One Big Boy

Happy Monday Friends. I hope you had a great weekend filled with relaxation and love. On Friday, our daughter and her five kiddos as well as their two dogs(Petrol and Sampson)came to spend the day with us. They were getting new roof on and needless to say Sampson is one big dog who is very protective; it was decided with the heat-we've been in the high 90's, it would be better to have him at our house. Now you must understand, Sampson is a 120 lb Newfie/Lab/Husky mix who is around 11 yrs old. He isn't as agile as he used to be; that boy could jump about four feet off the ground-all fours. Anyway, the poor old guy was pretty stressed at our house, because he hasn't been in a car for years or left their area. He did fine considering and it was a trial run in case the family has to stay with us for a night when they are moving. For some weird reason, I didn't have any photos of Sampson; so took some this morning. He is such an incredible dog and we all love him. Here is he; you can see that he is still shedding and also has a bandage on his rear leg. Somehow when the family was camping, he got a cut on it.

I'm not sure if I ever shared this story with you all or not, but approximately two or three years ago two of our grands were out in the yard playing.  Sampson started barking and so sil decided to go see what he was so upset about.  It ends up that they had a 6' bull snake in the yard and Sampson had placed himself between the snake and the girls.  He was not about to let that snake near his girls.  For a large breed dog, he has surpassed what we thought his life expectancy to be.  When I think of a time in the future when he won't be around, I get really sad.  He has never been an inside dog and prefers to be outside, even in the winter.  He does have a wonderful dog house in the garage, so he can get out of the weather if it is too much. As he's gotten older, he definitely doesn't stay out in the snow like he used to.
The family will probably get another big watchdog, since our sil travels a lot, but they aren't sure whether they will get an inside dog that doesn't shed or another dog that can handle the Colorado winters.  I just don't want to think about it yet. 
I will say that Hunter was quite perturbed that another dog was in his yard on Friday; he's only met Sampson once when he was a puppy and I was more afraid that with Sampson's play and jumping he might hurt Hunter. 
Well, I'm off to see if I can get some tank tops for this hot weather.  I'm sure that all the fall clothing is in, but I'm going to try.
Have a great day friends.
Hugs, Noreen