This is the Daily Dog podcast for Thursday, January twenty third, twenty twenty.
I'm your host, Joel Lowns, and today's dog is Jake, a
husky mix that sometimes gets to go to school with his owner, teacher Jennifer
Campbell Smith. Jake. We adopted him about two years ago, and he
was kind of a he was a bridge dog. I had another Shepherd Husky
mix and she was fifteen and really getting up there, and I can tell
that she was kind of reaching the end of her life. And I opted
to look for a younger dog in the hopes that you know, sometimes when
you get you have older dogs, sometimes if you get a younger dog,
it kind of helps them revitalize them a little bit. And I'm also zact
situation right now. Actually yeah, well, and also I knew I'd be
a wreck and to not have a dog in the house would just make it
worse. So I ended up looking around and found Jake kind of as a
fluke. I have a friend that works the Denver Dumb Friends League in Denver
is one of the biggest and oldest rescues here and she works for them,
and I saw him on their website and I said Hey, can you tell
me any more about this dog? And she said, okay, I'll let
you know tomorrow. And she gave me a call and said, this dog
is really awesome. He's really sweet, he's really friendly. Do you want
me to hold him till you can come in and see him? And so
I did that, went in with a friend and immediately fell in love with
him. We played a little bit outside and at that point my husband was
at work and I called him and said, Hey, do you want to
meet this dog before I adopt him? And it was kind of my husband
teases me that it's definitely just a formality because I was going to get the
dog while waiting for uh, well waiting for my husband to get off work.
My friend who's with me bought this dog a collar and basically said,
if your husband says no, I'm gonna get upset at him. Um,
so we got him. He's a he's a very unique looking dog. He's
uh I joke that he's a DLC husky because he's he's most he's mostly husky
with German shepherd and then Catahula leopard dog, so he kind of has a
husky body, kind of a shepherdy face, but he's covered in spots and
that's like the best thing. He's blue merle Um, so he's really handsome
dog. Unfortunately for his breed types all in him say hey, go out
into the cold. And he got the Catahoula coat, so he's a he's
short coated, so poor guy has to wear a sweater sometimes when we go
out, and he looks at me like I'm embarrassing him in front of the
other children. So uh, not not exactly the coach for up and call
Colorado. That's more down here in Florida, the types of dogs. But
actually I've got friends that have a couple of huskies down here too, and
they love being out in the heat too, which is weird. So I
did a little new thing and he was originally from New Mexico, so he
was a street dog in Roswell, New Mexico. And look at his body
shape, you can kind of there's just kind of a look that New Mexico
West Texas dogs have, and it's very much this kind of classic leggy,
pointy snooted, prickier dog. And he from what I understand, he was
picked up on the streets. And unfortunately, there are so many straight dogs
in that area that the shelters down there can only really keep them for a
week before they have to euthanize. Yeah, and there are a lot of
people that volunteer to go and get some of the most adoptable dogs and transport
them to other states to get adopted. And I actually had found on Facebook.
I had found his alert and pictures of him in the Roswell City kennel
and people trying to get him. So he ended up making his way to
Colorado, bounced around a couple of houses, and then eventually I found him
at the Dumb Friends League. I mean, I get it. I get
why he bounced around. He's a very high energy dog. Most of his
breeds are all working breeds, and I can see how being in a home
situation without getting exercise and stimulation would be very tough for him. So I
actually I volunteer for the IDDA ROD for past three years, and so I'm
really familiar with the kind of spitzy Northern breeds and I was like, Okay,
well, most of your breed is a breed that likes to pull.
Let's see if we can do that with you. So I got him a
pulling harness, and we've he and I do bike drawing together. He has
a custom X back harness and so he been bike drawing. It's it's a
lot like slid pulling, where you have the dog out in front of you
and he ends up pulling my bike a lot of the ways. You know,
I pedal to help, but he has the line out and Lyne taught
and every now and then I'll just stop pedaling and so he ash to actually
pull and it it helps wear him out, which is really nice because he's
a quite a high energy dog. That sounds like fun. I don't think
Mike would be able to do that though, no, And I don't recommend
it for people to just try make sure that they look into the research because
there's a research this because there's a special way that you attach the line to
the bike. It's a special line. Otherwise you're going to have someone who's
just going to eat it on the ground. And I mean people still eat
it even when their dogs are trained. But it's definitely not a good idea
to just put any dog on the front of your bike. Good to know,
Good to know. Well, thanks. I currently teach high school.
I teach a life science is biology, zoology, and human anatomy, and
we do some research and I ended up, you know, I like hands
on stuff, and so I ended up bringing him into the classroom, which
took a mountain of permission slips, but so I used him to teach the
kids some basic training, some positive reinforcement, and clicker training, and he
also helped them with anatomy and with my biology students. Since we know so
much about dog coat genetics, I have them do a primer on dog coat
genetics and then he comes in and they have to try to figure out what
his genetics are for how he looks, which they all get really excited until
they realize that the blue merle messes everything up and makes it heart. So
he does that and honestly, like the kids, just they're engaged. They
open up. Another thing we do is we're in a K through twelve charter
school. The kindergarteners were learning about sleds and masks and weight, and they
learned how the difference between like a bob sled that would need weight on the
front of it versus a dog sled that needs to be really light so dogs
can pull it. After learning that, they did a little writing competition as
a couple of sentences, and they drew a picture about why they would be
a good musher and I they gave me the papers with no names, and
I picked. I picked I think six kids out of ninety, and I
brought in a wagon that I have and hooked Jake up to it with his
harness, and those six kindergarteners got to ride in the wagon with Jake pulling.
So they were very very excited about that. Oh, I can only
imagine I would love to do that. And I'm not even a kindergarten right,
and oh and he did so good. And afterwards he was the most
tolerant boy, letting ninety kindergarteners pet him and pet his back. You know,
I said, okay, you can pet this big black spot here just
by the ninetieth kindergartener. Though he's like, all right, we're done,
we are leaving. He was so good through all that. He Um,
I'm kind of hoping. I have another teacher who's been bugging me to try
to to write children's books about nature and science where he's the host, because
he's just a really unique looking dog. He's very personable, and he's just
done a lot in my classroom, teach my kids as well as well as
getting spoiled by them. He sounds he sounds like a great dog. And
every dog on the show, I say that sounds like a great dog.
But when they when they can put up with ninety kindergarteners, that is a
really great dog. Oh, I agree. And so you know, normally
I teach, I teach high school, but man, he comes home exhausted
because he's just Everybody wants to pet him, give him treats, and he's
usually picks one kid that he kind of hangs out with, and um,
but he's great. He's also I mean, he's just like a goober of
a dog. My kind of transitioning over my Instagram was starting to turn in
nothing to nothing but pictures and video of him because he's just charismatic and funny.
And so I ended up creating his own Instagram because mine was just him.
So he is at spot Hoound one word, and you can see pictures
of him being a nerd. Besides Spothound on Instagram, is there any other
place where people can see pictures of Jake or get in touch with you if
they want to? Really, that's the best place that also links to my
Instagram. But honestly, anything Jake related I tend to put up there.
I'm going to try to get up concept art for doing the nature and science
books with him, but really that's the best way to contact to see pictures
of him, to contact me see the stuff we do. I have pictures
of him and I doing bike drawing up there, and then just his goofy
personality. There's pictures of him with some of my students, and it's yeah,
it's probably the best place. Well, excellent, Jennifer Campbell Smith,
thanks for coming on The Daily Dog. Thank you for having us. Before
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