The latest Benchdog

[derekcohen]

Let me introduce Rufus, my latest benchdog. Three months old and came to stay with us 4 weeks ago. A definite keeper. He is definitely a handtool .. ahh pawtool guy. Willing to work in all indigenous Australian timber. Has been known to make light work of Jarrah offcuts (his speciality), but has shown a similar talent for carpets, clothing, and plastic buckets. Annoying habit of wagging his tail all the time, with little respect for any tools that share space on the bench. Excellent retriever of shavings.

Hope you are all having a good weekend.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Dirty Den]

This is my benchdog, Sam! Unfortunately he has progressed beyond Jarrah offcuts to a blue gum carving I am doing at present. Other than that he has shown all the same qualities as the Rufus version.

[davo453]

If I’m not mistaken that’s a golden retriever Derek. You are a brave man we have a 3 year old female retriever and though very lovable she is not the brightest thing around the place. We also have a 3 year old male Rottweiler who absolutely adores her and she feels the same way but beats him up mercilessly.

When I add up the damage that both dogs did around the place when they were pups it literally runs in to thousands of dollars, destroyed fence posts, chewed gear drive sprinklers ($40+ each), dug up irrigation wiring, 3 pairs of nearly new Rossi work boots, countless thongs, the leg of one dining chair, approx 15 sq meters of lawn, my favorite overalls, lower cooling hose on tractor which caused it to overheat, one push bike front tyre and the front bumper and left hand tyre of the wife’s company car.

The list goes on but they are now 3 years old and the brains have finally started to arrive, it’s not that they were ever really disobedient when we were there it’s just that when left to run free in the front paddock they got into a bit of mischief !!

We would definitely do it all again though and the workshop would be a lonely place without them. But hopefully it won’t be for a long time. The best of luck to you both.


Cheers


Dave

[derekcohen]

Hi Dave

Rufus is our third Retriever. You'd think that we'd learn by now! Our last "Goldren", McGee, died 2 years ago at the ripe old age of 14 years. Now there was a hyperactive dog if you ever wanted to meet one!! I was promised that he would stop being a puppy at 2 years. Then at 4 years ... at 8 years we accepted that he was "interesting". I should have put him on Ritalin. The only saving grace was that he did stop eating the garden equipment at 2 - such as one of the wheels from the lawn mower. Ahh, but that one did have a positive twist (I have since handed over all mowing to a dedicated professional), and I could swear that McGee had a twinkle in his eye afterwards. Bright as a button. He was adhored by all the neighbourhood children. Such a wonderful temperament. I have memories of my son as a toddler pulling every part of his body and McGee just continuing to wag his tail and grin. He is very missed.

Rufus is a much more placid dog. But no less a chewer. Currently ruining an expensive rug which he has developed an obsessive determination to devour. It is disappearing bit-by-bit.

We also have a rather aged black Flatcoated Retriever, Ella FitzGerald. She gives him short shift when he gets out of hand.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[DPB]

Derek, if you could attach a filter to his tail perhaps the wagging action could be harnessed as a dust extractor.

Maybe Wayne Davy, or Sturdee could come up with a few suggestions for you.;)

[col2]

When my wife thought these forums were only about woody stuff, she didn't take much notice. Now that she thinks there might be other postings about Goldies she will probably be checking it out more often. Ours is Zoe, 4 years old, and fortunately she has stopped chewing stuff.

cheers,

Colin

[derekcohen]

Dirty Den

My apologies for not replying earlier. Sam is gorgeous. I was very keen to get a Border Collie. They are the most intelligent of dogs and wonderful companions. But they do require even more exercise than Golden Retrievers, if that is possible. So my wife put her foot down since she did not believe my promise to walk the dog every day. Funny that!

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Dirty Den]

Funny about that. I wanted a choc lab but the wife wanted this one. She too got her way. His Grandmother was Fly, the bitch in Babe.

[soundman]

I assume that because you have had retrievers before you either own the best vacume cleaner you could afford or removed all carpets from your house.

remember everything is chewable to a retriever. one of our pups took to draging a besser brick (as big as its self) arround & chewing on it ( grew out of that). My brotherinlaws dogs (both GR's) distroyed all their (large) pot plants including the teracota pots. One of our GR's licked a hole in a concrete slab.


Remenber to a GR that a hole isn't any where big enough till you can lie in it. Have you baught a new shovel & rake.

then there's the reaction to thunder, straight thru the screen door.

such happy & enthusiastic dogs. Nowhere near as silly as red setters though.

cheers

[silentC]

My bench dog is more of a floor dog now - she's a 14 year old German Shepherd. She recently contracted geriatric vestibular disease which affects her balance. She walks around now with her head rotated nearly 90 degrees counter clockwise and has to lean against the wall to stop from falling over. Her name is Jessie but I call her 'corkscrew'. It makes my neck sore just looking at her, poor old thing.

She lies on my workshop floor and watches me work, or sleeps. I have to watch her though, because the door is always open and she's just as likely to tear off after a kangaroo. Now that is a sight to see. She can still move pretty quick, but the balance thing means that instead of running a straight line, she hooks to the left and ends up in a pile of fur amongst the bushes.

Needless to say she's yet to catch a roo.

[davo453]

Age in dog’s is a sad thing, prior to the current two we had two Rottweilers which (as they are guarding breed) are also mostly extremely intelligent. They would lie all day with me in the workshop and give their opinon on anything I was working on. the high pitched sound of the router was one thing they couldn't stand though and would exit until i'd finished

Sadly at the age of 7 the bitch developed cancer of the front paw joint. Several vets suggested that they amputate the leg, which was something I wouldn’t countenance for such a large dog.

Sadly one day the male (Bear) suffered a suspected bowel torsion he covered up the pain in the morning and by the time I came back an hour after popping out he had passed away.

Holly (the bitch) went rapidly down hill after that, we purchased a Rottie Puppy (Ben) but she couldn’t stand him being around and after 2 weeks she also passed on.

As I said before we now have Ben and Molly the retriever and they go most of the way to replacing the other two and are totally different characters they are a lot of fun to have around. But to loose both so quickly like that still hurts to this day.

[silentC]

Jessie is my wife's dog. She's had her since she was a pup. She also had another shepherd called Sax but she was euthanised a year ago when we found she had a brain tumour which was making her go deaf and blind. To my wife, these guys are/were like her children. She'd had them both longer than me!

We know that Jessie wont be around much longer. On top of the vestibular disease, she also has arthritis in her hind quarters, although "Sasha's Blend" has helped a lot there. She had a bad turn the other day and her balance was so bad, she couldn't stand up. We took her to the vet expecting the worst but there's life in the old dog yet.

When she finally goes, we'll get another dog, probably another shepherd - although I lean towards cattle dogs myself. It will be a sad day though and not one I'm looking forward to.

[q9]

Here is the latest addition to our household:

http://users.tpg.com.au/s_tech/tia/tia.htm

A pound puppy, who had twice been taken and returned. Yes, we were worried, but we have 40 odd acres here for her to romp around, and can imagine she'd be a handful in a suburban block. Definately a lot more energetic than our last dog, a 53kg German Shepherd, and smaller too, at a tiny 14kg.

Be warned! Photos are big! Taken while testing a Sony 5MP camera.

[Dirty Den]

Looking thru these posts it seems to me woodworkers have extremely good taste in dish lickers:D

Dennis

[davo453]

Our two

[clubbyr8]

I too am of the Golden Retriever brigade and until August last year had a male and female. The male had a heart attack and died and he'd been with me since he was 6 weeks old (he was 10). It was one of the hardest days of my life when we lost him.

I suppose mine were a bit strange as neither have been chewers, but have made up for it in the amount of hair that is shed on the carpets. Thank goodness for Dyson.


Bob

[gold leader]

This is Merlin......

[gold leader]

His daughter Seven......

[gold leader]

And this little guy is Ranger (not a BC lol)

[silentC]

This is Jess in "corkscrew" mode... Still has her looks though - not bad for an old dog....

[Zed]

This is Bazzil - successor to Fritz (Black key holder - see previous post).

Alas Bazzil is in an urn now - I intend to bury him under a tree one day...

[antman]

Late reply here but... I have seen the results of dogs like Border Collies and Heelers that are locked in a back yard as status symbols with no attention or exercise. Then when the dog gets bored and chews a passing kid nobody can understand it :confused: No offence intended either, its just a sad fact that some people have no idea.

We would have loved a larger dog like a retriever (but space constraints etc) ended that idea and we certainly got more than we bargined for when we became proud "owners" of a miniture fox terrorist. She also devours anything not bolted down and if she can't move it she just chews it where it is. I thought we would go broke with the number of sprayer attachments she destroyed in a week.... Thank goodness for vicks vapour-rub! She is now 4 years old and much more placid but storms and fireworks still bring out the inner-pup :D

Like everybody else here, we couldn't imagine life without our dog and now that we have a 6 month old boy I can't wait until they start getting around together. Best mates already, I can imagine the caos brewing!

Cheers
Anthony