I’m starting with a bold statement: all Newfies love the kitchen. It’s probably safe to state that all dogs love the kitchen. For years I have depended on doing lunges over my dogs as a primary form of exercise, so when Annie showed no interest in joining us in the kitchen I was completely dumbfounded. On one hand, it was nice to only have to navigate around one dog in the kitchen, but it just didn’t seem right that she would rather choose the safety of her crate over being in the general vicinity of random tidbits raining down from above.

It was a very slow process, but after several months, she was realizing that rewards were frequent when she was near the kitchen. She was now wandering freely into the kitchen whenever one of us was in there and was actually becoming a little pushy when she felt it was time for me to share something with her. I think she liked bulldozing her way through whatever was in her way whether it is human, Maisie or the kitchen stool. She was ready for a bite of whatever we were preparing, and she’d like it now please! Since we are still abiding by the rule of Annie gets whatever Annie wants, I usually am persuaded by her sweet face looking up at me but I am learning to say no when I need to.

On July 5^th, we were all getting back into our normal routines after the long holiday weekend. In our house we start celebrating on the 3^rd because that is my husband’s birthday and then it just carries into the 4^th with more things on the grill, more cake, more fireworks, ect, ect. This year it was truly a long weekend because the 4^th was on a Monday, so on Tuesday I was staggering through the kitchen in a bit of a blur when I stopped myself mid-stride. I had just lunged over Maisie on my way to the refrigerator and was in the middle of another lunge when I looked down and I was standing over Annie!

It was such a normal thing, I’ve been doing this for years, but this was the first time Annie had parked herself in the middle of the floor and forced me into a second lunge! I shrieked and my husband and daughter looked at me like I was insane. There I was standing over Annie yelling “Newfie lunge, Newfie lunge”! I know it sounds mad, but I wanted to note the day because this is the most normal dog behavior I know and Annie had finally figured it out. This was the day I’ve been waiting for and there were many times that I doubted this would ever happen. I now have 2 kitchen dogs and things are back to normal with my double Newfie lunge workout. No more excuses, surely now I can drop the extra pounds I’ve put on over the last several months…