Sunday, April 6, 2008

Working Dog?

Nope- not a euphemism for my approach to bike building.

I'm talking about Charley, my 80lb lap/shop dog.

My friend Andrew has a great blogwith a focus on his vizsla's training progress as bird dogs. Vizsla's are a very pretty red hunting dog of medium build that seem to turn out as very eager working dogs.

Charley is a classic American pound pup- we picked him up as a small black rottweiler that quickly blossomed into a large black lab. I blame the unconquerable viral genes of the labrador. They could mate with chairs and produce black lab puppies.

Charley just had his third birthday, and after quite a bit of work, here he is executing a very distinguished point.

Currently he and my wife are working on his retrieve by rolling a squeaky ball back and forth on the couch. This afternoon he will be marking cats out of the living room window. We've put quite a bit of work in on this, and he can now do it flawlessly with zero hesitation.

On the bike front I am finishing up tube selection for fully lugged road bike. Stay tuned for developments.

3 comments:

Delilah and Rocket said...

Excellent point Charlie! You are a handsome fellow and how cool that you get to hang out with your dad at the shop!

Andrew Campbell said...

Wohooo, Rocket came to visit, too! Anyways, thanks for the kind words about the boys -- I think most Vs will do well with plenty of words of encouragement, a little structure, and some bird exposure.

Charley IS one handsome beast! I'm sure you and Karen can get him doing all kinds of stuff. Most Labs can handle making coffee in a press-pot, but filters are just fine for their paws!

A+M+M+J

Quixotic Bicycles said...

Thanks for the visit guys!

It very easy to get Charley to do things, less easy to get him to stop doing things...

Charley prefers filters, though mostly for their papery-chewy consistency.