A Leonberger shares my life,
A dog that’s strong and true.
Affectionate and gentle,
Yet bold and fearless too.
A wonderful companion,
The very best you’ll find,
With a heart of purest gold,
This mountain dog of mine.
A friend that I can count on,
In which I can confide-
I can’t imagine life without
My “Leo” by my side.
- Anonymous

I’m lucky… I have three Leonbergers to share my life… and life would not be the same without any of them.

A while back, I did a post about the similarities between Dakota, Kisa and Larkin. Today, we discovered another one. From the time Kisa was a few months old, she loved the butt rub — me straddled over her back facing her rear, fingers massaging all that fur on either side of her tail. Dakota has now taken to presenting me with his hind quarters to take advantage of that same luxury. We’re talking about a six month old puppy standing perfectly still for 20 minutes, head nodding, eyes drooping.

If he would only be that still when being brushed or having his nails clipped.

One of the fun things about getting a new puppy is wondering how different (or similar) he’ll be from your previous pets — because when those similarities or differences start to manifest themselves, we’re most often confronted with fond memories of what it was like when our aging four-leggers were as young as Dakota is now.

Thus far:

• Like Larkin, Dakota can hold it forever but would easily win the prize for the world’s longest pee.
• Like Kisa, Dakota doesn’t bat an eye-lash when he gets a taste of hot, spicy food… I’m talking cuisine that would make half the average population approach with caution. Like Kisa, Dakota is sort of in that “hmm-umm” category, trying to figure out how to get another taste”.
• Like Larkin, Dakota just wants to be next to you and lick you to death.
• Like Kisa, Dakota can’t resist anything made of paper… including the mail and newspapers. His love of toilet paper is unique to him alone.
• Like Larkin, Dakota can’t resist the urge to jump on you when you come into the room (but we’re working on that).
• Like Kisa, Dakota can’t resist an opportunity to hump Larkin. Yeah, I know… Kisa’s a female. And your point is?
• Like Larkin, Dakota can’t resist putting his tongue in Kisa’s ear.
• Like Kisa, Dakota eats so fast he can’t possible taste his food.
• Like Larkin, Dakota likes napping with his back against the front door — especially when it’s really cold and windy. Leonbergers make great draft snakes.
• Like Kisa, Dakota is humanly vocal. Larkin simply barks, albeit rare. Kisa and Dakota converse. They both have a variety of sounds that are much like human conversations, complete with varying inflections and volume.

February 20th is Love Your Pet Day! Lucky for me, I have 295 pounds to love.

Life has been a little dull lately. Dad’s been commuting to Boston a lot lately, so he’s leaving the house before 0700 and not getting home until well after 1900. Mom only has to go to the office once a week, but her job has been a really crazy, so she’s on the phone or Skype almost all day.

With both of them so busy, I’ve had to find things to keep myself occupied during the day. I have lots of toys, but a puppy needs new, interesting objects to keep him entertained.

Today, I had a real treat. Mom forgot to put the toilet paper on the high shelf in the bathroom again. And lucky for me, it was a full roll so I was busy shredding for at least a couple of hours.

Look, Mom... textile arts!

Shredding toilet paper is very hard work.