Doggie influence

[hotwine]

Back in Feb, we became foster family for a TSA bomb-sniffer puppy..... beautiful dog, part lab, part Viszla (Hungarian hunting dog), bred for explosives detection... shows hyper activity from the lab with a phenomenal nose and speed from the Viszla. One high-maintenance female! Twice-daily walks of at least a mile each, lots of play and lots of fun. But she's sure cut into my note-taking time! She seems fearless, but strangely enough, when I take her to the cellar, she stands at the top step and gives me this look of "You want me to go where and do what?" Have not been able to coax her into that dark dank space..... I could drag her down there, but don't want to traumatize her. She really is one smart puppy! But her trust certainly has its limits!

[Drew]

That's pretty cool, Gil. Howd you come to being a foster family? When I supervised the Baltimore City K-9 unit, some time ago, we would often have to respond to the Inner Harbor as the alarm would sound on the USS Constellation. The dogs would not go to the lower level of the ship no matter what! We always said that area was haunted.

[hotwine]

Drew, we happened to see a news feature in mid-Feb on the local Fox affiliate that showed the TSA Canine Breeding and Development Center at Lackland AFB and discussed their need for families to take these dogs in for the first year of their lives to give them exercise and socialization. I contacted the Center and offered to take a pup, and after a process of interviews and inspection of our home, we got the dog on 21 Feb. The local newspaper came out just yesterday with a long feature story on one family and their dog; go to mysa.com, type puppywalker into the search window, and the story with pics will pop up. The dog in the story is the spitting image of ours.

Have no way to explain a dog's aversion to cellars, ships' holds or other such places; maybe a dog shrink could explain it.

[Thomas]

Could be an aversion to staircases rather than to cellars.

I had a dog that hated going down staircases--would go up, but then would freeze at the top step for the trip down.

In any case, the adoption thing sounds nice.

[winoweenie]

Hotsie went to my san antonio web site did the puppywalker insert and nuttin' showed up. Must have been taken down. WW

[hotwine]

It's still there, Verne. http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Puppywalkers-get-explosives-sniffing-dogs-off-to-1468333.php

[hotwine]

Thomas, you may have broken the code regarding the pooch's aversion to stairs. She handles the steps on the deck just fine, but she can clearly see what's below. The cellar is dark, illuminated only by rope-lights around the ceiling. And her nose tells her there's some strange stuff down there, outside her normal experience; so she says "Nope, ain't gonna do it, and you can't make me! See ya!"

[winoweenie]

That look-up site be a whale of a lot longer than the one youse posted originally, howm-so-ebberly it did work. Giving up these babies is like dis-inheriting one of the kids ..NO? What a neat thing. WW