THE NEWFOUNDLAND: A BRIEF HISTORY
Ric Einstein was delighted with his litter of disappointment. He trusted his instincts about the eight black Labrador–Newfoundland mutts with their perfectly webbed feet, each with its own personality. He had a particular affinity for the giant Newfoundland. Two years after turning the local pet shop into something more like a bespoke business, Einstein bought his first Newfie, as he affectionately calls the breed. The purchase was no fluke. He’d been asking every customer who came into the shop about the breed of dog they owned and was struck by one thing. While everyone raved with obvious pride about their pedigree or bitza—bits of this, bits of that—those who owned the petite and pretty King Charles Cavalier or the bearish Newfoundland had one thing in common. Clearly, it wasn’t size. ‘They all had a gleam in their eye,’ Einstein recalls.
Being a bit of a bear of a man himself, Einstein was not too keen on the King Charles but the consistent response from customers about the Newfoundland intrigued him. He asked one of his clients to bring her dog by the shop so he could examine it up close. ‘His name was Griz, short for Grizzly Bear, and when I saw him I thought, I want one of those,’ he says.
Bred as a water dog, the Newfoundland is an instinctive lifesaver, as loyal and gentle as—some might argue more loyal and gentle than—the Labrador, which is descended from it. They are physically impressive beasts, exceptionally strong, said to be the strongest of all canines, and built boxlike with stout legs. The male stands, at shoulder height, about 75 centimetres above the ground. The female is only slightly smaller. She can weigh, at her slightest, about 50 kilograms, and he can be as heavy as 80 kilograms— although don’t be fooled, none of the weight has to do with fat. The Newfoundland is an agile, muscle-bound, massively boned dog capable of swimming for miles in frigid conditions, or pulling loaded carts beyond the capacity of man. If you are in trouble in the water, you want a Newfoundland beside you. As if by some mysterious telepathy, they intuit danger and will haul you out of a pickle before you knew you were in it, and have done countless times over the centuries, rescuing imperilled fishermen and seafarers, and scores of drowning people caught in rips, tides and dangerous waterways.
Their shaggy coats, long, oily and waterproof, are built for their function as water dogs, evidence again of evolution’s preference for function over form or, for the more spiritually minded, an example of how Mother Nature knows best. Either a dull black or a rich brown that verges on chocolate or bronze, and sometimes with tinges of both, they often have a white blaze on their chest and occasionally a sprinkle of white fur on their toes. All of which is heritably acceptable.
The Newfoundland is curiously handsome, not pretty so much—though don’t tell an owner that—but noble and elegant. Still, to the dog lover’s eye, the Newfoundland face is an all-round heartbreaker and reminds us of all things impossibly sweet. It looks poignant and slightly sad with droopy large jowls that hang like curtains from a perfectly square nose, large again, atop which sit dark, deep-set and small eyes that border on soulful and yet betray an acute intelligence and easy disposition, usually one of utter contentment and docility.
The breed has history on its side, too. It was first noted when Newfoundland was colonised in the early 1600s that the fishermen there used two types of big dogs to help them work. The names are self-explanatory, the Greater Newfoundland and the Lesser Newfoundland, or St John’s Dog, which became the founding breed of the golden retriever. How they got to the isolated island is a matter of conjecture but it is thought the modern day version is a mix of the island’s native dogs cross-bred with the giant black bear dogs imported by the adventurous Vikings around the year 1000. Portuguese fishermen later introduced the mastiff to the breed sometime in the fourteenth century, ensuring they remained big. True or not, the Nordic connection adds enormously to the romance of the dog and explains how it might have got to Newfoundland.
How it left, on the other hand, is a different story. Explorers and fishermen from Ireland and England arrived in the nineteenth century to fish the species-rich waters off the Grand Banks and they too saw the sense in utilising the clever, workaholic dogs. The dogs’ tenacious, biddable and protective natures earned the respect of the industrious, hard-working men. When these nineteenth-century interlopers left, they took the Newfies with them, which is how they found their way into polite company in Europe and, later, America. Possibly because of its unparalleled heft, the breed became a status symbol and was paraded like a prize-winning magnificent mobile showpiece.
One of the most famous of the breed belonged to the prolific and controversial German composer, Richard Wil-helm Wagner, he of the epic operas commonly known as the Ring Cycle. Wagner owned four Newfies throughout his career, starting with Robber, who adopted the musician and travelled to London by boat with him when Wagner fled Riga, then the capital of Latvia, leaving behind a mountain of debt and a field of angry creditors. The perilous sea journey, on which both Robber and Wagner suffered torturous seasickness, inspired Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman.
Wagner’s second Newfoundland, Russ, was even more beloved and upon the dog’s death the grief-stricken composer buried him in the grave in which the master would eventually be interred. The headstone read, ‘Here Lies and Watches Wagner’s Russ’.
A Newfoundland also unwittingly added to the humiliation of the French general and emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, whose navy was famously defeated by the British fleet in the historic Battle of Trafalgar. Among the lesser-known aspects of the naval encounter is that a Newfie, serving as the mascot on the frigate HMS Nymph, was the first member of the triumphal boarding party to reach the deck of the surrendered French warship, Cleopatra. ‘Dogs! Must I be defeated by them on the battlefield as well as in the bedroom?’ the infamous Napoleon thundered when told the doggie detail. To appreciate the gravitas of the personal insult it helps to know that Napoleon’s ultimately unfaithful wife, Josephine, let her pug Fortune sleep on their bed on their wedding night, a ritual he found repellent—and more so after the vicious pug attacked him, leaving a scar and instilling in him a contempt for dogs.
Not so incidentally, three of the fine-looking Newfoundland dogs made their home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—otherwise known as the White House—including Faithful, owned by President Ulysses S. Grant’s son, Jesse. After watching his heartbroken son deal with the loss of his previous Newfoundland, the president threatened the jobs of the entire White House staff if anything happened to Faithful. Faithful, like Grant, served two terms at the presidential address. No one lost their job.
The most famous White House Newfie, though, was Lara. She belonged to the fifteenth president of the United States, James Buchanan. The only childless bachelor to occupy the office, Buchanan was trailed everywhere by his dog, who became a celebrity in her own right. The devoted Lara was famous for lying motionless for hours on end with one eye closed and the other open and keeping watch over her master. Man should know such fidelity.
By the time Ric Einstein was introduced to his first Newfie in 1992, nothing of note had changed in the breed since the seventeenth century. He liked what he saw and in quick order acquired one of his own, a pup called Tiny.
Tiny became a celebrity at the Animal Magnetism pet shop and helped draw in customers. After Tiny’s death, Einstein bought a second Newfoundland, Goofy, who was also a working dog—of sorts. He lumbered around the shop welcoming potential buyers and putting smiles on people’s faces, unbidden, as dogs are wont to do. He also read people and sized up their intentions, a skill at which Newfound-lands in particular, and dogs in general, are highly adept. If Goofy detected foul play on the agenda, or sniffed a wayward teen trying to pocket free treats, he presented himself, an unavoidable and potentially dangerous bear of a dog. That was usually enough. Big dogs can be fearsome, especially if you don’t know them.
The canine caper helped business and gave potential buyers an idea of the breed’s temperament. No surprise then that Goofy was the poster pooch for Newfies when Einstein began selling his rogue litter.
Wendy Upjohn was determined to buy her children a black dog. She has a thing for them. Maybe it’s because of the initial bonds formed in childhood, when colour, sense and memory is imprinted in our plastic, sponge-like brains, which absorb information at a rate we can barely fathom. We are infinitely receptive as children, hopelessly honest, fearlessly inquisitive. We are trustworthy, guileless. If something pleases us, we giggle with glee. If it doesn’t, we recoil. No poker face for the young and innocent. Ditto a dog.
Wendy Upjohn grew up with a small menagerie including cats, dogs, a horse and even mice, the latter of which she was not particularly fond. Her first dog was a scruffy black and white terrier type named Taffy. A black Labrador, Lena, followed her. Later, Wendy bought a black cocker spaniel named Becky, who was re-housed to a farming family in New Zealand when Wendy and her then husband moved to China with their six-month-old daughter Gemma. She desperately missed having a canine companion and yearned for the time when that would be possible once more. ‘Dogs are really, in my mind, angels given to us as a reminder of how much better we could be,’ she says.
By October 2002, Wendy, who had remarried, was ready to introduce the species to her three children, aged between fifteen and five. Gemma, the oldest, had been joined by brothers Nic, who was eight, and Marcelo, then three weeks shy of his sixth birthday. The children had been nagging Wendy and the boys’ father, Carlos, about adding a dog to the family for years. Wendy thought the time was right. What family is truly complete without man’s best friend?
They lived in Bowral, a verdant and historic township 120 kilometres south of the Sydney GPO that was first established in 1823 as a cattle run. The family occupied a stunning block that backed on to 100 acres of scenic bushland and came with a century-old stone cottage. Their acre-sized property had a majestic oak tree in one corner around which they built a new Federation style house. It was idyllic. The neighbours had dams and duck ponds, the children built billycarts, rode their bikes, and lived a life among the great outdoors. All it needed was a dog.
On Wednesday 23 October, with the children at school, Wendy made the seven kilometre drive north to Animal Magnetism in Mittagong. She wanted to surprise the children with the dog they had long wanted. She was smitten as soon as she saw the Labrador–Newfoundland mutts playfully rolling around their box like tumbleweeds. This is love at first sight, she thought.
Goofy, ambling around like a barrel of happiness, helped, not that Wendy needed convincing. The Newfie’s temperament reminded her of another dog, a soft natured German shepherd that had brought her family nothing but joy. ‘I thought Goofy was adorable. He was big and even more boofy than my dad’s Rommel and I had always loved him too,’ Wendy says now.
People don’t choose dogs. Dogs choose people. As Wendy swooned over the mischievous pups, fighting for attention with high-pitched yips and yaps, one crabbed its way to her in that distinct wobbly sideways walk of puppies. It snuggled under her hand, sliding its wet nose against her palm. She picked it up. ‘I cuddled him and he was a real sook. He was the one for me—I am a sucker for a sooky animal,’ she says. The dog was whimpering, a sure sign of dependency and need.
Wendy paid $375 and walked out with her children’s first pup—vaccinated, microchipped and wormed.
But it wasn’t Sarbi. She hadn’t made the cut.
Eight-year-old Nic burst into tears as soon as he saw the dog. His dream had come true. The pup was small enough for him to hold in his little hands and Nic gently patted the coat, as feathery as that of a newborn cygnet. The pup scampered from person to person, introducing itself and busily gathering intelligence through its nose, breathing in the smells of the established pack to ascertain its position in the hierarchy. The pup’s puppiness was infectious and the children giddily raced after him.
The boys named the pup Rafiki after a character in the animated Disney movie, The Lion King. The film had been Nic’s favourite for the past couple of years and the children had seen it literally dozens of times. They loved the rich cast of funny, adorable and decent animals that roamed the fictional African veldt called the Pride Lands. They also had the soundtrack and knew every song by heart, not surprising for children of musicians.
If you’ve seen the film you will have been enchanted from the opening scenes, too, captivated long before the title credit appears on the screen. As dawn breaks, a native African voice calls out a haunting song through the darkness and is answered by an unseen chorus. Then, as if choreographed by an ancient ethologist, rhinoceros, meerkats, a cheetah and Marabou storks start to move across the plain, over which towers the breathtaking majesty of Mount Kilimanjaro. Elephants amble, gazelles leap, a mother giraffe and her baby lope in a mass migration of species heading towards a soaring outcrop called Pride Rock, upon which sit a lion, the eponymous king, his lioness and their newborn cub. A veritable United Nations of animals—zebras, guinea fowl, a hornbill named Zazu—merge below in a kaleidoscope of colour, waiting for a sacred ceremony to begin.
Out of the teeming mass emerges Rafiki, a wise and jungle smart old baboon walking on all fours and carrying a walking stick topped with gourds. He straightens up and walks to the lion, King Mufasa, who beams with obvious pleasure as Rafiki throws his arms around him in a hug. As the original script notes, ‘these guys go way back’. Mufasa bends down to tenderly nuzzle his lioness, Sarabi, before doing the same to his cub, Simba, nestled safely out of harm’s way at the feet of his mother.
The animals have gathered for Simba’s anointment as the heir apparent. Rafiki smears the little lion with a substance from his gourd before tossing a sprinkle of dirt over the cub’s cherubic, expectant face. As he does, Simba responds with an explosive sneeze and his parents beam adoringly. Rafiki raises Simba high over his head and presents the cub to the animals below. As one, they react with glee. Zebras stomp. Elephants trumpet. Monkeys applaud and do somersaults. A beam of golden sunlight shines down on the future king of the jungle.
As opening scenes go, it is memorable and spectacularly uplifting. What’s not to love?
Rafiki wasn’t necessarily the children’s favourite character but the name had a certain uniqueness and magic to it. When translated into its native Swahili, it means ‘friend’ and the family reckoned, What name could be more perfect for a Labrador than ‘friend’? And so the pup was named. When shortened, it became Rafi, which sounds like Taffy. There was indeed a circularity to it, however unintended, almost as if ordained by the film’s signature song, ‘The Circle of Life’.
The children fashioned a soft bed out of old blankets and towels in a big cardboard box, and placed it on the floor in the boys’ bedroom, puppy central. They added a clock, to simulate the comforting sound of a maternal heartbeat, a trick veterinarians encourage to reduce a pup’s anxiety when separated from its mother and littermates. An old teddy bear was found for the pup to curl next to and he immediately adopted it as his own. Too small to escape, Rafi twirled around a few times, looked up at the human faces looking down at him, found a nook and fell into a deep sleep.
Not for long.
Communicating their needs is hugely important for dependent pups, unable to fend for themselves, and it wasn’t too long before Rafi’s plaintive puppy cries began, manipulative whimpers calling for any number of things— a desire to be held or played with, hunger, a need to be taken outside to go to the toilet.
Yes, dogs speak. Not like humans with our highly articulated and evolved languages and patterns of speech; rather, they communicate through scent, sound and sight, generally in that order.
The music of dogs is a melody of meaning and intent. They are phenomenally and elastically orchestral. When you own a dog you know how they growl, yowl, howl, squeal, squeak and bark. They cry and yelp, sigh and moan, whimper and whine, rumble and snort. An adagio of low range pitches variously signal threat, aggression or anger, and they use higher-pitched sounds to call for help or announce they are safe creatures, not about to attack, and should not be rated a threat. Puppies almost always use a higher pitch for self-preservation.
Rafi was a quick learner and had succeeded in talking, or communicating, with his new pack that first night in Bowral.
Gemma, Nic and Marcelo slept together in puppy central, with the brothers sharing one of the boys’ beds while Gemma took the other. Rafi started out in the box on the floor but his persistent high-pitched cries for attention demanded a response. The only thing that silenced the pup was the boys letting him crawl under the blankets between them. Mother warmth dressed up as brotherly love. They giggled and tickled Rafi until his squirming turned to sleep, exhaling warm pillows of air.
The next morning, bursting with excitement, Rafi piddled on Marcelo’s bed. No one complained.
Wendy and Carlos had work and appointments to attend and Nic and Marcelo were too young to miss school, to which they went reluctantly. Gemma volunteered to stay at home and puppy-sit. Well, someone had to! She spent the day chasing Rafi and being chased by him. ‘He’d suddenly conk out,’ Gemma says now. ‘He perched on my chest and because he was so tiny I could hold him with one hand.’
The second night was just like the first and by day two, fatigue reigned. Rafi was spent—the children, too. Wendy had a plan.