#waterfowling laika

[zaryathelaika]

Judging from the hang time Zarya is giving while retrieving her favourite soccer ball, she might become a decent frisbee dog. Her hind legs are not as powerful as Pavel's, the kangaroo laika, but damn, she has a high clearance. Pavel will retrieve as well, but he only does it because of the trust system and mutual relationship, which would otherwise be easily broken in the wrong hands. He likes working with his partner, but is very picky about who he wants to work with. Pavel will retrieve game birds for his new partner. Won't post pictures because Tumblr doesn't have a way to blur photos like Twitter or Mastodon. Zarya retrieves because she lives for the retrieve. Laikas are not supposed to be frisbee dogs, and there are highly specialized retrieving lines from Moscow. Although the original Indigenous population will retrieve because Mansi and Khanty peoples hunt waterfowls; but the arrangements are more like "oh, you need a moose dog? I have two, want mine? I only need to feed one. Do you have a marten dog to give in exchange for the moose dog? I am in need of one" rather than any kind of systematic breeding. At the risk of going off-topic, there is a guy local to me claiming to have retrieving lines imported from Ukraine.

[bones-n-bookles]

I also acquired a new hunting dog book and atlas book!

Game Dog: The Hunter's Retriever for Upland Birds and Waterfowl, by Richard A. Walter's. Originally published 1983, second edition published 1995

Goode's World Atlas, from Rand McNally, edited by Edward B. Espenshade Jr and John C. Hudson, with senior consultant Joel L. Morrison. Originally published 1922, 19th edition published 1995

[zaryathelaika]

Context: Responding to a comment about adding tags in a previous reblog. Note: Adding inline content warnings for people who don't like reading about hunting, farming, pastoralism etc.

Yeah, I don't really like Coppinger too much after knowing about Mudis and Swedish Vallhunds are used in herding. He has some really bizarre theories about why dogs are not wolves because of his observation about Border Collies. (He also has some strange ideas because of his observation of beagles and rabbits or the British retrievers developed by the landed gentry. The latter is even more funny because he had access to old books about training retrievers advising sportsmen. And they don't line up with what he asserts.) CW: livestock husbandry, industrial agriculture Vallhunds, Mudis and other similar herding dogs are used more like mobile parameter fencing to keep livestock from wandering off the pasture into the forests instead of gathering up livestock or droving them to the markets. The industrialization of livestock agriculture is why Kelpies and Border Collies became preferred on the continent after WW2. That's why no one really uses Swedish Vallhund for their original purpose. All Coppinger had to do was ask a few elderly people about why they stopped keeping certain types of dogs. It's usually economic and being forced to compete against other farmers under capitalism. Reading a bit of Marx and other economic theorists (eg. Ricardo and Veblen) would have helped Coppinger a bit in explaining the specialized tasks he was witnessing. The Enclosure Acts alone would have done him a favour with lending his hypothesis some credibility. And if the dogs [Swedish Vallhunds] could be used in regions where they still do the old methods of keeping livestock, there are already local dogs with anatomy better suited for the climate and terrain. CW: recreational hunting

Or my own familiarity with the versatile gundogs (or HPRs for short) from Germany and France. Like, yeah, dude, Deutsch Drahthaars are supposed to be soft-mouthed enough to deliver birds to hand yet hard-mouthed enough to kill foxes and stop boars from running. Or what Russians write about hunting laikas. A lot of how Russians and other ethnicities use them run counter to Coppinger's proposals. CW: commercial or industrial hunting, subsistence pastrolism Like the dog is supposed to be sensitive enough leave squirrel pelts alone (pg. 54 - 81) [archived] to preserve the value of the fur. Retrieve waterfowls, yet be able to kill burrowing animals. As well as being able to herd reindeer [archived] without completing the kill sequence. CW: settler-colonialism, homesteading But again, English Shepherds and Scotch Collies [archived] are supposed to be multipurpose farm dogs as well capable of doing the above as well. He didn't even have to leave his backyard to find Old Shep. CW: Anglocentrism, disregard for Indigenous knowledge Even Coppinger's take on livestock guardian dogs not having a predatory drive is weird considering they are used in herding horses and other livestock in their respective countries-of-origin. Or LGDs being used in hunting boars and raccoon-dogs. Don't know why he decided to comment on something outside of Anglosphere disagrees with him on. CW: wolf-hunting I do agree with your sentiments about human's natural curiosity towards feeding animals. Indigenous peoples in the Amazons and Central America kept a lot of strange pets which are not scavengers. And early European settlers, eg. Lewis and Clark, wrote about spearing wolves after luring them [archived] with a piece of meat. (Aside: Additionally, the early settlers wrote about how curious wolves were about humans before livestock were imported to the colonies.) In fact, some hunters in the Soviet Union did spear wolves well into 20th century without having access to guns. CW: fox-hunting A mutual on Facebook got curious about someone mentioning Even Laikas catching foxes (pg. 30) [archived], so found some references to how they do it-- they wait until snow is about 40 cm deep then the snow slows down the foxes (Russian) [archived] enough to allow the dog to catch them. Either that or the dog crushes them in the den (Russian) [archived] rest of the year similar to why Fox Terriers and Jagdterriers are preferred to Jack Russells in central and northern Europe. So, that's how I found the references about spearing wolves in the old archives. (Apologies for not having references to post-Soviet surveys of how people lived in the Far East.) Trying to be fair to Coppinger since there is a lot of genetic evidence nowadays that dogs are extinct wolves. He didn't have access to the stuff we know today. (So we should be asking why the modern wolves are not the same as extinct wolves. For instance, why are wolves near human settlements are afraid of people yet wolves in the high Arctic are not? [archived])

But like ... Coppinger had access to a lot of paleontological, anthropological and archeological evidence (eg. the Bonn-Oberkassel dog) during his time. And a lot of Europeans can speak English, yet he didn't engage with anyone outside of the British Isles or the United States for some reason. Also strange he focuses on the fox experiment from USSR but ignored everything else from the Soviet Union. So, I don't know why people in the UK and the U.S. took him so seriously. So, when I criticize him, it's more about the stuff we already knew back in 2001. But yeah, apologies for the long hashtags because I didn't want to distract from the main post.

Mark Derr used a photo [archived] of one of my previous dogs in his article [archived] about the "Happy People: A Year in the Taiga" documentary. Felt like it was important other people deserved [archived] (as well as these folks [archived]) the credits for proposing the active social domestication theory. We probably won't know how dogs were domesticated. Or why we domesticated the wolves instead of some of the other species in Africa which were available to early humans. I do find it fascinating we can correlate genetic diversification of dogs with genetic diversification of humans whenever humans showed up in new lands. Like how the genetic diversification of dogs and Indigenous peoples predate Clovis culture.

I am not a scientist (duh) but I don't see why the dog domestication argument is always between hunter vs scavenger. It always comes down to these two options (I've read a lot of dog books).

Seems more likely to me that it would have come about from deliberate feeding rather than scavenging or hunting food. Like, humans across the world and across cultures all do this really specific thing with animals: feed them. Seems likely to me that feeding the wolf was just the first step in the domestication process.

I agree with Derr that scavenging seems unlikely given that plenty of animals scavenge from humans and haven't become domesticated so far. I also see Wynne's point that the hunting story seems a little too romanticised to be based in reality. But what's the best way to make an animal tolerate you, if not like you? Give it something to eat.

[wilderun]

Update! 

I’ve pretty much decided on the West Siberian Laika pairing I’ll be importing from! These are the parents, photo credit to their owner, Galina Katanova. They're both incredibly versatile hunters who work big game, tree small game, and retrieve waterfowl, plus both are show titled and have correct temperaments. I’m hoping for an agouti, but I’ll be picking off of structure and temperament, first. The litter will be born towards the end of this year. The timing works perfectly for me, since I'm moving this Fall, and this litter will be ready to import once I’m settled in 😍 So excited to bring these lines here to the US! 

[ezatluba]

The Very Good Adventure Dogs of History

Some incredible pups have accompanied explorers (or even gone solo into the unknown) over the centuries

Jun 3, 2019

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It turns out that courage, resourcefulness, sharply honed instinct, and occasional mischievousness serve both humans and beasts well. Like the explorers they accompany, the best adventure dogs have just a hint of masochism in them, enduring—and even enjoying—conditions that many people wouldn’t think of bearing.

Here are five intrepid dogs who made their mark on history by journeying where humans are few and dangers abound.

Stickeen

The Unflappable Alaskan Mutt Beloved by John Muir

When Muir began a canoe voyage through southeastern Alaska’s icy fjords in 1890, he only reluctantly accepted the presence of his friend’s dog. The fluffy little guy had the personality of a “small, squat, unshakable desert cactus,” Muir later wrote in the short story named after the canine, “Stickeen.”

Then Stickeen voluntarily joined Muir on a storm-ravaged day of glacier travel he would later deem “the most memorable of all my wild days.” It culminated in the crossing of a treacherous snowbridge spanning a 50-foot-wide crevasse that could have easily become an icy grave for both of them. Muir’s usually inscrutable companion became despairing and frantic given the peril before him; after surviving the ordeal, he became exultant, “pouring forth a tumultuous flood of hysterical cries and sobs and gasping mutterings.”

Both creatures were changed by the experience. They became inseparable for the remainder of their shared journey. Writing nearly two decades later, Muir declared that their “storm-battle for life brought [Stickeen] to light, and through him as through a window I have ever since been looking with deeper sympathy into all my fellow mortals.”

Seaman

The Newfoundland Who Journeyed West with Lewis and Clark

Purchased by Meriwether Lewis in 1803 for $20 (a sizable sum at the time), Seaman became an important member of the Corps of Discovery’s 28-month undertaking to explore the Louisiana Purchase and map a water route from the eastern U.S. to the Pacific Ocean.

A skilled hunter and swimmer, Seaman quickly proved his usefulness. He killed and retrieved waterfowl and deer to help feed the corps’ 32 members, alarmed them when grizzlies ranged close, subverted a near disastrous buffalo stampede, and accompanied Sacagawea as she established contact with Native American tribes.

The limited rations, ticks, mosquitoes, prickly pear cacti, and encounters with aggressive wildlife that bedeviled the expedition’s humans also afflicted Seaman. About halfway through their journey, Lewis saved Seaman from almost fatal blood loss by stitching up a bite from an aggrieved beaver the dog had attempted to retrieve.

Since the last journal entry mentioning Seaman was recorded two months before the corps returned to Saint Louis, little is known about what happened to him—indeed, whether he even survived. However, an entry appearing in an 1814 book, A Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions with Occasional Notes, pertains to a collar that presumably belonged to Seaman. This has led some to conclude that Lewis and his loyal companion enjoyed several years together prior to Lewis’s death in 1809.

Bothie

Explorer of the North and South Poles

Reportedly as fearless and amusing as he was stubborn and prone to mischief, Bothie was a Jack Russell terrier who became the first—and to this day, the only—dog to reach both the North and South Poles.

He and his adventurous owners, Ranulph and Virginia Fiennes, undertook a three-year expedition around the world via the poles starting in 1979. Ranulph, deemed the world’s greatest living explorer by the Guinness Book of World Records in 1984, brought Bothie along for their journey, save for the Africa segment (which was too hot).

In a 1985 Los Angeles Times story about the dog’s accomplishments, Ranulph described him as a “contrary-souled,” yappy mongrel and “a fully fledged renegade.” Bothie rocked a specially made red polar suit and boots to help him survive the extreme cold he encountered, a getup that inspired posters and life-size Bothie toys.

Naughty as he could be—he enjoyed liberating frozen eggs from buried food stores in Antarctica, licking them until they melted, and demolishing the stinky treasures—Ranulph and Virginia felt he brought a sense of normalcy to their 52,000-mile journey. After its completion, they wrote Bothie the Polar Dog to memorialize his adventures.

Laika

The Moscow Stray Who Became the World’s First Cosmonaut

Laika, a husky-spitz from the streets of Moscow, was about two years old when she made her ultimately fatal contribution to the Soviet Union’s space program. Chosen for her resourcefulness, docile nature, and urination habits—she didn’t need to lift a leg in tight quarters—she became the first living being to orbit earth.

Prior to the launch of Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957, Laika underwent training to acclimate to increasingly small, pressurized spaces and strong centrifugal force. Doctors surgically implanted electrodes in her body to monitor her heart and respiration rates, blood pressure, and physical movement.

She survived the launch and orbited space for several hours before succumbing to heat and/or dehydration, although the official Soviet line for many years was that she lived for closer to a week before eating poisoned food sent into space with her.

Laika was never meant to survive her trip into space; had she lived until Sputnik 2 completed its 2,570 orbits, she would have burned up upon the satellite’s reentry into the earth’s atmosphere. But her sacrifice helped pave the way for the humans to follow, and her name (Russian for “barker”) and story have inspired everything from band names and books to museum exhibits and statues.

Tschingel

The Peak-Bagging Beagle of the Alps

One-third of a team deemed “the most famous trio in the Alps,” Tschingel was a consolation gift given to a young American named William Coolidge and his aunt Marguerite “Meta” Brevoort by their alpine guide after a failed attempt on Eiger, in Swizerland. Tschingel quickly gained notoriety for her climbing accomplishments, which included 11 first ascents, primarily in the Dauphiné Alps of southeastern France.

Some of their hardier expeditions took a toll on Tschingel. During the trio’s 1871 climb up Eiger via the west ridge—this one successful—Tschingel was roped up for the final ascent and part of the descent. Bleeding profusely from her paws, she bravely soldiered on, leading the way over rocks and ice, avoiding crevasses along the way, and earning a reputation as “a born guide,” Coolidge later wrote.

Four years later, Tschingel became the first canine to climb Mont Blanc; that same year, the Alpine Club named her an honorary member, recognition that was not bestowed upon Brevoort—one of her era’s most accomplished mountaineers—since the club did not open its doors to women for another century.

[zaryathelaika]

Since laikas are considered natural retrievers on par [Russian, archived] with the best Deutsch Drahthaars and can start working as early as six months old [Russian, archived] with as little as 3 training sessions, here's some conventional wisdom from a magazine article [Russian, archived] in 1973 (machine-translated):

When hunting waterfowl and upland game with a [laika], as well as small fur-bearing animals, the most important commands performed by the dog should be considered the commands: “no”, “come to me”, “give”. These commands are used when accepting game from a dog after a shot. Therefore, when training, special attention must be paid to the execution of these commands. Compulsion to deliver [verbal] diarrhea with harsh intonations of the voice, and even more so painful coercion, is unacceptable. The hunter must quickly take the presented food from the dog’s mouth with his left hand, while at the same time giving the treats with his right hand. Dogs trained to hand-feed are always distinguished by their precise delivery. It is very important that the puppy is given not only a wooden or rag carrier, but also pieces of food that he can eat. It's done like this. An elongated crust of bread is thrown (such that the dog cannot swallow it right away) 2-3 meters away with the command “give it.” For completion, a [tasty] reward is given - cookies, sugar. A fresh boiled bone is thrown at a distance of 3-4 meters with the simultaneous command “give it”; for following the command the dog is given pieces of raw beef meat. When trained using this method - give something tasty, you will get something even tastier - the dog develops complete trust in its owner. With such training, the dog must be well-fed and must clearly follow the “no” command. On the command “no”, she should not only not touch the food, but should also stop eating (gnaw a bone, etc.). When a fresh boiled bone is served 2-3 times, the training is stopped and the dog is allowed to chew it in a calm environment. Practicing the execution of the commands “no”, “come to me”, “look”, “give” must be carried out systematically until the dog is one year old, complicating the situation, bringing it closer to practical hunting.

The ease of training is because Mansi and Khanty people use their Indigenous laikas as duck-dogs [archived]. There are famous lines of retrieving laikas in Moscow, Kyiv and other major cities.

Have any of your dogs ever bitten you? What were the circumstances, and how did you react?

I hope you don't mind the weird question. I like your philosophy about dog-keeping and how you handle your dogs (as best as I can tell from your social media posts). Asking as someone who was bitten by their dog for the first time today, for trying to take a high-value item away (stupid), and is feeling butthurt about it.

Yes, Conker was very resource aggressive when he was younger and there was a bit of a learning curve. Flint was as well, but I knew how to handle that better when I got him. I teach the dog it's ok for me to take stuff by trading. I start with lower value items and trade for something significantly better. A stick for a piece of chicken, until they will happily allow me to take the stick before they get their chicken. I gradually work up to higher value items, and it can take them a bit to give up the item depending on what it is. I will also give that item back after I have looked at it, so they learn that me taking/trading doesn't always mean they never get that thing they originally had. The dog needs to learn I'm not just going to steal from them, and especially that they will not get in trouble for having it. It shouldn't be something that they feel they need to hide from me because it will get them yelled at and their prize stolen. If the dog is a very young puppy, like Flint was, I do the trading game, but I will also hand feed high value items like a raw chicken leg, and they have to strip meat off it while I hold it. They can't just take the whole thing from me. Hand feeding can work with an adult too with various foods like kibble and ground or chunked raw, but it's a little trickier if food is the thing the dog is guardy over.