bambodoggy
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
SunDog said:Anyone got any pics of their faithful hounds?![]()
Oh go on then.....my proud parent bit:

These are my two, I've had them a little while now and am very pleased with both.
My last Shepherd died back in July and we picked up his replacement puppy at 10 weeks old in september. As you can see he's a sable GSD. He's nearly 5 months old now and has just lost his puppy teeth (thank goodness as they are sharp! lol) He's from european working lines and his grandfather was a schutzhund working trails champion so he has some good blood in him and I'm planning to compete with him myself when he's older. Very loyal, very strong willed, amazingly inteligent (I taught him to bark on command in under 10 minutes yesterday and he was house broken in a day when we first got him home!) and as you'd expect from his pedigree and breed very fearless when it comes to protecting his master and family (even if he can't back it up yet at only 5 months old lol). He came from a litter of 7 and his 6 brothers and sisters are now trainee police dogs.
I take him up the woods quite a bit and he's definately going to be my bushcraft dog.
The other is a 3 year old Rottie that came free with the pup! He'd just been returned to the breeder from the British Transport Police for (you'll like this with a Rottie! lol) not being aggresive enough!
He's a lovely dog, very affectionate and with very strong guarding instincts. He will do the protection work and certainly look after you but you can see he doesn't really enjoy it and doesn't want to hurt the person he's biting.
He is however, a fantastic tracking and search dog and at the last club event I took him too he wiped the floor in the tracking trails against Sch-II qualified dogs.
He's not great to have out in the woods though as he was brought up with a beagle and has picked up the hunting bug from them and so as soon as he gets a wiff of something he's off for a half hour or more, he always comes back but as there as roads about I'm not happy with him doing it so he stays on lead in the woods...in the park he's the perfect dog. I also use him as a teaching dog at the training club to help break up fights between puppies and also between older dogs and to help calm dogs that have dog on dog aggression problems...he won't react to them no matter how antagonistic they are and even if they try to bite him all he does is knock them over and pin them to the floor until they have calmed down, then he lets them go and ignors them again....after a while of this the other dog usually gives up and plays nice, sometimes for the first time in it's life with another dog.
Anyway, I've rambled on loads....I am truely a proud parent! lol
I'd sort of advise to get a GSD as they have most of the advantages of the collie as well as a few extras but without needing "quite" so much exercise.
Having said all that and with a few special breeds aside any dog you get will make a fantastic bushcraft dog so long as you train and treat it right

Cheers,
Bam.
