by Steve Smith
Aside from the fact that you and I wouldn’t think of heading out to the swamps, marshes, bayous, bays, islands, rivers, inlets, and other likely ducky places without any fur-covered assistance, there are additional benefits you may not be aware of in retriever ownership. For one thing, they are good for our health. Because there’s a good possibility you haven’t thought about this much — and since I spend too much time thinking about stuff other people don’t think is important enough to think about — I’ve made a list of 10 healthy reasons you should own a retriever.
Reason 1: With the proper amount of training, convincing, cajoling, pleasing, and bribery, your dog can three times out of five save you from getting pneumonia retrieving your own ducks.
Reason 2: A well-trained retriever in the duck blind will prevent you from gaining weight by eating your lunch, making your wife and your cardiologist happy.
Reason 3: The best cardiovascular exercise is gained by getting your heart rate up to more than 70 percent of maximum; this can come from running a couple miles, or by riding in a small boat in the pitch dark in high seas with a 90-pound dog bouncing on the gunwale.
Reason 4: Your muscle tone is improved from wrestling with a large dog over a duck, a dead fish, your lunch (see Reason 2), or to keep him from attacking a smaller dog owned by a much larger man.
Reason 5: Weightlifting’s good for you. A 40-pound bag of dog food hauled 80 feet from the truck to the house every week of the year for the 12 years the dog will probably live equals 1,996,800 foot/pounds of lifting, which is the same energy and strength required to carry a 10-pound poodle 37.82 miles. Or a one-pound poodle 378.2 miles.
Reason 6: It’s been proven that those who read a lot have less chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease. You’ll spend more time reading and less time watching TV because the dog will steal, lose, or may eat the remote control.
Reason 7: Running down the block in your bathrobe screeching your head off and chasing your dog that’s zeroed in on any of the following: the mailman, the neighbor’s cat, the neighbor’s trashcan, the neighbor’s swimming pool, or the neighbor has to keep you trim.
Reason 8: An 85-pound dog stretched across your chest as you lie on the couch trying to get a nap increases lung strength.
Reason 9: Untangle 50 magnum decoys, 50 decoy lines, 50 one-pound anchors, one three-pound mallard, one large dog, somewhere between two and three metric tons of cattails – the frustration level alone gets your ticker kicking.
Reason 10: Tell me this isn’t good for you: Eighty-pound dog. Leash. Vet’s office. A hundred yards of parking lot. You get the picture.
This has to be what that “man’s best friend” thing is all about.
This article originally ran in the January/February 2002 issue of The Retriever Journal.
