ayla try this out. So whenever there are some low berries on the bush, I point them out to her and encourage her to nibble on them. It’s amazing that she can pick the berries right off the bush without damaging anything else and she tends to go for only the ripe ones. She absolutely loves blackberries and it’s too much fun to watch her. I encourage anyone with a Newf (and I would guess that some other dogs may be good at this also) to let them try their own berry picking skills, even if it’s only once.
One other thing I will mention now is Ayla’s craziness lately towards other dogs while we’re walking. Being that she wants to play with everything, she has two actions she may choose to take when we approach another dog on the path.
- Not even budge until that dog comes to her. Usually this involves her laying down when we’re still about 100 feet from her. A really tasty treat can usually persuade her but often also leads to action 2…
- Lunging at the other dog playfully and bouncing around like a little ball. Needless to say, this action has really freaked some people out. When a 50 pound Newf lunges at your little ball of fluff terrier, I can see the cause for concern. But most of them instantly recognize she’s still a puppy (thankfully) and just laugh about her. She likes to do this a bit with kids as well lately so we’ll be taking some action there to prevent that since she is just too big for that sort of nuttiness.
So, I guess that’s about it for our weekend. Ayla is up to 57 pounds now and going strong. Someone actually mistook her for Jule, the other small female Newf in our town. We found that quite amusing but hope that Ayla will surpass her in size quickly since Jule is only about 85 pounds and that’s not big enough for a Newf in our opinion lol.
Hope everyone has a good start into the week…
