Osca the independent Newfoundland

Osca was so different from Meg and William he lived life on his terms, yes like all Newfoundlands he was loving and friendly but he was his own man (well dog). From the start he respected  William as the older dog and learnt much from him and although they were buddies they were not close friend as William and Meg had been. Fortunately William had this easy going nature and accepted Osca as he was and even though they were very different they never fell out.

When William was put down Osca showed no signs of missing him and continued on with life without him. I often think that to some extent the fact that I couldn’t spend much time with him (due solely to my work) was the root cause of his self sufficient life style. It may sound that he was an unaffectionate dog and that is far from the truth he loved life and he loved us and showed it too, but he just didn’t seem to have the same whole hearted commitment to us that Meg had. I always thought William was a big dog but Osca out grew him and weighed well over 180lbs when he an adult.

Maybe we had got used to two dogs and it was our wish to have a second dog, not in any way Osca’s need. Mike had always hankered after a brown Newfie so Hogan arrived, not immediately welcomed by Osca. In fact when he first arrived he was ignored by the canine side of the family though welcomed and fussed over by the humans. What made it worse is that my daughter and grand children were staying and of course they all loved a puppy. Not for long Osca soon made his presence felt though at the time there were just too many humans for him to ingratiate himself with so Hogan got his due share. It was however going to be a permanent feature of the dog relationship whenever someone tried to make a fuss of Hogan Osca would push him out of the way. In the end Mike would fuss one dog and I the other, it was the only way Hogan got some love.

There were times when Osca would physically object to Hogan some need to prove himself no doubt; this ended up to his disadvantage as we had him castrated. From then on he was better behaved though not totally cured and we also had to watch his weight, he was apt to put it on very rapidly as a by product of his lost manhood and was put on strict rations. Despite what may seem to be a rogue dog he had many lovely characteristics and was admired and loved by many. But Newfoundland’s are subject to hip displeasure and Osca was no exception he was a large heavy dog and eventually his back legs gave out. I left it to Mike and the vet to relieve him of his disability in the kitchen. It was the loss of our third Newfoundland and this time he would not be replaced.