15 May 2016

Readers of HTBS keep responding to Chris Dodd’s request from 7 May in “Survival of the Fattest” that coaches (any HTBS reader is actually fine, too) should send in photos of their ‘waterdogs’. The following just came in from Nancy Moran in Craftsbury, Vermont, who has three Labradors: Trouble (13), Sam (10) and Hank (1). Nancy writes:

I’m not a coach but I scull and Sam, my 10-year-old black Labrador Retriever, hangs out at the dock. Sam’s a friend of Coach Larry Gluckman, of Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Craftsbury Common, Vermont, and, in fact, Larry and I talk about similarities in training Retrievers and rowers.

In the photo on top, Sam’s on the dock the folks at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center built for us local rowers on Little Hosmer Pond…. it’s probably the world’s smallest rowing club (5 members) and very exclusive (you have to live in Craftsbury).

Sam also hunts pheasants, grouse and ducks and ran Field Trials when he was younger.

The Craftsbury Outdoor Center has a rather checkered dog history. Russell Spring, who owned the center for many years, had a yellow lab named Bentley, who had the run of the place, but other dogs were discouraged. Judy Geer and Dick Dreissigacker are cat lovers (!), but softened when their daughter Emily and her boyfriend Alex got a Malamute, Gunner. Ethan, Emily’s brother, has bird hunted with Sam and wants a Labrador.

Willy Cowles and Steve Whelpley, athletes from Craftsbury Sculling Center, who won the double sculls event at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Team Trials in Sarasota, Florida, last month, and who are now in Lucerne, both have dogs: Willy a yellow lab, Ajax, and Steve a husky mix, Tanka.

As you see…I could go on and on about Labradors and boats.

Editor’s note: See also “Homer of Vesta RC”.