It’s Follow-up Friday.  The blog hop that:

Let’s you wrap up your week and leads you right into the weekend.

Thank you to Jodi from Heart Like A Dog and co-host Jodi Chick Kol’s Notes  for hosting the hop!

Follow-up Friday 7-12-13

humanrescuesdog asked:  I’m always amazed at how beautiful your dogs are. Are they very different in temperament to labradors? They look similar to chocolate labradors but there must be some differences.

Yes they can be quite different in temperament.  They can be quite independent.  They tend to over think things and want to do things in their own way.  They need a person with a strong personality to own them, otherwise they can tend to try to run things.  They can also be protective.  Protective, not aggressive.

This is from the breed standard:

The Chesapeake is valued for its bright and happy disposition, intelligence, quiet good sense, and affectionate protective nature. Extreme shyness or extreme aggressive tendencies are not desirable in the breed either as a gun dog or companion.

Jan K asked:  I didn’t know that this breed blew out their coats. Is that why Storm looked like a chocolate lab?

Yes, and she had puppies on April 15th.  It is common for mom’s to lose their coats after puppies.  She actually had some bald spots for a bit, but is starting to get her curls back.

Miss Harper Lee commented:  My humans and I always learn something when we read your posts. Today we learned about force fetching, and we learned that dropping the bird and shaking all the water off is a bad thing. I’m afraid I would be a complete failure!

There is one other reason not to stop and drop the duck and shake.  When the dogs are doing multiple marks, it helps if they can get out as quickly as possible to retrieve them.  The more time the dog takes to retrieve each bird, the longer they must remember where each fell.  Too much time in between and they can forget.

Monday Mischief–Taunting

I did not realize that so many of you have never seen a black squirrel.  I have not seen many, but we do see them here in Michigan,  both at our home and at our cabin.

I looked them up and they are a dark pigmented variety of the eastern gray squirrel.  If you are interested in color genetics, this is the explanation:

Black and gray squirrels are only different based on one gene. Alleles are variations on DNA sequences at a specific location on a chromosome (usually different forms of the same gene). The allele for squirrel fur color has two different possible sequences – one that codes for gray fur and one that codes for black fur. Each squirrel has two copies of this allele. If a squirrel has two copies of the gray allele, then it will be gray, but if it has either one copy of the gray and one of the black or if it has two copies of the black allele, then it will be black. The gray type is actually genetically recessive, which is somewhat counterintuitive since it is the more common genotype these days!

Source

Trying To Feel Cooler

Oz the Terrier asked:  The photo of Thunder in a whistle sit in the water…does that mean Thunder is really sitting in the water?!?

Jodi asked:  So he didn’t really SIT in the water, did he? It’s just a term that means, stop, turn around and look at me when in water, yes? LOL

If the water is not too high, the dog should actually “sit”.  Thunder is tall enough so that sometimes he can actually sit.  Otherwise the dog should stop, turn around, and swim in place until cast.  The verbal command is still “sit”.

Jessica asked:  Mmm…weedy. Do the dogs ever get tangled up?

They do, but they usually just drag them along as they swim.  The weeds are not so thick that they could pull them under.  It is something to consider when swimming a dog with a collar or even a vest.  You have to think about whether the dog could get hung up.  We use a collar when training, but when running a test the dogs do not wear collars, except at the junior level.

Emmadog asked:  We are in a 4 day heat wave with temps in the 90′s and a dewpoints in the 70′s.  We are now getting warnings about that dangerous algae in the water.  Do you have to worry about that with the dogs or do they just ignore it? Here in MN several dogs die every year from ingesting it.

Yes we do.  It is called blue-green algae, but I have never seen or heard of it at the place where we test and train.  We do keep an eye out in our local ponds and lakes.  To find out more about it, including things to do to prevent it, follow this link to a pdf put out by the Department of Public Health Muskegon County.

Wordless Wednesday–Staying Safe In The Car

Jodi asked:  Do you have a big car? I can imagine three dogs in three crates must take up a lot of room.

No room for extra people, that is for sure.  🙂  We have a mini-van.  With the seats down, I can get two of the side-by-side crates in the back and the third is a smaller side-by-side crate turned sideways in the front part of the van.

We also have a pick-up and two crates in the back of it.  We can add a third is necessary.  But there are times when the dogs ride in the cab of the truck with us if it is too hot to put them in the crates in back.  We also have our trailer.  🙂

I think (hope) most people try to do what is safe for their pets based on the vehicle that they own.  Some people belt them in and others secure them in a crate.  There are many options to secure pets.  Obviously riding in the bed of a pick-up that doesn’t have a cap on it, or driving with a dog on your lap is not safe.

This ‘N That Thursday

In addition to the heat, we have had thunderstorms and driving rain every evening except last evening.  Bum luck.  We would have liked to get out more to train this week.  Ready or not, here we come hunt tests!

I know I have been complaining about the weather, but Michiganders put up with snow storms and blistering July/August heat and humidity for our big payoff which comes in the Fall.  Nothing better than Fall in Michigan.  Plus we are surrounded by the Great Lakes so we persevere.  🙂

Have a nice weekend!

Thanks again to Jodi from Heart Like A Dog and co-host Jodi Chick Kol’s Notes  for hosting the hop!  Go to their blogs and see who else is hopping!