[Glenn Ashmore]

How is your PWD holding up health wise? That is my first choice for a boat
dog but my daughter had one and he developed some skin and joint problems at
about 8 years. He lived in an apartment for 10 years but every afternoon
when the door opened he was ready to go even with his hip problems.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Molesworth wrote:
How do people cater for dogs on voyages? How do they do the sanitation
thing? Do dogs enjoy/hate sailing?

We have a Lab/Basset cross and am wondering how she'll get on on board.

We have a Portuguese Water Dog who loves being on board. Molly learned to
use the trampoline of our catamaran even before she was housebroken. We
had some "Astroturf" that turned out to be un-necessary. The washdown hose
comes in handy.

We added a clip in the middle of the cockpit so we could keep her aboard
during docking, or when the harbor master comes for a visit. We're
expecting that someday she'll hop into a passing dinghy.

The only problem we have is that Porties are "high energy" dogs and they
really want to have a good romp on the beach at least once a day. If she
doesn't get that, she starts to go stir crazy. Fortunately, the catamaran
has enough deck space that she can run around and burn some energy that
way. She's 4 y/o now so she's starting to slow down a bit, but she would
have been impossible on a long passage two years ago.

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

[Jeff]

Glenn Ashmore wrote:
How is your PWD holding up health wise? That is my first choice for a boat
dog but my daughter had one and he developed some skin and joint problems at
about 8 years. He lived in an apartment for 10 years but every afternoon
when the door opened he was ready to go even with his hip problems.


No problems at all so far, and we really don't expect any (knock on
wood). Prior to getting her we checked out the health of her blood
lines, including genetic tests for the several inbreeding problems
they've had. Porties have had problems, but the breeders got together
and volunteered for genetic studies that mapped out the problems.
Don't even considered a breeder that doesn't offer these reports.

I'd be curious if your daughter had this sort of info when she got hers.

[Glenn Ashmore]

I don't believe she did. It was a local litter bred by a friend. He was a
good and very intelligent dog but he was in pain the last few years.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

"Jeff" wrote in message
. ..
Glenn Ashmore wrote:
How is your PWD holding up health wise? That is my first choice for a
boat dog but my daughter had one and he developed some skin and joint
problems at about 8 years. He lived in an apartment for 10 years but
every afternoon when the door opened he was ready to go even with his hip
problems.


No problems at all so far, and we really don't expect any (knock on wood).
Prior to getting her we checked out the health of her blood lines,
including genetic tests for the several inbreeding problems they've had.
Porties have had problems, but the breeders got together and volunteered
for genetic studies that mapped out the problems. Don't even considered a
breeder that doesn't offer these reports.

I'd be curious if your daughter had this sort of info when she got hers.