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. 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 recieved 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 mix puppy and that was that. 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. 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 soccor 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.