Re: [PyrNet-L] Chat: Pyr Training...(long)

[clhenke@juno.com]

Michaelene, how lovely, how well put, how easily this brings a smile to
those faces that have gone down this route.

Gray hairs?  Oh no...I learned long ago with the kids  why hair color was
invented!  With the four Pyr. kids it is just as well that I don't know
what is under the color.

Our breed was the Mastiff, not a fast worker, but easy going, willing to
please and as long as you were a happy teacher they learn their lessons
well!  Homebodies, no desire to be any further than a few feet from you. 
Quiet too, one giant woof is sufficient to let you know someone is here,
and that is given after being well thought out, better to walk up to an
intruder in silence ( and really scare the pants off them ), rather than
make too much commotion.  Then we had four rolly-polly fluff balls of
white ( two with blond markings and the most gorgeous double lined
egyptian marked eyes you ever seen ) enter our lives, and nothing has
been the same since!  Water, they adore it, it must go everywhere, share
it, spread it around, give it to your humans by the lapful.  Bark,
anything, everything, air, grass blowing, the same horses they see all
day long every day, us ( this does drive me nuts..how can they bark at
us?? ), digging, the deeper the better the cooler and wetter you can dig
into the ground is heaven!  Then there is the willingness to
go...anywhere...as they make their escape they look back almost
apologizing for the haunted...we must go...look.  No matter if it is one
fast 17 year old son running them to the ground, or me in hot pursuit in
the car, the look is always one of " You want us home in our own yard???
".  I'm the only one in this neighborhood who thinks dogs should be in
their own yard and I have four of a breed that is committed to being
somewhere else.  I would love to have the money to put up ten foot high
chain link with concrete poured four feet in the ground...I am becoming
paranoid about fencing.

Like you, I would not recommend them to just anyone.  But just as you
say, they are gentle loving soft happy companions, they love people, and
I feel for them that  so many folks are afraid of big dogs and will not
even give them a gentle scratch behind the ears.  They are watchful but
kind, they are active and always willing to play, and their ability to
move ,jump sideways, turn twist, leap to major heights, spring and hang
on delicate edges totally fascinates me still.  I wonder if they really
watched sheep or more likely mountain goats?  They are wonderful, so good
about putting up with their Dad dragging them up on the couch to lay with
him, each one in turn.  They roll their eyes as much to say,...gotta
humor the old guy!  They are so hard not to love!  The Pyrs. are a whole
other world, they teach you to think differently, they add so much if
your willing to adjust.  I think I will go hug and get kisses from those
four big white softies right now, and remind that I do love them...even
if they do drive me nuts at time!     :-)!!!      Cindy. 

Cindy Henke
clhenke@juno.com
Ennis, Texas

"All knowledge, the totality of all questions and answers, is contained
in the dog."  ~ Franz Kafka

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