Montauk Pioneer - September 5, 2008

"Dogs are getting bigger, according to a leading dog manufacturer." -Leo Rosten

I spent all day this past Sunday at the Hampton Classic Horse Show, it was crowded, fun filled, exciting and the weather was gorgeous. It's still a long day to sit under a tent and watch the celebrities and wanna-be's mill about. Since there's a long break in the horse activity around lunch I took a stroll over to the tent where they had the miniature horses and the companion dogs. On my way there a very adorable, large bear like dog stopped me short. All soft fur and big round eyes he was about the size of a smallish Labrador. I was so taken with how cute he was I asked the owners his age "Sixteen weeks" the woman said. My jaw dropped. Sixteen weeks??? This dog was a baby and yet he was huge.

After the obvious jokes about where was his saddle I had to ask what breed he was and if they got much bigger. I was told he's a Leonberger and that, yes, he'd get much larger. They even pulled out a digital camera and showed me a photo of his father, who was easily as large as some of the pony hunter winners from earlier in the day. I did a web search and found some photos of the breed, they are adorable looking but enormous.

My husband and I are still on the fence about getting a dog but if we do it has to be a medium size dog. I'm afraid they are getting harder to come by. It seems the trend today is to breed bigger or breed smaller. When we discussed this today at the office someone even mentioned a miniature Chihuahua. What's that all about? It must be the size of a gerbil, so why not just get a gerbil? As I've mentioned I have Maine Coon cats, they are large too, for cats. So I guess I'm guilty of the same sizeism problem. I got my Maine Coons because they are more "dog like" than most cats. Maybe people are getting these Leonberger's because they're more like horses?

The ASPCA also had a presence at the Classic. I stopped by and made a small donation and got a sticker for my house window alerting the fire department that I have pets inside. I told them about how my cat Roxie Hart had saved my life when there was a grease fire once in the house. She actually did. It was very Lassie of her. I was in the back computer room and she came running in and got up on her hind legs and pawed at my hand while I was mousing at the computer. She used to do this when she wanted me to play with her so I turned around and reached for one of her feather toys and saw my living room filling up with smoke. I grabbed her and tossed her in the back bedroom and unlocked the window, tossed a phone onto the lawn incase I had to run out of the house and grabbed the fire extinguisher. I managed to put the fire out pretty quickly and called the fire department anyway. They told me it was very smart to put my cat in the back bedroom so they could find her. I'm guessing if I'd had a Leonberger they wouldn't have a problem finding him, not in my tiny house.