www.riverdogprints.com

I created a mission statement.

Now, before you roll your eyes… (I’m writing to you, humans, as dogs don’t roll their eyes)

My mission statement is simple:


With a little nod to Salt-n-Pepa, I’m reaching out to my fellow dogs and asking about you. If you’re interested in writing about yourself or if you humans want to write about your dogs, email me: Scout at riverdogprints dot com. I will send you a list of questions and ask for an adorable picture of you. Then, you’ll be featured right here on the old dog blog.

Why am I doing this? Well, I’ve thought a lot about this little blog and I’d like to write more posts. Problem is, how much can you write about yourself? If you’re a complex human, probably quite a bit (and probably more than you should.) Dogs live pretty simply by choice, so interesting posts about my life come sporadically. But I want to keep the blog about dogs, who we are and how we operate.

If you think you’re not interesting enough, you’re wrong! Send me an email, I’ll send you the questions and you’ll see how interesting you can be.

Don’t I look vicious? Grrrrrrr.
Probably more freaky than vicious…

I usually love walking the trails around where we live, but today, whew! We mostly walk trails where humans take us dogs off our leashes. When we meet other dogs, we socialize. Simple concept.

We see a small dog running down the trail to greet us. There are introductions of the doggie kind. Then, his big dog brother lopes on down. More intros - all good. When their human joins us, all H-E-double-hockey-sticks broke loose. The little dog barks what seems like orders to the big dog and big dog attacks. It’s an intimidation strike, teeth bared, but no intent to bite… yet. Their human reprimands, as I snuggle myself in the human tunnel of mine, between both his legs with my tail in assault mode. The human apologized for her dogs, even gave me a little pat on the head and they were on their way.

It was pretty much out of sight, out of mind for me. I heard A-Dog say that the little dog reminded her of the cartoon dog with a hat and cigar, barking orders to his big, dopey dog friend. I don’t know about that, but I do know that dogs can be unpredictable to humans. We don’t always act sweet and want our heads rubbed. And when you’ve got more than one, you must be wary of the dynamic. Those behaviors live deep in our furry genes. Woof!

Is there anything better than sticking your snout in snow? Eating snow on the run is pretty good too…

Here in the Northeast, we dogs rock with the changing seasons. We dig more from fall to spring, because WE CAN! There are leaves and snow separating us from the precious ground, so we get a pass on the “No dig!” command.

Anytime I can shove my face into something soft and get a big whiff is a good time. Snout in snow makes me sneeze - love that. And gobbling snow on the run is just another pleasure I can’t pass up. On a winter walk, the air is dry, so I hydrate. It’s what great athletes do :)

One caveat - if your dog is older and eats snow obsessively, you might want to make a trip to the V-E-T (I have to spell it for those sensitive dogs out there.) It could be a sign of a health problem.

But if your dog is just as quirky, and dare I say, lovable as I am, Let them eat snow!

*This post was originally published in December 2008.

A good portion of my workouts are outside in our yard. I play with balls and different retrievable objects, but my absolute favorite, is the water Kong. It looks like a long, tennis ball and is attached to a braided string for throwing. It can frequently get caught in a tree, as seen below. We communicate very well together and A-Dog is a good lady!

Humans don’t get it. When you sit or lay on the floor, you are now in dog territory. You’re fair game to sit on and get your long overdue face bath. You are also considered to be lower in the pack order.

A-Dog rarely sits on the floor, but Shoes-on-the-Floor, Little-Feet and Preemie-Feet, all spend quality playing time there. I don’t pay attention to the little ones, until Shoes plunks himself down on the carpet. Then I am compelled to get between him and whomever he’s playing with at the time. ::see photo above :) I am illustrating our pack order here.

I am allowed to lay on the furniture and, heaven forbid, sleep on the bed. But I do follow the pack rules. When A-Dog gets in bed for the night, I get off the bed and go to my chair. When the mornings get chilly, I move from my chair to the bed, but I almost always sleep on Shoes’s side. I’m respecting my leader. Pack leaders eat first, get the best food, sleep where they want and can wither you with a look. They sound bossy, yes, but if there was no leader, guaranteed there would be mayhem.

As you can see from the photo, I consider myself to be third in line. I’m letting that little guy on the left know that he is fifth and he and Shoes should remember that fact. I’m not aggressive about it, except for the destruction of the block tower. But the tears dry and the shouts fade and I am still THIRD! Booyakasha baby!

For the wrap-up of Chessie Week, I thought I’d give you a history of the breed.

An English brig shipwrecked off the coast of Maryland in 1907. The crew was rescued, as well as two Newfoundland puppies named Sailor and Canton. They were bred to local retrievers, including the English Otter Hound, Flat-Coat and Curly-Coated Retriever. The Chesapeake Bay Retriever was created, one of the few American-bred dogs.

Chessies were well-known for hunting waterfowl in rough and icy waters. We could be asked to retrieve hundreds of ducks in a day. We could be in the icy waters of the Chesapeake Bay for many hours retrieving and tossing them over the side of the boat with very little rest. Gives you a little snapshot into how much exercise we need, doesn’t it? As a result of being in the water for so long, we started to think instead of just obey. Perhaps the reason why we have the reputation of being stubborn…

That’s just a little of Chessie history. We have our unique traits, just like most breeds. if you’re interested in a hands-on experience with all different kinds of breeds, you can visit Meet the Breeds. This is an AKC event at the Javits Center in NYC on October 17 and 18. There will be 166 breeds of dog (lots of cat breeds too, if you like that sort of thing), including the Chesapeake. Go, pet our wavy fur and perhaps, fall in love.

Thanks for hanging out for the week and celebrating my heritage! Woof!

A classic dog smile… we Chessies know how to smile like that as you can see above. But did you know that we also have a Chesapeake-only “smile” that can flip out the uninitiated?

This “smile” is toothy and comes with all kinds of vocalizations, which can include a growl or two. Each Chessie has a unique “smile,” just as humans do. If you don’t know this about our breed, it could seem as if we’d like to eat you for lunch. But it’s our way of showing happiness. Even when we aren’t smiling, we can be very vocal. A deep and throaty “roo-roo-roo” means “What’s up? Where have you been? I’m so happy to see you!” It always makes the humans laugh.

I give my smile only when I have a toy in my mouth, so you don’t see my teeth, but you can hear my happy growls. Many a visitor has recoiled to these noises, but they soon see I’m just a bucket of love. I don’t have any media to show you my smile, but here’s a little clip of another Chessie showing his lovely teeth, enjoy!

Do you follow me? I’m @ScouttheDog on Twitter and I hang around Facebook on the RiverDog Prints page. Are you a fan?

With social media being all the rage, even dogs like me can have our own little part of the interwebs. How does that relate to being a Chessie? Roll with me homies…

My breed is fiercely loyal - we are a one family dog. We protect and love our family, whatever that may be. I’ve been raised with cats and kids, so I’ve been socialized to accept and love them. Socializing a dog means to introduce them to other dogs, animals and people. It can also mean to expose them to different social situations. When a dog is socialized, we remain calm and polite in most situations. It is essential to socialize Chesapeakes from the get-go of puppyhood. Our Chessie history has placed us with just one person, usually a hunter, and that mentality is ingrained in our independent brains.

When we meet another dog for the first time, we’ll make quick introductions (yeah, you know how we do it.) After that, it’s like the other dog doesn’t really exist. If the other dog wants to play, we’ll go along, but we’re always looking to see what our main peeps are doing. We won’t engage unless we’re the dominating kind.

Without socialization, meeting other dogs and humans can be a terrible experience. Chessies will either be excessively submissive or the completely obnoxious A-Dog. So, bring us out. Introduce us around and we’ll show you that quirky, silly and very active doggie that make humans marvel at our positive energy.

Originally published 11-12-08

The humans are so angry.

I can’t help myself… I’m a dirty dog.

Me and A-Dog have been out running for the past couple weeks. She takes me places where I can run free (as long as no one is there), because I run too fast for her. When she’s holding the leash, I need to summon all my patience to “run” at her pace. She lets me off when the coast is clear and we each do our own thing. That’s where I run into trouble.

As I’ve mentioned, dogs like things that smell. We don’t make a good or bad judgment about the smell; it’s just smell. I lose my mind a little in the presence of decomposition. You can snap me out of almost anything with the promise of a treat, but not when I smell poor little mousy, three days gone. I get a smell, then a smear, and if I’m really lucky, a roll. That’s when the shouting starts. It’s usually my name and NO! and COME NOW! This is my third mouse in as many weeks, so the words coming out of A-Dog’s mouth were a bit different. She was speaking so fast and loudly that all I heard was “gonna kick your barking a**!”

Needless to say, that didn’t happen. I got a bath and a fresh collar (the smear is always on my neck, like a fine perfume) and a lot of attitude from A-Dog. I’m acting as contrite as possible, but it looks like no ears rubs in my future.

So why? Why do we rub ourselves in death with such passion? The ancient instinct to mark our discovery to the pack is one theory. Masking our odor for hunting is another. Whatever the reason, I don’t think about doing it. I just do. And I only remember that I’m not supposed to do it, until after it’s done.

What can you take away from this? Either accept it as natural dog behavior or keep me on the leash and run faster. Here endeth the doggie lesson - woof!

Go ahead - you know you want to…

“I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy. A Yankee Doodle do or die. A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, Poop on the 4th of July…

Let’s call it “The Incident” and here’s the preamble to it. Every year for the 4th of July weekend, our family is invited to A-Dog’s friend’s house (we’ll call it Camp 4th) about an hour away. These friends have a pool, large backyard and a house that can accommodate two other families. This past 4th weekend, besides the seven grown-ups (interpret that term loosely) and the eight kids, there were four full-grown dogs of various breeds.

This is the sixth year we have been hosted at Camp 4th. The adults all get along and look forward to seeing each other, if only for this once a year. The kids and dogs for the most part get along too and it’s usually a fun weekend filled with lots of food, laughter and fireworks.

Keyword=fireworks. As most dog owner’s know, the 4th of July is considered hazardous by your dog. It’s noisy and scary and pointless for most of us canines and we’d really like to be anywhere else but near the boom. And speaking of boom, I think you know what’s coming. For some reason, all of the dogs were roaming free inside the house during the Saturday night fireworks. It’s a backyard show, but it lasts about 20 minutes and is impressive for an individual’s home (and probably slightly illegal.) All the kids are under 10, so as soon as the show was over, the parents were shuttling them off to bed.

Something smells BAD!
OMG, there’s a pile of poop in the kid’s room
And there…
And there…
And there!

All us dogs looked freaked out and guilty, except for Roy. He’s our host’s dog and he was calm as the pool at night. We guest dogs just tried to find a safe place, out of harm’s way. There was much shouting and drama and kids screaming. I must say that two of the lady grown-ups (who else,right?) acted so quickly in clean-up doody (get it?) that there was minimal damage and odor. Blame was up for grabs, but we mostly decided that it didn’t matter. How would we determine which doggie it was anyway?

What does this teach us for next year? Well, if our host invites the people AND us dogs back to Camp 4th, there needs to be solid containment during the fireworks, in more ways than one. We should be walked first to avoid spillage, then put in a room to shield us from the noise. Hopefully by next year, we’ll all be laughing about it. I think it may take our host a bit longer…