About the dogs

I have always had or have trained dogs. My first dog was a Beagle, Snoopy, who I used to run in the fields of Michigan chasing rabbits. At that same time, I help train a English Setter, Kelley, and a Chesepeake Bay Retriever, Rusty, to be great bird hunters. Then I had Jason, a yellow Lab mix, and Boomer, a black Lab mix, who used to climb trees with me.
After I sailed to Hawaii in 1983, I got Aleo{“towering cliff” in Hawaiian}, a white Lab mix, who lived with me on my sailboat, Hanakapiai, off of Ka’anapali Beach, Maui. I trained Aleo to swim to my sailboat from the beach without me, just with eye commands. My next two dogs here on Maui were Gypsy and Kai{“ocean” in Hawaiian}, both black Lab mixes. Their claim to fame was their swims from Lanai to Maui, once in 1995 and 1996. The channel swim distance is 9.5 miles and took them 6 hours and 23 minutes. They recieved a Guinness World Record for the longest swim by dogs in the world.
Then Harley, a pure-bred chocolate Lab that had a barking problem as a puppy. Harley was given to me later as an adult dog and followed me everywhere that I went. I next received a black Lab mix puppy that I named Kaipsy{named after Kai and Gypsy} that I only had for two years. She disappeared one night and that was that.
One day I saw a Dachshund mixed puppy and he was my first dog. Franklin was the next and what a stud he is. Franklin is now the World’s Strongest Dachshund mix. He swims to the sailboat{150 yards}, dives in the ocean and swims after humpback whales, pulls 200 pounds carts at Home Depot, and plays soccer, and we mean, he really plays soccer. One day on Craigslist, I saw a black Lab mix named Kaya. I adopted her and re-named her Gykaiya{named after Gypsy and Kai} Gykaiya is a professional at tug-o-war and has to be tied to the sailboat when the humpback whales are around, otherwise she tries to fetch a whale. The there was Pu’uwai{“open heart” in Hawaiian}, a Shit-Zuh puppy that was the best little guard dog ever. Franklin took Pu’uwai on a walk-a-bout one night into the mountains, Franklin returned, but no Pu’uwai.
Currently I have Franklin and Gykaiya and they are both going on MauiSkiBus.com. Franklin will have soccer matches with children at the different ski resorts and Gykaiya will have tug-o-war games. They have all of their rabies shot and it will be interesting to see their reaction to snow for the first time.

MauiSkiBus2  On the 2015 adventure to ski 50 resorts and visit 50 yoga studios, Franklin will be joining MauiSkiBusSteve.