Cooper goes boating for the 1st time
Today we had the great good fortune to test our theory. Back when we were looking for our next dog, we wanted one who could go boating with us. We’ve had several boats, and if you’ve also been looking at the boat blog, you know that Russ has been building our next boat, a cabin cruiser. We figured that a dog with “water” in it’s name would be a good choice, so we looked mostly at Portuguese Water Dogs and Irish Water Spaniels, plus Poodles and Labrador Retrievers, among others.
Annie, who has a sailboat and a sweet little IWS girl, Stella, invited the three of us along on a boat ride up the Columbia River to Government Island. We don’t yet have a life preserver for Coop, so in the picture above, he’s wearing a red harness with a large handle along the back for somewhat easier retrieval, should there be a “dog overboard.” (There wasn’t -- Coop was really good and generally calm, even when the motor started up.)
It was a fun day. Warm and sunny, especially when you consider that it’s November in the Pacific Northwest, and calm (we had to motor, rather than sail). We got to the island, ran up the boat ramp, persuaded Cooper not to go down the cliff (he wanted to get to the beach already!), and took a short hike to the level, sandy beach, where we threw sticks into the water for the pups to chase. (In the first picture below, Cooper is the one on the left with the stick. He generally always got to the stick first -- I think because he has longer legs and is a stronger swimmer than Stella, who is on the right.)
And at the end of the day, after drying off in the sun, we were heading back toward the boat (darn it that we didn’t have a camera ready!) when Cooper jumped off the dock! If you’ve read earlier entries, you know how disappointed we were that Cooper wouldn’t jump off the dock at the dock diving events we’ve tried. His father, Balloo, was such a talented dock diver, that we had high hopes for Cooper. And now, when we don’t want him to, Cooper goes and jumps off the dock. Apparently, there was stick in the river that he just HAD to have.
In the middle picture below, you can just make out Mt. Hood, just right of Cooper’s nose.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
