Newfoundland: Sweet, Patient, Devoted Canine Swimmers

Courtesy of John Murray, Ocean Beach, California.

John Murray often tells athletes who he trains about the mindset of disabled dogs. “A three-legged dog doesn’t care it is missing a leg. He runs with the other dogs; he goes and fetches sticks or balls. He goes all-out, happy to be able to run and have fun.”

Murray’s motivational style reminds us of the way Natalie du Toit of South Africa competed despite being an amputee and the first disabled swimmer to make the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim final in 2008.

Murray has two massive Newfoundland dogs, Finn McCool and Roxie, a powerful, sweet-tempered canine swimmers that love playing in the Pacific Ocean and on the shoreline of their hometown of Ocean Beach in San Francisco, California.

Copyright © 2008 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

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