Sophie and her husband, Marc, admit, "Our two-year-old Golden Retriever, Lenny, completes our family. We even re-fur to our daughters, Juliette and Fanny, as ‘Lenny's sisters'."
The family is bilingual and so is Lenny. He responds to their commands in both French and English; but his best responses are reserved for their friend Bob, aka the dog park's treat man.
Lenny will do anything for Bob's treats. Another reason he has a thing for Bob is because he always has pockets full of tennis balls and this dog loves fetching balls; after all he is a Golden Retriever.
Everyone in the family loves Lenny, and he loves them unconditionally from Monday to Friday. Then when his "older sister", Juliette, arrives home on weekends from university, he treats her like the top dog! He follows her everywhere and snuggles with her wherever she sits. When she is away and the family mentions Juliette's name, he runs to the front door hoping she's arriving. His devotion and love for his family melts hearts.
Lenny was named after the rock and roll legend, Lenny Kravitz; but apparently, their neighbors think that his middle name is "banana".
He adores bananas and does anything for a piece of one. When he refuses to come in from their backyard, they call, "Lennyyyy. Bananaaaaaa!" Their prompting works every time and he trots right in the door.
"At the beach when Lenny was four months old, he was chasing his doggie friends as they ran into the water," said Sophie.
"Splash! It was his first swimming lesson. Bob and I could not believe it as we watched the puppy swim back to shore all excited with a ‘WTH just happened!' look on his face. Lenny was soaking wet, he'd survived a ‘surprise first swim', and Bob and I were hysterical with laughter.
As much as Lenny loves swimming, he oddly does not like rain. He was born in the summer, so when the Autumn rains arrived, he was like "WHAT?! Go away!" He hates the rain so much, that we bought him a raincoat and he launched a trend amongst his doggy friends. He was so cute and such a great model that total strangers stopped us and asked about his amazing coat."
Then when it snowed, their ‘flakey dog' barked at it, until he realized it was "eat-able". Then everything changed! He now loves it - thinking it is "snow good".
Sophie works at home while her office assistant, Lenny, sleeps in the office, (snoring and dreaming). When he is awake, he interrupts her phone calls with constant dog-chatter. You would think he thought the calls were for him! For this reason, when she has an important meeting planned, she relocates him to another room! Apparently, he is very helpful around their home. He licks the dishes clean, empties the office trash when bored, and helps "take out the compost'.
"He's very good at shredding papers from my trash," laughs Sophie. "Who needs a shredding machine! His help is wonderful as I work with confidential documents."
Apparently, it is not just people that Lenny loves. He has a crush on a neighbor's cat. He waits for her and then sweetly trots over so they can exchange a welcome-nose kiss.
He also has a mischievous nature. "When a dog friend is walking our way, Lenny pretends he is submissive and lays down," said Marc. "Then when the dog and parent get close, our Teddy-Bear faced dog jumps up like a monster startling them. We have to warn them so that they don't have a heart attack!"
