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Capt. JG

"Jeff" wrote in message
. ..
There is little chance you could train a Porty (or any other dog) to
untangle a truly fouled line. However, there was one case where we hired
a diver before we tried ourselves, and the line was only slightly
wrapped - we could have nudged it off our saildrive with a boathook.
Rather than use our dog, we have purchased (as yet untried) this implement
of destruction:
http://www.captnhooksolutions.com/

A Porty makes a great boat dog. The first thing you need to know is that
they are very high energy; don't consider getting a puppy unless you can
give it several hours of exercise a day. Ours gets a one hour walk most
mornings, plus an hour in the puppy play group. When we're traveling,
she'll get at least an hour most days running on the beach or some other
exercise.

Molly took to boat life even easier than house life - she immediately
figured out that the trampoline on the bow of our catamaran is the perfect
place to do her business. She's never had an accident on board, the house
hasn't been quite so lucky. Molly has no trouble in the dinghy or kayak;
in fact she insists on joining us for every trip and gets rather upset
when she isn't included. She has to be tied up if the pumpout or
harbormaster boat comes alongside or she'll jump ship.

On one short but very rough trip across Vineyard Sound (a two knot current
against 25 knot wind can turn the Sound into a Mix-Master) Molly sat in
the cockpit munching her kibble and chasing down bits when they went
flying.

Although Molly has no fear of the water she doesn't like to swim. At
first we thought it was just because she was a puppy and she would grow
out of it (and she may yet) but we've met lots of others that don't
hesitate to swim or even dive 5 feet with only a bit of coaching. Other
than that she's very intelligent and responds to training quite well.
Porty's are known as "courier dogs" because they will not just retrieve,
they will deliver packages to other boats. This skill usually takes
several years of training, and is often the highlite of the Porty
Association Water Trials.

http://www.sv-loki.com/Molly_Doodle/molly_doodle.html

wrote:
I wonder if the Portuguese Water dog can be trained and used to untangle
lobbers pots rope and fishing net wrapped around your propeller?

Background: From Wikipedia encyclopaedia: Originating back to the 1500s
in Portugal these dogs were used to send messages between boats, to
retrieve fish and articles from the water, and to guard the fishing
boats. (They often received a portion of the catch after a job well done,
too!) They helped to bring in nets and to save fishermen when they fell
in the water.

May be some of the cruisers already have a Portuguese Water dog and want
to share their experience with that breed of dog for cruising.

Do they shed much?

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com