“Hi Karen,
We thought you might like to see what Luna's been up to lately... Yes, she
actually fell asleep in her food bowl!!!! Geoff”
_______________
“The tow truck showed up at about 12:35am, a big diesel thing which
I’m sure the neighborhood appreciated. I thought I was able to get out
of the bedroom without Luna hearing me leave and
waking up. I guess she heard me coughing outside and began to howl…
Here’s where it gets interesting. She could hear me outside with the tow
truck driver {coughing}, she knows she wants out and no matter how much my
wife tries to console her, she heads to our bedroom door and stands on her
hind legs and tries to OPEN the door!!! We have these levers or handles on
all our doors instead of knobs… It makes opening the door pretty easy if
your hands are full, just push down or up on them with your elbow, knee or
hip and you can open the door. Luna knows this!!! If she was a couple
inches taller, my wife said she
would have been able to reach the handle and get the door open!!!! She was
just short of touching the handle… Out
of the eleven dogs I have had before Luna, I have NEVER seen a dog attempt
to open a door before. Of course all the previous places I have lived had
door knobs on all the doors!!! My wife said she tried multiple times to
reach the handle so it wasn’t just a coincidence and did just one time.
My wife said she was scared thinking that Luna was NOT going to stop until
she found a way out. Luckily my wife knew enough to bring her back to the
side of the bed and pet her stomach and she rolled over and eventually
went back to sleep…
She also has this new game she
likes to play. She has this teddy bear, {made for dogs, although she
already broke the squeak thing inside in less than 3 hours}, and she takes
it to the top of our stairs {2nd floor stairs} and drops it so it falls
all the way to the front hallway. Then she runs down, picks it up and
brings it back upstairs and does it all over again!!! She does this for
about a half an hour!!!!
I hope you have a great
weekend, talk to you later…
Geoff”
________________________
“Good morning Karen,
I
hope all is well and things are going good for you. I have an interesting
story and a compliment paid our dog Luna which was far and away the best
stamp of approval to date.
We
went to Musikfest in Bethlehem PA. a week ago. We weren’t aware
that dogs were not allowed in the place. Basically, they shut down Main
Street and an adjacent street below it for music, food and drink…
Cultures from all over the World are there. The dog Nazis {police} stopped
us halfway down Main Street and told us Luna was not welcome there and
we’d have to leave. Having driven 35 minutes to get there and park a
mile away just to walk in the heat to get to Main Street , we weren’t
just going to turn around and go home. We opted to find a place to sit
{unnoticed} and grab a bite to eat. We found a table big enough for my
wife and I and 6 others to sit at. While we were sitting there perhaps 600
people walked by {maybe a lot of repeats} but about 45 people stopped to
ask if they could pet her and to see her up close. All of them commented
on how beautiful she is. She just got up each time looked the ones that
crouched down to her, in the eye and basked in their attention.
I
was watching every person approaching us to see what their reaction to her
was going to be. Like I said, some stopped and asked all about her, others
just kept walking by. The ones walking by would sometimes comment to us
about Luna or to others in their group about her. I like reading lips
especially when they don’t think we can possibly hear them. The one
group that really impressed me the most was a group of 13 or 14 year old
boys. Having been one myself back in the days of dinosaurs, I remember
what it was like. My nephew is 15 so I see it up close too. Typically,
boys of this age are NOT interested in complimenting anyone or anything.
Instead it is the opposite, they are more likely to find the deformities
or defects and take pride in making fun of them.
I
watched this group of about 6 boys approach and one boy in the back
reached forward and grabbed the two boys in front of him and pointed at
Luna and said, “Oh my God! That is the most AWESOME dog I have every
seen!!!” I told my wife immediately what he had just said and she was
ear to ear smiles. Sometimes you wonder if people just say how pretty they
think your dog is just to be kind to you when they couldn’t care less
about your dog. I do it. I know people get so wrapped up in their dogs
they think the World of them. One of our friends even made a FACEBOOK page
for her dog!
I
personally don’t like little dogs, but in an effort to stroke the
owner’s pride in their dog I will ask questions about their dog even if
I don’t absorb the answer. I typically take every compliment about Luna
as being people just being nice. The ones that stop and get face to face
with her and talk to her and ask all kinds of questions about her are the
sincere ones. Yet this one boy’s comment really made my
day/week/YEAR!!!! She is truly a spectacular dog, and she is exceptionally
social which makes her all the talk of everywhere we go… People are
usually intimidated by a dog her size, but they don’t seem to be worried
one bit about her and approach her like she is still an 18 pound little
ball of fur….
I’m just worried she’s going to turn into a Prima Donna or something
because of all the compliments she gets… I will get some up to date
photos for you over the next few weeks {hopefully when it gets cooler}.
Until then, I thank you again.
Thank you so much…. I hope you have a great week.
Jeff”
_____________________________
“Good morning Karen,
There is a Siberian Husky down the street from us. His owners have been
bringing him out to see Luna every now and then when we walk by… Luna
loves him… When I first saw him, Linus was like a horse compared to a
mouse with Luna just 11 weeks old. She loved him the first time she saw
him and wasn’t afraid of him… Two days ago, they were outside with
Linus. Her son {8 years old} walked a few houses up the road with us and
then back home. I asked him to ask his mom if I could take Linus with Luna
and me. She was hesitant {thinking he would be way too much for me to
handle}, but finally relented sending me with the warning that if a
squirrel appears he will drag me all over the place after it… Luna and
Linus kept getting tangled trying to be the one closest to the side of the
road to sniff the grass and stuff. After about five minutes they settled
down and I was able to hold them both with just one hand…
Both are hunters, so when they saw a squirrel…. I felt like I was
trying to hold back a drag racer… After Rocky the squirrel had his heart
attack and scattered up into a tree, we went on with our walk. I think we
walked about a mile and a half in total and they were amazingly easy to
handle… I noticed on flat ground, Luna is a hair TALLER than Linus
now… What struck me the most was that they are both HUNTERS and had
their noses down the entire time scanning the ground looking for prey.. I
thought only Luna did this… Now I have seen another dog do it
too…
The two dogs are incredibly different in their personalities too…
Linus acted like he was given a mission to get the medical supplies to the
front even though there was a raging blizzard outside {it was drizzling
rain}… Luna is more interested in exploring and noticing everything
around her and following the scent of everything that has passed by that
area before us… Linus kept plodding onward to whatever he perceived the
final destination as being… Once you figure out their personalities,
walking them is easy!!! All I had to do is give Linus direction {tug on
the leash} and praise every now and then, and give Luna lots of slack and
prepare for the diverse path she would take in and around following Linus…
The only thing about Linus that I didn’t care for is when he did his
thing, he would kick grass and dirt backwards at the spot… The other
dogs I’ve seen do this I don’t care for, Pomeranians Chihuahuas and a
vast array of puny dogs…. I get the feeling when Luna is allowed to run
free, she thinks she is keeping me from being lost. She’ll take off for
a bit, then return to make sure I’m still following her and not lost on
the trail!!!! I used to think dogs would return to make sure they didn’t
get lost and separated from you, but Luna makes me think differently….
Yesterday we went walking through the woods near the town fields. The
fields are surrounded by woods and on the other side of the woods are corn
fields {which have been cut down now}… I let Luna loose and she was all
over the place following scent after scent and she would hone in on an
animal and just as she got to within 10 feet of a rabbit and squirrel and
something else I didn’t see, the animals acted like they could not
believe she could find them.
I was looking in the direction Luna was going all the time and never
noticed these animals until they realized Luna was going to find them,
then, they found the turbo button and took off into the thickest brush
they could find. Luna has decided that she doesn’t want to follow them
into the thick stuff anymore… She got hurt at a reservoir doing that.
When she didn’t return to the path, I went back to look for her and she
was limping up the trail towards me… I bent down to see what was wrong
and the back of one of her rear legs was bleeding heavily. I carried her
about a hundred yards and then in the heat and humidity had to rest. She
wanted to walk across this dam we had gotten too. I let her and she seemed
to not have a broken leg just tenderness… Once we got across the dam, I
carried her the rest of the way, about a mile in all {thank God she was
only about 55 pounds back in August}… I have first aid kits in all our
cars and I cleaned and treated the wound, that night her foot swelled up
and was much more painful for her. I took her to the vet the next day and
they found no break and cleaned and redressed the wound… She kept
favoring the foot over the next few weeks so that is when I took a real
close look at her foot and noticed one toe may have been the problem. I
think she broke it… She is perfectly fine now and just more cautious
about leaping into thick brush where she can’t see the ground… Smart
dog eh???
We started tempting her with treats and then having my niece run and
hide and she finds her right away!!!! She is so amazing. I
am finding new things to be shocked by nearly every day with her…
Have a wonderful day… Thank you for everything…
Jeff Sutcliffe”
_____________________
“Luna’s first snow storm and
Luna’s first chance to experience the wonders of winter. We thought you
would like to see her first day {she was out with me all night while the
snow was falling} out in the snow.”
_____________________
“Good morning
…,
In
response to your query about Luna to include it in your January
newsletter, I’ll try and keep it short but there are so many fascinating
things about Luna I could write a seven book novel series and still not do
her justice.
Today,
29 December is Luna’s second birthday. We originally adopted a kitten
and found out EVERYONE in the house had animal allergies. The kitten went
to someone that fell in love with her. I then spent three or four months
researching dogs to find out if any are “hypo-allergenic”. The ones
that are {mostly in the poodle family” didn’t appeal to me. I went
through a site that listed about two hundred breeds. I narrowed it to
seven possibilities and then focused on them for a few weeks. The Siberian
Indian Dog really stood out from ALL of them. I contacted the breeder who
came up with the idea of the breed. Karen Markel, lives in Michigan and is
only one of three breeders of these dogs. The other two got their dogs
from Karen. I bugged Karen for weeks with questions about the dogs.
Eventually a litter was born and we were at the top of the list to get
first pick of the litter. They are of course, billed as
“hypo-allergenic” and it is TRUE. No one in our family is allergic to
her…. Just as the breeder promised.
We
named her Luna {Spanish for Moon}. Luna is also “MOON” in Native
American Indian as well as Italian and Portuguese as well as Latin I
think. Her middle name is Hinto which is Native American Indian for {BLUE}
which is how long it took me to convince my wife to let me get a dog {Blue
Moon}… My wife is from Bogota Colombia and talks to Luna in Spanish, I
talk to her in English so she’s had to become bi-lingual to figure out
what we are asking her to do. Poor thing….
Luna
has eight brothers and sisters. She was the only white one and she had the
blue eyes that we really wanted. Sometimes I think dogs pick us, but once
we saw her picture when her eyes had opened we couldn’t imagine looking
at another dog. One story the breeder told us, was that she went out to
clean up their outdoor play area. She put the plastic bag through the
links in the fence and went about picking up the yard. Luna ran over
grabbed the bag and had the breeder and her siblings chasing her all over
in the snow to get it back. Even at six weeks old the clown in her was
coming out which made her all the more perfect. She came to us with two of
her brothers that were going to New York and Connecticut in the back of a
truck. She left late Friday afternoon from Michigan and we had her in our
arms by noon on Saturday…
Luna
is amazing, she doesn’t bark so getting her tools to communicate with us
was a steep learning curve. Eventually we hung a bell {think school bell}
by the kitchen door and she pulls a leash attached to the bell to ring it
when she wants to go out {now used to mean she wants to go for a walk}.
That allows her out into the garage and the front {non fenced in part of
the yard}. We had to devise something else for the door to the backyard as
these bells are large and heavy and we didn’t want one hanging on a
living-room wall. We found an electronic eye {optical} with a remote chime
that can be plugged in anywhere. It took her two weeks {from nine weeks
old to eleven weeks old} to learn to ring the bell, but just two hours to
figure out the electronic one.
Her
favorite activities involve spending the day following smells of other
animals wherever we bring her for walks. Every day we try and walk at
least two hours and she gets to follow dozens of smells. She can find
anything she wants to. The trouble is convincing her to follow the smells
we want her to follow, not the ones she wants to follow. She really likes
going to parks where there are lakes or rivers so that she can get a drink
or jump in for a swim if she gets hot and thirsty. The times we let her go
exploring she always find us regardless if we continue walking or stay put
and wait for her.
She
has the greatest personality too. She likes ALL animal people and their
pets and tends to avoid those that aren’t fond of pets or the
“nervous” owners that have snippy pets. It never ceases to amaze me
when children come running up to her as I watch the horror grow in their
parents eyes as they try and form the words “ask first’. Usually by
the time they get the words out, the kids are hugging Luna and she is just
eating up the attention. It’s kind of funny seeing a kid with their arms
wrapped around Luna’s neck asking if they can pet her….
If
I had to categorize Luna’s favorite things to do, it would be:
·
Prey {as she likes to track and try and find the creatures that have gone
before her on trails we are on}.
·
Play {she could spend all day playing with other dogs if they liked
playing with her}. Or she’ll find the ONE thing you do NOT want her to
have and she’ll grab it and make you chase her to get it back.
·
Toys {her favorite toys are the ones that squeak}. The toys that squeak
usually last about 2 minutes before she performs open heart surgery and
removes the squeaker and runs around the house chewing on it making it
squeak.
·
Ice cream {she loves long Summer walks followed by a trip to get some
vanilla ice cream as a once in a while treat}. It’s fun watching
everyone watching her eat and ice cream cone from our hand.
Luna
is an amazing very special member of our family. She brings us hours of
entertainment and endless amounts of joy. She sees and observes
EVERYTHING… When she saw how deer ran through tall grass {bounding} she
started doing it as well figuring they do it for a reason so should she.
She is curious about everything. Last night we had a service repairman
fixing our dishwasher. Luna came in and I told him not to worry she would
just supervise him and she went right up and looked over his shoulder for
a while to see what he was doing. He had to laugh as she was “acting
like his boss”… She also tends to draw lots of people to her to meet
her and to ask about her and as such we’ve met so many people who just
wanted to say hello and see her up close…. We can’t imagine a day
without her and her antics in our lives…
Lucila
and Jeff Sutcliffe”
