Dog of the Day: Hunter the Flat-Coat Retriever

Hunter is only our second flat-coated retriever: this was the first. (Said posting, bizarrely, appears to have been the reason that DoSF was #3 in the google rankings for the search ‘slightly late’ for a couple of days, a few months ago. Maybe I should be late more often!)

I love looking at the interplay between dog and owner guardian. (Hey, it’s apparently the new term in San Francisco.) A lot of people (guys in particular) who would never show affection to their girlfriend/spouse/kids in public will cuddle and wrestle with their dog with unabashed glee. (And no, I’m not saying that the guy in the picture is like that; I don’t know him, and didn’t see him with anyone but his dog. I just know he really liked his dog. Which is only fair, since his dog is one of the most awesome dogs I’ve ever met.*)

That kind of dichotomy seems a little odd to me, from a purely biological/behavioral standpoint. I wonder how many animals are more comfortable cuddling up with a different species than they are with their own? I guess the ‘in public’ part doesn’t really apply, though… humans may not be the only species that is self-conscious, but it certainly is the most comprehensively embarrassable.

(*) As are all of the other dogs I’ve met.†

(†) Well, almost all.

Two more pictures after the break.

Black flat-coated retriever, head shot.

A reverse from the normal shot: here's a human gazing adoringly (or at least happily) at his dog.

Black flat-coated retriever

A lot of dogs get a little whiter around the muzzle as they get older. For some it happens earlier than others. I think with this guy it happened pretty early, since other than that he seemed pretty young to me.

Black flat-coated retriever, head shot

Sometimes these captions just write themselves. This is not one of those times. How about this: "HAPPY DOG!"

This entry was posted in Dog of the Day and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *