this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Animals with Jobs
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Is it an animal? Does it have a job? Then it belongs here!
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I love dogs, and dogs with jobs, but I have some concerns about this.
Dogs can actually swim pretty well when taught and can be trained to drag people effectively back to shore. It's called "doggy paddle" because that's what they're limited to doing given their natural mobility (and given the wider range of arm mobility in humans, it looks kind of silly for us to do it), but it's how they swim, and it works. The life jacket, obviously, helps. Golden retrievers in particular I think often really like the water, and retrievers are good for this job.
Retrievers in general were bred for swimming, because their main job was originally to fetch dead ducks out of lakes for hunters.
At the extreme end, Newfoundlands supposedly will sometimes jump into water and try to rescue people even without specific training. They were bred originally as work dogs for ocean fishermen, so they're very powerful swimmers.
I thought so about newfoundlands, but I wasn't sure so I didn't bring it up. I used to have one, he was the sweetest thing and always protective of me, though he wouldn't hurt a fly. I got a lot of questions about whether or not I was walking a pet bear, though
Wikipedia notes an incident in California in 1995 where an untrained Newf jumped into a river to tow a man to shore (plus several semilegendary rescues)—not definite proof, since anyone can edit Wikipedia, but we're not writing a scientific paper here. 😉
Yeah, something that big and shaggy does make a fair stand-in for a bear, especially at a distance. And the ones I've met have all had hearts of gold.
He was so sweet, but when anyone approached me who he didn't trust, he'd put himself between me and them and growl or bark.
Have you ever had a 200lb dog the size of a small couch staring you down and giving a deep, menacing "boof"? Safe to say people steered clear, and he was back to happily acting as a living pillow for me and my siblings. He got to nap, we got to nap, and he got to keep us safe and protected, he loved it.
And the age old question asked by a radio announcer at a fair - "Is that a black bear or a grizzly bear? ...it's a puppy!!?"
He was terrified of stairs, though, poor thing
I guess the stairs failed to back away slowly when he boofed menacingly at them. 🤣
Poor dear would tremble when he needed to get in the car. My dad had to bend down and scoop up all 250lbs of him to get him in there. He really thought he was a lap dog sometimes.
Such as? I can't figure out what you mean