Hello fellow dog lovers!

It’s officially starting to thaw here — and after 3 weeks of temps below freezing, I couldn’t be happier! I know I’m supposed to be a snow dog and love all the cold weather. But honestly, after about 2 minutes in our courtyard, I want to come back inside. I go out, do my business, maybe bark at someone passing by too slowly, and then go into the frantic “Let me in before I freeze” yelp. It’s a rough Newfie life.

As you may have heard by now, I have been having some problems with begging and food desires. And it’s not because I’m trying to be a bad dog. I’m just SO hungry all the time. I swear mom is trying to starve me. She hasn’t asked how much the neighbors were giving me while I stayed with them over Christmas — but let’s just say that I quickly ate through the food she left for me (although it should have lasted the two weeks they were gone plus a few days extra) and started on a new bag of food that arrived while my family was living it up in Florida.

Now don’t you start thinking that I got fat with all that food. I actually lost weight because I got to play with Mani, our neighbor’s Golden Retriever, all day long. And he’s even crazier than me.

But what I really wanted to talk about today is my need to steal food and counter surf. If you don’t know what counter surfing is, it’s a trait that bigger dogs are masters at. Basically, it’s when we put our nose on the dinner table and “surf” by, grabbing whatever food we can in milliseconds. Or we put our front paws up on the kitchen counters and grab the food that way. It’s really an art form that I perfected as a pup — and eventually gave up on because mom and dad apparently thought it was inappropriate. I was so good at it that I managed to steal a couple sets of steaks  from the counter in one evening — and also took the leftovers off their plates from the coffee table once, while they had their heads turned for about 2 seconds. Not only can I grab the food fast, but I can also swallow it with only a few chews. 😉

My counter surfing and food thievery has reached a new high lately, and it would seem that things are about to get noisy over here. I’ve seen mom watching stuff about counter surfing on YouTube and reading stuff online. Dog trainers say that the best way to eliminate counter surfing is to bait your dog by putting something yummy on the counter which has a string around it that is tied to some metal cans or anything that will make noise when it’s pulled off the counter.

Now obviously, if you have a dog that starts chowing down on the food before it puts its paws back on the ground, you’re going to have a problem that requires a vet visit (especially if they manage to swallow the string). But in most cases, dogs will just about give themselves a heart attack when they bring that delicious sandwich that they thought you left for them down to the ground. Seriously — humans can be so cruel.

At any rate, I really hope that mom doesn’t get any bright ideas. They have been trying to be extra careful about not leaving food within my reach — but they do tend to forget how quick I can be — and how desperate I am when I get hungry. In fact, I’d like to formally request bumping up my meals from just twice a day to three times — and none of this rationing it out over those three! I just want a whole extra portion added to my meal plan! Who’s with me??

Hope you’re having a great week and keep on surfing!