DEAR PET TALK: What kind of jobs and services do dogs do? Yania Rentas, Goodrich Academy, Fitchburg
DEAR YANIA: Canines have more jobs every year, it seems. A few weeks ago, we wrote about the services that dogs can do in the medical sphere (detecting chemicals from the human body; letting a diabetic person know their sugar levels are unstable, for example). Dogs can do delicate work with their noses, or demanding physical work, such as pulling a sled or cart.
Keifer, a Bernese mountain dog who works with owner Cap Corduan with Be PAWSitive Therapy Pets, comes from an ancient breed of canine designed to travel over snowy, mountainous terrain with supplies when the snow is too deep for horses.
Other sled dogs include huskies (of course!). Dogs that love to work in winter are fascinating. If you go north of the Arctic Circle, and visit the people of Lapland, you might get to see a Finnish Lapphund herding reindeer (which has to be very helpful to Santa Claus, since they only work outside the area one night a year).
Some dogs are used at golf courses and parks to chase Canada geese away — or to discourage them from nesting and befouling an area. Other dogs are definitely one of a kind.
For example Alex Schulze of Florida, director of the foundation 4Ocean, trained his two black labs to dive for lobsters. Yes, there is video footage of Lila and Maverick plunging elegantly into turquoise blue lobster and retrieving a spiny lobster (which don’t have the claws our northerly lobsters do). Labrador retrievers are bred to swim and fetch items, but Schulze says it took him two years to teach them, because they needed to learn how to make their back legs get them down to 15 feet!
But to get back to how much a dog’s nose “knows,” there is a variety, the Italian Lagotto Romagnolo, which have been trained to hunt truffles. Yes, pigs are traditionally used, but porkers would be happy eating all they find. For the Lagotti, a truffle is no big deal.
Follow Alex Schulze on Instagram, and let us know if you come across dogs with interesting jobs.
Sally Cragin works with Be PAWSitive: Therapy Pets and Community Education. Visit us on Facebook and email questions to sallycragin@gmail.com.
