Water dogs are fetching to watch
Portuguese Water Dogs are more helpful than teenagers.
“They’re intelligent, they’re easy to train, they don’t shed, they want to do things for you,” said Midge Ihrig. “They trump teenagers.” Ihrig, who has three children in university, came all the way from Gurnee, Ill., about 80 kilometres north of Chicago, to Waterloo for the annual water trials event organized by the Ontario branch of the Portuguese Water Dog Club of Canada.
She breeds the dogs and has owned them the past 11 years. She now has five.
She helped throughout the weekend as about 40 dogs, from as far away as Texas, performed tasks that once helped and protected Portuguese fishers at sea.
On Sunday, the dogs swam in the lake at Laurel Creek Conservation Area.
They paddled with a pouch in their mouths, placed a buoy ball in a certain location and then dragged a 20-metre-long net across the water.
Each dog earns its own designation showing what it can accomplish, but they don’t compete against one another.
The owners simply strive for their dogs to improve, and each dog gets a title.
The owners say the dogs can understand commands like “hand!” (put it in my hand) or “shore” (swim to shore).
Some owners joked that the dogs can even be trained to take laundry out of the dryer and put it in the basket.