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The first one is Dozer, he is a loveable lump of fur that keeps me company sometimes. He is half doberman, half rottweiler, but all sweetheart. He's probably about 12-13 years old. My grandparents adopted him when his prior owner moved to an apartment where they couldn't have pets. His leg is bandaged because he had to get a growth removed a couple weeks ago, but he is doing much better now.

The second one is Fred. I also call him Garfield sometimes because he is fat, orange, and sassy. He doesn't come out to the forge like Dozer does but my wife is still upset that our cat yells at her if I spend too much time in the garage.

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Dozer looks like a happy boy, Rotties have always been one of my favorite breeds. Fred looks like he's tolerating your human silliness for taking pictures of him pretty well. Cats can get loud when their staff isn't in proper attendance, I know that one.

Frosty The Lucky.

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  • 4 weeks later...

My wife loves Sam's look after he went to the trimmer, all smooth and shiny. I like him best when he is all poofy and scruffy.

Mees is about 3 months in this picture, he is 6 months now, ears are still as big but his legs grew a lot longer. And he loves destroying stuffed toys and jumping on his grumpy brother. And they both know how to act super cute when they do something naughty. 

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We have one who looks just like Sam. We keep her shaggy and just strip her coat when it gets too rough. We have another that we joke has some shi-zu in her(we've had her lineage for 24 generations), we bred her mother, a wire hair whos great grandmother was long haired, with an outside male who was a smooth but carried the long gene, so she got both long and wire hair genes. She ended up with something closer to hair than fur. She has to get clipped or her hair grows in front of her eyes and she looks like a black and tan Sam the sheep dog. She also rolls onto her back and scoots upside down along the floor to get attention. Goofiest dachshund I've ever seen.

Its hard to tell from the picture, is Mees a red dapple or is he just a shaded red?

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We have three cats and four dogs. And three of the four the dogs are standing outside my little shop. Three are girls and the one on the right side is a boy and he is blind, but if we don't say that to people thay don't even notice, he is a very smart boy.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/10/2020 at 3:34 AM, Shabumi said:

Its hard to tell from the picture, is Mees a red dapple or is he just a shaded red?

Well, he started out like something of a dapple, but now he is just completely red.

And to now surprise, he is also a lot bigger now.

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Alexandr, you are lucky to have a dog who likes to be on photo's. Our Sam hates having his pictures taken and will do anything he can to stop being cute and just look the other way. (to the chagrin of my wife who was a animal photographer for a few years) 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have not had an opportunity to share my forge buddies.  They are outside with me most of the time when I'm forging. 

The big black dog is McFadden and the other two are the brothers Red and Thud.  McFadden is what some might call a foster fail.  We took him in from the local Humane society when the cops busted a puppy mill that was a horrendous mess and needed room for 30 dogs.  About 4 months later, we gave up and just adopted him.  Red and Thud we got when our two elderly dogs (now Passed)  were getting older.  Since they are Aussie Shepherd/Black Lab crosses, we hoped that they would socialize and learn from our older two, who were very bright Border Collie mixes.  It could have worked, except that Red is about as sharp as a sack of wet mice.  Oh well.  what are ya gonna do

 

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Oh, I forgot, Mcfadden is about the weight of a smallish anvil :)  110 lbs or 50 kilograms.  He's a Black Lab/Newfoundland cross and he wields the Tail of Doom (+2 against anything on the coffee table and your legs)

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I love Newfies, very cool dogs. A table sweeper tale! Our recently passed Abby had a curved spitz like tail that was perfect for hooking over the edge of a table and sweeping anything within about 8" right off. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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5 hours ago, Paul TIKI said:

It could have worked, except that Red is about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. 

Same here, Sam is a way to smart for a dog and understands about everything you say. Mees on the other hand will just stare at something while you keep calling his name. And for some reason he has yet to figure out he can just turn around instead of walking backwards 75% of the time.

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Paul, who is the white legged guy in the back ground?

Love those big pretties. My dog passed a couple years ago and i miss him dearly everyday. He is truly the best friend i ever had. 

I heard this comes from India but way back in the early times dogs agreed with man that they would hunt for us , protect us , and be loyal for just a gentle hand, a little off the plate and a warm bed next to the fire. I truly believe there is a special connection between dogs and humans. 

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Billy Bones,

The white Lady in the background is Suki, our 14 year old White German Shepherd.  She doesn't love the forge, it's too noisy.  Red, on the other hand, likes to sneak up behind me and steal hunks of charcoal to chew on.

It's kind of sad, she's lived longer than most GSD's and has arthritis.  She spends most of her time on her soft bed by the couch, always in easy reach of a pat on the head and scratch behind the ears.  She still likes to chase her ball, albiet slowly.  Years ago, taking her to the park and throwing the ball as hard as I could, she would bound after it, it was like watching pure joy in motion.  I'm afraid she won't be with us much longer.

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There's more to the human canine partnership than a pat on the head. Humans and dogs have been partners for a good 35,000 years, maybe 10 years ago a Neanderthal site really shook things up, not only was there a grave with grave goods there was a wolf/dog buried next to the Neanderthal skeleton. IIRC it was dated around 45,000 BPE though I may be misremembering the age.

We're both omnivorous, cooperative, pack animals. They have the sense of smell and hearing and can run faster/farther than we. We on the other hand have great big brains and thumbs making it possible to kill really BIG MEAT! IF we could drive and corner it long enough to poke holes with pointy sticks so bled out.

Even back when we threw away lots of good wolf food so they stayed close but if they preyed on a human we hunted them down and: ate, made tools and clothes from them. Wolves are plenty smart enough to figure that out. I imagine it didn't take many generations of association for a human toddler to wander off and find itself stalked by a predator. A wolf is instinctively programed to defend the pack and it doesn't take long to become pack. 

We've been sharing: food, shelter, the hunt, defense against threats, gone to war, fed, nurtured and protected each other's babies for tens of thousands of years at least. 

In pack societies the Alpha decides who mates and no wolf that harmed a human got to mate but if it was good following game trails, could hear a threat, was a fast runner, etc. it's genes were allowed to continue. Hence, Dog.

There's a decent TV show, "Dogs Discovered Man, Man Made Dogs." I don't recall the channel and it has been addressed several times.

Gene mapping dogs is the clincher, All humans can trace their genetics to a relatively small number of men and women survivors of the Younger Dryas and it appears to be the same for dogs. All dogs are wolves bred from a moderate sized gray wolf still found in the mid east and north Africa.

I'm sure newer findings have changed what I think I know. No surprise there, things change fast.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Actually, the whole "Alpha wolf" thing has been thoroughly debunked. The concept originated with biologist Rudolph Shenkel based on his observations of *captive* wolves in a zoo. However, subsequent wolf biologists have realized that there really isn't any such thing *in the wild*. Instead of wolves competing for dominance within a pack with the "alpha male" being the one who comes out on top, wolf packs in the wild are basically family units, with the dominant male and female simply being Dad and Mom.

Unfortunately, the concept of the "alpha male" has lingered in the public consciousness as a misunderstanding of both lupine and human relationships. Here's a link to a good blog post about the whole "alpha" business by the guy who both popularized Shenkel's term and who is now working to depopularize it: https://davemech.org/wolf-news-and-information/

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I remember reading somewhere, but darn if I can remember where exactly, that humans and dogs made excellent partners because of complimentary hunting skills.  Wolves are excellent ambush and chase predators with the teeth and claws, made even better by the cooperative aspect.  Humans, on the other hand, were effective partially for the great big brains, but also because we were an unusual sort of predator, the endurance predator.  We are the squishy pink Terminator.  The critter may out run us, but it never gets enough time to rest or do anything else. Every time the prey turns around, there we are.  That is why we have relatively sparse hair, more effective sweat glands, lung capacity, longer limbs not made for speed, but to keep going.  It seems an awful lot of prey is built for fast getaways, not for the long haul.  The big brain and opposable thumbs are just bonuses.  So what gets away from the wolf gets chased down by the human. That is what makes for a good partnership.

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Wolves also do persistence hunting, by cutting out a weaker member of the herd and keeping it from retreating into the safety of the middle. When it's run out of energy from trying to escape, they close in for the kill.

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My dog was just an old mut but he had a lot of GSD in him. He actually looked like a brindle striped GSD. So he to had that short life span and the arthritis problems. It was an intestinal cancer that got him at 11 years. THe night before he died i took him to one of those 24 hour vets, huge waste of money $800 for nothing, but they wanted me to leave him ovver night till the vet came in in the AM. I am so glad i said no and took him home. He died with me sitting next to him gently stroking his head. He looked at me gave a little woof and passed. It would have broke my heart had he been alone in a cage someplace unfamiliar with strangers. 

Have not been able to even think of getting another dog until recently. And now that my neighbors Mastiff just had pups...love those big slobbery guys. 

Did ya'll know we do not know where the word "dog" comes from? Like the word "hound" we know comes from the word "hund" in old English. Linguists do not know the roots of the word nor any word in English related to it. Hog and pig are also mystery words.

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