NEWTON

Great Pyrenees and Jackie Mutz

Newton the great

Jackie Mutz’s dog had passed away after 15 years, so she went to a no-kill shelter, Operation Kindness, to find another furry companion.

She saw one she liked on their website, but when she met the dog in person, there was no connection.

But then she met the 5-month-old Great Pyrenees whose previous owners had dropped him with a note stating they didn’t know he’d get so big. (He weighed 50 pounds at five months and now is about 106.)

“Really?” Mutz says. “Any dog with ‘great’ in front of their name probably suggests they’re going to be a big dog.”

Anyway, it was their loss.

Newton the Great Pyrenees is a big charmer, more popular and famous in the neighborhood than Mutz herself. And now he’s in service helping rehabilitate other dogs.

Mutz started fostering rescued designer dogs — the poodle mixes known as goldendoodles and labradoodles — a few years ago.

“Newton is the best big brother,” Mutz says. “Some of these dogs have been really neglected, and he gets along with all of them. He is so calm that they just follow him around, and he is a great role model.”

It took seven months to get the first foster dog ready to adopt because she was so afraid of everything — people, hands, cars, noises. But she would follow Newton around, and eventually, she started to heal.

Every day, Newton lets his owner know when its time to go outside, and she lets him out in the front yard. That’s where he sits and keeps an eye on everything, and that’s how he became so famous.

Occasionally someone will wave to Mutz in the grocery store and say, “Hey, how is Newton?” Sometimes she recognizes them, sometimes not.

“He greets everybody who comes by,” she says. “Kids knock on the door and ask if Newton can come out.”

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now that’s something to wag your tail about.

Avi Frias, 14, loves to play soccer. But when an asthma attack struck during a game, she was afraid to play. “It was really scary because I couldn’t breathe, and I felt this huge pressure on my chest. I started panicking,” she says. At the Martha Foster Lung Care Center at Baylor Dallas, Avi was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma. “The people at the asthma center were really caring. They took great care of me to make sure that I could function again.” Now, Avi uses an inhaler twice a day and keeps a rescue inhaler on hand for emergencies. “Thanks to Baylor, I can get back to what I love doing every single day.”

Lovie, the Quaker parakeet

Laura Shoecraft wanted a bird. She’s not sure why, but she always wanted one.

So she waited for one to be born at a local pet shop, and she would go check on the eggs between classes at SmU. that was 1994.

Now her bird, Lovey, is 16, and Shoecraft says the bird is one of the best pets she’s ever had.

Lovey is a Quaker parakeet. that’s the same type of bird seen in the wild around White rock Lake. Shoecraft discovered this one day while she was out walking and noticed squawking similar to Lovey’s.

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“It’s silly, but I thought, ‘Can her squawking be heard all the way over here?’ ” Shoecraft says.

but Lovey doesn’t just squawk; she talks. She says “good morning” every day when Shoecraft takes the sheet off of her cage. She says, “I love you” (but only to Shoecraft), and she mimics the sound of the beeps that car key remotes make. She laughs and sneezes just like Shoecraft. And she says the name of her favorite color, orange, which she associates with her favorite foods, sweet potatoes and oranges.

Shoecraft also has two dogs, and when Lovey is out on the floor, they leave her alone.

“So kudos to them, too,” Shoecraft says.

Quaker parakeets typically live to be about 20 years old. but Shoecraft’s vet told her Lovey could live longer because she is very healthy and mentally stimulated.

“She’s just so special,” Shoecraft says. “It’s unbelievable.”

The three-quarter ton Chevy

It would be cheaper to have a crack cocaine habit than an obsession with horses.

That’s straight from the mouth of Harley Cozewith, whose love of horses started when she was a little kid. She doesn’t know where it came from, only that she always loved ponies.

“I started asking for a horse when I was 6,” she says. “My parents looked at me like I was the mailman’s kid.”

Although her parents didn’t have the means to buy her a horse, she once spent a week horseback riding at Girl Scout camp, and once or twice, her parents sprang for a lesson at the local stables.