Snow & Mountain Cabins;-Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Now most of the ski/mountain trips that I go on I wouldn't want to take any dog with me, let alone a Newfie, indeed Edward Whymper, who first, controversially climbed the Matterhorn (back in the 1800s {three of his 'guides' were killed during the decent}), in his old age, exemplified that he wouldn't be venturing on any too strenuous trips by getting a Newfoundland dog! (Which seems a bit sever an indictment!). But early season snow really isn't good for such a heavy, hairy dog as a Newfie.


Should probably diversify onto St Bernards at this point. There are two types of St Bernards, long and short haired. The one's that are renown for mountain rescue are the (smaller) short haired St Bernards. The long haired St Bs (I believe) came about as the short haired ones (that are recorded at the time of the Roman Empire as having been guard dogs), were suffering from some form of illness that was killing them off, so they tried to breed them with Newfies, which led to the long haired variety. The long haired variety looks like a supersized brown & white Newfie (and are generally the heaviest dogs in the world). The reputation for Mountain rescue and the the name comes from the St Bernards Pass, which had a Hospice built by Monks to aid travelers using the high mountain pass between Switzerland and Italy; after the storms the monks would go searching for trapped travelers and the monks' dogs liked to join them on these trips (what dog doesn't enjoy playing in the snow and being useful). These were the short haired variety. All long haired breeds suffer from snow balling in the fur and weighting them down.


But if you can drive to the cabin (or it's not a strenuous walk through deep snow) then the Newfie will love it. The above picture is Kin lying outside the cabin. There's approx. a metre of snow around the cabin, and this is a drive to cabin. Kin & I went to a cabin at Sageneset http://www.sageneset.no/ along with Ingunn, her three boys, and her dog. 


Kin loved it. He took to throwing himself off the ploughed path and flopping into the deep snow where he'd thrash around ineffectively for awhile before floundering back onto the ploughed path! Another favorite was to roll over and over in the snow, making deranged snow angel dogs! Did have to rescue him from the snow when he'd managed to break through into a stream bed beneath the snow and had to be very careful with streams and rivers as if he went into them I'd have two problems: (1) all the snow would stick to him and he'd have some problems moving far; (2) he could get swept under something frozen.

 Our attempts at a ski trip weren't a complete success in the conventional understanding, but I think everyone had fun. We stuck to the tracks (pistee beastie is used to flatten a wide section and make two sets of ski tracks, here the snow is consolidated so even without skis Kin didn't sink). Picture shows Kin, Ingunn with Oscar behind her, Waldemar, next to here, Zorro (the underwear stealing dog), with Alexander behind him. Ingunn summed up the ski trip by calling it a circus. We were out chasing the sun but as it's quite low on the horizon at this time of year we never caught it up. Kin pulled me over twice and every time Zorro got bored he attacked Kin (which Kin didn't seem to mind in the slightest, although at one point Kin decided that we'd gone far enough and (obviously considerate of other skiers, much to Ingunn's amusement) flopped down into the deep snow at the side of the track, rolled onto his back and looked like he was going to have a nap.


When we got back to the cabin Kin wanted some peace and quiet at a good temperature (~ -7 deg C/19 f), so I thought I'd clipped him onto a lead tied to the cabin, in actual fact I clipped him into Zorro's lose lead, but he still stayed curled up outside the cabin, if he did wonder off he came back.

During the night Kin slept next to my bed. He did wake me up once during the night, by banging his head into the beams/mattress under the bed; he managed to get himself stuck under the bed, by pushing himself under with his front paws, but he could not push off anything to get himself out again, he was lying at a 090 degree angle to the bed, I had to get out of bed and pull him out by his front paws, he had a bit of rolling to get small enough to get under the edge of the bed!


Now Zorro & Kin generally play well together, Kin is surprisingly gentle with Zorro (either that or he hasn't realised that with a flick of his paw he can propel Zorro into next week), but taking them both for a walk in the snow, I had to have both of them on the lead, as I had to stick to the ploughed trails/roads, and every time Kin tried to poo, Zorro attacked him, which really did put the big chap off his game! Had to return to the cabin, put Mr Zorro inside and then Kin could attend to call of nature un-hassled!


Kids got on well with Kin.

and obviously with their own dog Zorro, who's looking tired after playing out in the snow. Good time had by all.




Postscript note, talking of rescue dogs, this vidclip shows the kind of rescue work that Newfies excel at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28NMj0fdDM4&feature=related