Hunting Dog Breed
Dog Sled Breed
Dogs have been used during generations as the only engine used to move people or merchandise on sleds through lands covered with ice or snow. The pulling dogs work on teams, pulling the load they are hooked to under the orders of a musher o sled driver. The pack train dogs also are used on sled sport races. The cornering (taking close curves at a very high speed) doesn't have to be an extremely tough practice for these dogs, but it is obviously not conformable for the musher, who stands up behind the pack train, up along 32 km. (in relatively short distances) and moving at a speed that reaches about 40km/h. In longer races, even when such speeds are not reached, the distances traveled are in any case chilling: the current record is that more than 1600 km in less than 10 days!
One that was bred as a pulling animal is the Bernese Mountain Dogs, a Swiss dog chosen because of its great strength and flexibility and the dogs that are currently used in Central Asia to make water heels.
HUNTING
The chasing instinct and getting hunting pieces, natural on the dog, have been profited by the man since the beginning of domestication. One of the most ancient canine families was the Lebrel's family (as the Greyhound, the Afghan Hound and the Deer hound) animals provided with a great sense of sight, capable to see the hunt and chase really fast.
On the other hand, the agile and little body of the Terriers give them flexibility and speed, very useful qualities for chasing and getting the minor hunt or exterminating bugs by penetrating in their underground hideouts, specially when joint to the great reflexes of these dogs.
COMBAT
Dog fights were already documented in the VI century b. C. immortalized on high relief murals. The dog toys and bred with this purpose are usually big and mucous and even when their great massiveness reduces their speed, they still keep a considerable flexibility. The legend says that the great Shar Pei owes its very loose and wrinkled skin to its capacity to turn around inside of itself if an attacker surprises it from the back.
Dogs, in general, are real athletes. Its normal for dogs to surpass in running, jumping or maneuvering even the most agile of humans and accommodate itself with the flexibility of a contortionist in the most narrowed corner imaginable and pleasantly sleep there.
A very restless dog is better than one that is always sleeping Irish proverb.
|
