Amy Davis was 19 years old and jogging through New York City’s Central Park when she came to a dead stop. Was that a bear? It was not. The man walking the dog that stood about two feet tall with thick black fur said it was a Newfoundland.
Davis had never seen one before, but from that moment on, she couldn’t get the dog out of her mind.
A few months later, she attended her first Westminster Dog Show for the purpose of seeing Newfies. More than 50 years later—last May—when she attended her second Westminster Dog Show, she did so as the breeder of a champion Newfoundland dog taking part in the Super Bowl of Dog Shows.
“They are such great water dogs, boat dogs.”
“It was just such a thrilling day,” Davis said from her home in Gouldsboro, a “breath-taking experience.” But back in 1970 when she saw her first Newfie, being the breeder of a champion Newfoundland dog wasn’t on her radar—she’d never even had a dog before she got her first Newfoundland 54 years ago.
The daughter of parents who were in the military, Davis’s family moved around a lot. She was attending college in New York City when she had her first look at a Newfoundland. Six months after seeing more of them at the dog show, she’d moved to Massachusetts and purchased her first Newfoundland after seeing an advertisement for puppies.
Within a few short years, she’d begun breeding the sweet tempered dogs and entered the Coast Guard as one of the first women to join as an enlisted service member. It was during her assignment to her second duty station, in South Portland, that she met her future husband, Fred Davis.
After getting married, the couple moved back to his hometown of South Addison, where he worked as a lobster fisherman.
“He came to love them as much as I did,” Davis said of her husband, who died in 2008, and sometimes she and the Newfies would help out on the boat.
As luck would have it, Newfoundlands are built for working waterfronts. In Newfoundland, they were bred as working dogs for fishermen. They pulled in fishnets and hauled carts, among other duties, and as strong swimmers, gained a reputation as rescuers.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, they were common on sailing vessels of all types, and even today, you can find them working aboard boats, such as on Diver Ed’s Starfish Enterprise out of Bar Harbor, and in life rescue operations, such as at Scarborough Beach State Park where Newfies Beacon and Buoy are part of the lifesaving crew.
“They are such great water dogs, boat dogs,” Davis said. “They’re perfect for the coast of Maine.”
While some of the Newfies Davis has bred over the years have joined families with boats—and one even ended up living at a Coast Guard station—Sam Adams, the champion dog that was accepted to the Westminster Dog Show this year, has not had experience working on boats. He has had, though, plenty of dog show experience.
Davis began showing Sam Adams when he was just seven months old, and he got his first point—credits earned toward championship status—at his first show.
“He absolutely loves showing,” Davis said. “He’s a showman. At the level he’s at now, you have to be a showman.”
The level he’s at now is what got him accepted to the show. To be invited to compete at Westminster, a dog must be an American Kennel Club champion and in the top 5 of their breed, among other qualifications.
At Westminster this year, more than 2,500 dogs competed, but fewer than a dozen were competing in Sam Adams’s group.
While he did not earn the Best of Breed title, he was chosen as Select Dog, which Davis describes as an honorable mention presented to dogs who are the next best in quality compared with the dogs in the competition.
“When he made the cut and then he got an honorable mention, that was just over the top for me,” Davis said. “It was such an accomplishment and such pride and joy in the whole experience that just to have him there was an honor.”
Now at seven years old, Sam Adams is soon to be retired, and while she has already retired from breeding Newfoundlands, she’s hoping to get one of his male puppies in exchange for his stud fee. And maybe, like his father, that puppy will get his chance at the Super Bowl of Dog Shows, too.
See Sam Adams in action at the Westminster Dog Show, beginning at 6:05: https://youtu.be/8yraopqYs6I?si=LKzE5N4gzCR2nYBK
