Toronto Animal Services Friday Review, May 15

Toronto Animal Services South didn't take in a lot of dogs this week but they did get this mismatched pair from a pound in Quebec. Boo, the female Shih Tzu, may only be about half the size of the big male Leonberger's head but they got along famously on their car ride down to Toronto and seem to fancy each other quite a lot. Now that's got to make for a frustrating relationship.

Boo is a perfect little companion dog and though she may be small, her personality is pretty big. I had her out with the Leonberger and even though he was the more immediately eye-catching dog, simply because of his size, Boo wasn't going to let him hog all the attention. She'd get up on her hind legs and wave you over hoping for some spare affection.


The Leonberger, unnamed as of yet, is the biggest dog I've ever seen at Toronto Animal Services with a huge bear head and huge bear mitts. He's very friendly, a little too exuberant for his size perhaps and slobbers buckets. He's "only" 128 pounds - which surprised me because my Great Dane, Stella, is 135 lbs and this guy looks way bigger than her. It's all his gorgeous, thick fur coat, of course, because when you feel him, he's all bones underneath. This big boy actually needs to put on a whole bunch more weight.


Update (09-05-16): Well, it looks like the Leonberger is probably not a Leonberger but a Tibetan Mastiff. He was shown to a breeder today and the breeder's pretty sure.

It boggles my mind that someone would dedicate the time and money to track down such an exotic breed like this, buy it, raise it and then dump it off at the pound to be euthanized. Some people really have shit fer brains.

More on George here.

More on Boo here.