No Dogs Allowed

[Newf Lover]

Hey Gypsy, how come there's no Paw Print for Sammy?  He looks like such a lovebug in your Avatar, so happy and just wants to lick and play!

[GYPSY JAZMINE]

I just haven't gotten around to Sam's Paw Print yet...I always mean to & then I get messing around here posting & before long there is some "emergency" or such from either kid or critter that needs attending to...I'll get one done when hubby is home this week!

[pndlake]

Hey Newf:  HaHa, if they just have a cape on, who bothers to read what it says, they just accept it, right?  We don't have any pet therapy here, where is it in Marin.  I would like to do it. Let me know, I am on my way.

" Respecting the laws of your community is your personal responsibility to the public."  quote Per white shepard dog.

Sorry, I have a real problem with laws that I don't have a chance to vote on that are crammed down my throat.

I went to France and I do not remember "dodging any poopies anywhere".  I did notice, however, in Paris that dogs were everywhere, in stores, streets and more. 

Did you know that almost 75% of the people in American that die from a heart attack get out of bed on the left-hand side and, therefore, we need a law stating that it is illegal to get out of your bed on the left-hand side. The government needs to protect us from our stupidy you know. 

Whatever happened to common sense? 

[Newf Lover]

We have lawyers now, common sense is not necessary.  Stupidity and ignorance are good excuses to get all the money you'll ever need through litigation.  Find the nearest curb and trip over it, if there's no sign saying you need to look out for the curb, sue the city and state and get everything you can dammit!  It's the American way, didn't you know?

As for pet therapy training in Marin, I'm not sure where it is.  Sarah was bringing Drake to UCSF and the Cancer Center on Divisadero.  It was great and people we so excited to see him, but a cranky Nurse Practitioner put an end to that.  "He's not Pet therapy trained and is a liability, you can't bring him in here!!!"  So Sarah peeled some crying Cancer kids off Drake and never brought him back (J/k it wasn't THAT dramatic).  But the time commitment to get him trained was just not going to work with our schedules.  Sarah was training for a triathlon and I was way too busy as well.  Maybe later we can do it.

[mastiffmommy]

I agree, I love when people come up to my dogs, I feel like a proud mama, and like newf Lover said, having a dog that is pure, also means to do some PR work for that breed, after all you have that specific breed because you love it, right.....

We always count on it taking longer to do whatever we do, when we bring the dogs, because of people coming up and asking questions, and it is a pleasure to educate a bit about the breed you love, or dogs in general.

I want to make Galahad a Therapy dog, just because I want to share him, his wonderful, goofy personality with people who could benefit from getting to know him.

And to compare it with "big" kids, not so logical I think. If there is a child who is 20 lbs overweight you just dont comment, it would be hurtful and just plain rude, but if there is a pretty girl and you say, ohhhh what a pretty daughter you have, I can bet you that no parent would take offence.

The poop issue, I can promise it is not only in the US, I am from europe, Sweden. Have lived 2 years in London, travelled through england, scotland, wales, italy,france, spain, greece, krete, germany, holland, norway, denmark, finland, I have been to africa and trust me, the same problems are everywhere, and some places way way worse than here. Always the same people complain about the poop that is not picked up and all dog owners even the ones who are responsible have to suffer the consiquenses. The US is by no means any worse.

Then to the events they hold on public roads, they block off the PUBLIC ROADS to have a"festival" or what not and tell us we cant bring our dogs, why? did the road all of a subben  become LESS PUBLIC?

Marit

[Newf Lover]

AMEN MARIT!!!  Did you notice the one protagonist on this topic has issued no rebuttle. It seems like they just wanted to invoke their opinion on us and then retreat.  It's too easy to be passive in these chat rooms.  I love constructive discussions and hearing varieties of opinions.  If people have an opinion, they should state it and then counter any arguments.  It's easy to get ganged up on in here, but dammit stand up for yourself!  Prove us wrong, show us a side of the story we haven't considered!!  Bring us into the light!!!

[newflvr]

Therapy Dogs International has a reasonable test and the Newfs all seem to pass it on their first go!  Cowboy had NO problems qualifing and so he has a collar tag that reads "THERAPY DOG" in big letters!  If questions me about why he is with me, I just point to his tag (VERY offical looking) and say that he has been certified to be "safe" enough for schools and hospitals.  It is usually enough.  The things that the dogs have to do (or not do) is on the Newf Club of America website, I think.

[pndlake]

Yes, bring us to the light.  Still no reply.  Oh well, maybe she got too close to a smoker and blew away.   

Thanks Newflvr, I am definitely going to search for more information on this therapy dog thing.   

[mastiffmommy]

Therapy Dogs International has a reasonable test and the Newfs all seem to pass it on their first go!  Cowboy had NO problems qualifing and so he has a collar tag that reads "THERAPY DOG" in big letters!  If questions me about why he is with me, I just point to his tag (VERY offical looking) and say that he has been certified to be "safe" enough for schools and hospitals.  It is usually enough.  The things that the dogs have to do (or not do) is on the Newf Club of America website, I think.

TDI is the group I have been thinking of joining. Galahad is still so young, so we have a lot of basic training, good canine cit. and lots more, but I cant wait to do the test with him and hopefully get him certefied. He has the most wonderful personality and does not care if people are all over him, loud or any wheelchairs or weed eaters lol.... we have from when we got him introduced him to lots and lots of things. Sometimes he does a "stand" and looks hard, if there is a new thing where it was nothing the day before. But he never hesitates to go check it out. I love him so much, and I hope he can be one of the dogs who get to make days a little less monoton for a lot of people.

Please tell me more about Cowboy, are you out with him a lot, when he wears the vest or collar do you get to bring him places where you usually wouldnt be able to. I saw a dog with a therapy vest on at the baseball game last week.

Marit

[mastiffmommy]

AMEN MARIT!!!  Did you notice the one protagonist on this topic has issued no rebuttle. It seems like they just wanted to invoke their opinion on us and then retreat.  It's too easy to be passive in these chat rooms.  I love constructive discussions and hearing varieties of opinions.  If people have an opinion, they should state it and then counter any arguments.  It's easy to get ganged up on in here, but dammit stand up for yourself!  Prove us wrong, show us a side of the story we haven't considered!!  Bring us into the light!!!

I agree newf. It is very easy to throw out a opinion here and then back off. God knows I dont always agree with people, but if there is something I believe in, I would hope I could at least stand up for my opinion and discuss it. And sometimes when I have been dead set on something, and I get into a discussion with someone, and they can argue for their sake, I can see their point and sometimes even points that I had not even been thinking about, and believe it or not lol...... I have been known to change certain things I had a very strong opinion about, if I realize that there were things I was ignorant to and didnt take into concideration.

I can give one example, not anything to do with dogs, well in a way. Here many people walk with shoes indoors. In most countries they dont, they take the shoes off. Anway, I have a friend who is super overly protective about germs and her baby. She lysol, and clorex and gosh knows how many times a day she wipes the babys toys. Okay I have had dogs and cats long before I had children, they have been super healthy, actually less sick than most kids and now you may think I sound sick, but I think it is because they get exposed to a certain amount of germs and build their system up. I spoke to this friend and she was like yuck oouhhhsaka ouch..... nasty, gross. And started to tell me all she does to protect her baby from germs. I said, well you walk in with shoes on every day, after having stepped in God knows what, both you and your husband walk around the house with them on, and the baby is on the floor where these shoes have been stepping, maybe with dog pee, poo or cat pee, other germs and nastyness, and for sure there is soil on them, soil is a nasty source to germs. She actually had never even thought about that, so after awhile she figured if the baby had made it for so long without getting sick from all that, it was probably okay to relax a bit with the rest too.

Like I said not real dog related, but shows how sometimes information can make you change the opinion you so dearly stuck to before.

Marit

[pndlake]

Yes, and I searched under Therapy Dogs International, nothing.  Tried the Newf site too, no help.  I am a terrible surfer so I need more hints.  Thanks.  Niki's training is so extensive that I am sure she could work with the program. 

Thanks

[mastiffmommy]

pndlake, here is the link to TDI

http://www.tdi-dog.org/

Marit

[luvmenewfs]

To be fair now, it takes all different folks to make the world go around.

But in all honesty, (my humble opinion here)  any dog purebred or not, needs proper socialization if you are planning on going in public.  If you want a dog who is not particularily friendly to strangers, then it's best to avoid situations where strangers will be prominant in the environment.
You can't complain about a situation that could have been avoided.  We need to take responsibility for our actions.

Our Newfies LOVE socialization.  Our rescued guy has to be watched closely.  He's very immature for his age.  Long story. 

Anyway...our dogs both of them, love birds.  And I don't mean love in the cuddly sense!  LOL.  So when we are downtown we walk them one at a time because I swear, you won't see a dang pigeon for weeks or months until we show up with both newfs.  Then I swear the pigeon convention begins.  ONE time we had both newfs together.  I swear every pigeon in this town dropped out of the sky from nowhere in front of us.  THen they proceeded to squak, jump, play leap frog, puff out chests, and run.  We both had grass stains, skinned knees, frazzled nerves, people pointing, cars honking, bird lovers screaming on and on.   I didn't know Newfs herded until the first pigeon convention we interupted. 

Anyway,  Did we demand the pigeons disperse and stop rioting? Did we gather petitions for the removal of pigeons? 

 No, we blamed ourselves for not being prepared and knowing that we have limitations, taking one well trained Newf with herding instincts along with a somewhat unruly Newf who has a high instinct drive to a bird convention.  That was our fault!  Dogs will feed off each others emotions.

So, from now on...Big guy will go to busy places with us.  Even with birds if he is alone, the command "Leave it" doesn't fall on deaf ears.  For together walks, we stay OUT of downtown!!!

I guess what I am saying is we all have limitations with our doggies.  But making others abide to our limitations is not right.  They are our limitations not theirs.

So many laws are made because doggy parents do not take responsibility .  So others are made to suffer because of it.  I've never understood why a person will insist on taking a human shy dog into a public place with lots of humans and then gripe over what happens.

We just need to be responsible. Even when we make mistakes.

Luvmenewfs.

[Newf Lover]

Regardless of what floors you have, it's always a good idea to take your shoes off.  If you have carpet, it will get stained if you don't take off your shoes.  We got sick of cleaning the carpet so we got hardwood floors.  We are more militant about taking shoes off now than before.  I have heard horror stories of high heels and gravel in shoe tread that destroyed expensive hardwood floors.  The Japanese and Hawaiians and other cultures are smart with the tradition of taking off shoes.  God knows what you have stepped in when you're walking out in the world.  We follow suit and actually have slippers for people to wear if they don't want to walk around in socks.  When we have parties, we can't expect everyone to take off their shoes, or at least remember too after a few drinks, so we just politely tell people to just check their shoes when coming inside and hope for the best.  Have any of you ever been to a party where you have to throw your shoes in a gigantic pile with everyone else?  It's kinda silly.  It's embarrassing but when you invest a serious chunk of change in your flooring, you can't help but be a bit anxious.  Drake does enough damage with his monster nails.

[GR8DAME]

I told a freind of my MOM's that was bragging that you could eat off of her floors, they were so clean that hey: you could probably eat off of my floors too. If not for the four legged Hoovers, you could find a whole meal down there!
Stella