For me, the funniest thing was on a tow from Ensign back across Moose to CBO. The wind was blowing pretty hard across Moose and the tow driver wasn't backing down. The bow hit a wave pretty hard and we (wife, two dogs and I) got a lot of spray. Wendy (wife) and I were wearing raincoats so no problem for us.

Lucky, our red merle Aussie, wasn't happy at all! He crawled up on my lap and would have kept going over my shoulder if I didn't hang onto him. He didn't like all the bouncing in the bow and the unexpected shower did nothing to improve his mood.

GSP's picture of Marco sitting in his lap reminded me of that.

Our funniest Decoy story was last May on Pine as we paddled out on the last day. Decoy was sitting quietly in the canoe and all of a sudden got spooked and barked! Of course, it echoed, which threw her for a loop and she barked back at her echo. This continued on and on... We had some good laughs-crazy dog!

my buddy and i woke up early one morning. it sounded like a beaver was chewing an aspen nearby. it was tanya, my husky from hell. he ate my buddies canoe paddle. that was a good laugh.

I hope to have a good one soon...

:)

Our lab hates swimming. One trip she found something dead to role in and was really stinky. Hubby was fishing on a rock and she came and stood next to him. She was so stinky he push her in the lake lol! She swam out all discussed and stood in the smoke from the fire. She wasn't stinky any more lol

quote Canoearoo: "Our lab hates swimming. One trip she found something dead to role in and was really stinky. Hubby was fishing on a rock and she came and stood next to him. She was so stinky he push her in the lake lol! She swam out all discussed and stood in the smoke from the fire. She wasn't stinky any more lol"

I've never understood why dogs insist on rolling in gross stuff!! Karma did the same thing, at the end of the 1st Meadows portage in Quetico. I took her out a little ways into the lake to wash her off, at which time her collar fell off and I had to spend about 15 minutes trying to find it. Man was I frustrated. The stink didn't fully come out which made for an unpleasant paddle to the camp site (she sat in the bow with me), which luckily wasn't too far since we were staying on Meadows. Oh, then as soon as we got to camp she decided to "take care of business" right smack in the middle of the only tent pad.Boy was she in the "dog house" for a while :-)

Funny stories, keep 'em coming :-)

Another Karma story for me. I should preface it by saying she loved to swim and enjoyed fishing even more, and her nickname was "Dingo" which comes in later. I swear she was our own live fish finder...no matter if we were canoeing or in a motorboat, there were so many times when we were trolling/not catching anything, then she would all of a sudden get a really intense look on her face watching the water, shortly after it was FISH ON!

Anyhoo, we were camped on a small island and I was miserably sick, so my boyfriend took the canoe out to fish while I stayed with the dogs to do some shore fishing. I wasn't having much luck, but also wasn't trying too hard. The dogs were laying with me in the shade, then Karma got up and left. I wasn't concerned since it was small island so she couldn't go far, and she never let me far from her sight anyway, was my "velcro dog". About 5 minutes later I hear Ben yelling from a ways out on the lake/other side of the island, "There's a Dingo in the water!!!". I panicked and ran as fast as I could to the other side (hardly had the energy to even walk prior to that), only to find her half way across the lake swimming after him. Apparently she was bored with my lack of fish catching and wanted to join him :-) I was still worried because she was 10 years old with arthritis and hadn't swam that much in recent years, and she was a long way out from the island. It was funny though watching Ben quickly reel in his line, as he's yelling "I can't catch a damn fish, but I'm going to snag a Dingo!". He finally got close enough to paddle alongside her and coaxed her back into shore. After all of my panicking, realized she still swam like a champ and there was nothing to worry about - and she was one happy dog!

Ahh the swimming dogs! We were looking for a campsite on Thomas when I approached what looked like a landing. As usual, the dogs were ready to get out as soon we touch ground. Both Lucky and Cinnamon jumped out but as surveyed the landing I realized it wasn't the best place. So we back paddled out to go around a small point. The dogs were VERY interested in this development. Cinnamon, the older and much smarter one, eyed us carefully following along the shore. Lucky was having none of this "You ain't leavin' me here!" and into the water he went. It was just a short swim though, the actual landing was no more than 30' away.

I've been chased down by my dog when I paddled away more than once. There's a picture of it in the Parade thread.

My dog is the definition of velcro dog. He goes where I go, no exceptions. Last summer I was going back to make the second trip on a long 1 mile portage. The dog was supposed to stay with my wife who only needed to make a single portage and she did manage to keep him with her for a while. I was about 1/4 mile down the portage when I heard the collar start to jingle and since the portage ran along an open swamp area i could see him sprinting full speed right toward me almost the entire way. He was not going to be left beind. He ended up keeping me company on the rest of the portage and probably covered 6 miles on the 1 mile portage as he ran up and back so many times.

Normally he is on leash on portages but we had lost his leash somewhere on the trip. We were using a length of rope instead but I guess my wife was trying to retie it when he made his escape to track me down.

Our last dog was a springer (he was my favorite dog)named Tracker. He was canoing since he was a puppy but couldn't swim a lick lol. So we had a pdf for him. Anyway we were paddling across the lake one day and a bog had broken free and was floating across as well. We didn't think much of it and ran into it with the intention of canoing over it. Well as soon as the canoe hit this floating bog our dog jumped out of the canoe and into the bog.. then bloop.. down under the bog! I screamed "the dog!" but Lucky for him he was wearing a pdf and up he popped right in the middle of this floating mess. It took a while to get him back but all was well. he would have drowned for sure if it wasn't for his life jacket.

This same dog was at another campsite on another trip one day and we were fishing from shore catching nothing. We see our dog in the water just with his pads wet(something he never did) and was eating something. Went to investigate and found he had hearded up a school of minnows into a shallow pool. We scooped up the minnow and preseeded to hammer the fish! Tracker was annoyed we took his "lunch"

Tracker was the best canoe dog ever. He died much to young at 6 years old of a sudden illness. I still miss him today even with our new dog who is now also 6 years old.

I'll resurrect this old thread. Probably the best dog I ever had was a shepherd/husky mix named Rama. She was only about 35 lbs but a great and loyal dog. I took her to the BWCA 3 times in the '80's. Lot's of stories but one that sticks out is an October solo I did with her. (Is it a solo if you take your dog?) I had a Timberline tent with a vestibule and I would make a nest for her out of my jacket in the vestibule. After we settled in I would zip the vestibule closed and go to bed. Every morning the vestibule zipper would be half open but Rama was always in her nest inside. One night instead of going right to sleep I was reading. After an hour or so Rama woke up, stretched and used her nose to open the zipper. She went out and, I assume, used the 'facilities' and a couple minutes later came back in into her nest. This happened every night. The dogs I have since her have never been BWCA material.

Claire, my friends black lab mix, came with me on a group trip a couple weeks ago. After we loaded the canoe, got ourselves in and about paddle out I called for her to get in. Instead of taking her usual little hop into the boat she decides to simply stand on the rock with her front paws on the gunwale. Slowly her weight began to push the boat out and she started stretching out at which time I looked at her and asked "now what are ya gonna do?" She got completely parallel to the water stretching out as far as she could before she plopped in.

No stick is too big.

We were paddling back to our car on Pine and Decoy was very tired. She was probably ready to head home and she got spooked in the canoe by a sound and then barked. Of course it echoed and she starting barking at her echo. :)

I'm enjoying reading all your stories, very funny! Here's mine. Two summers ago I drove to Canada to pick up my brand new Souris River canoe and spent a weekend camping/canoeing at Dawson Trail in Quetico. My dog is an experienced canoe dog and loves our adventures.

The morning of our maiden voyage, we padded around French Lake for a bit during golden hour. Then we headed to the winding river connecting Pickerel. My Golden Retriever, Daisy, was sitting in front of me as I paddled, and began whining and pacing (as much as one can pace in a canoe...) If you know this river, you know there's NOwhere to land onshore to take a break, so I told her to sit and wait.

Suddenly she showed me why she was so anxious...by pooping in my brand new canoe. You know how dogs want to immediately get far away from their poop...well she tried to crawl up my lap and over me to get away from it...while I'm paddling, solo, in my new canoe! Fortunately nobody ended up in the water, my camera gear was unharmed, and Daisy had pooped on the removable foam pad that I lay in the canoe for her.

So my canoe was christened by Daisy on its first outing. She had never done that before...and has never done it since! This photo is from that morning, not long before the christening.

I was with Boppa and nctry in Woodland Caribou last fall, It was Karma's first trip ever. Those two were ahead of me and I was landing at a portage last, in the group. Karma jumped out and walked with me the first leg of the portage. We were headed back for the canoe and other pack, and she was ahead of me. She beat me back to the canoe, and all of a sudden went NUTS, running in circles, yelping, running from me, and going crazy. When I finally got her to hold still and I ran to her, I saw a HORNET emmbedding itself and stinging the hell out of her, actuall took my leatherman tool out and pulled 7-9 hornets off of her. She was very lathargic for a few minutes after this and stayed very close to me! I felt terrible for her, not so much a funny story, but it did happen and She was fine.
Those hornets were small like a wasp, but they crawled right into the fur and I had to run the leatherman along her fur to see them and squished them with the leatherman pliers. Darndest thing I ever saw!
SunCatcher

When my daughter and I were on Perent a few weeks ago we went swimming. Our 4 month old lab mix is not yet sure whether he likes swimming, and clearly had had enough. He went off in the direction of the tent, and I was a bit worried what he was up to, but not terribly worried. When we were done swimming and went to the tent we found muddy foot prints up the head of the tent, and all along the top of the tent! Everything was fine, I assume he must have squished the entire tent flat, but it bounced back. When we got in the tent there were foot prints on the tent itself as well, not just the fly. So after failing to get in through the roof, he must have gotten under the fly and tried again. After that we left one of the doors open a bit whenever we were in camp so he could go in the tent on his own.