Two Quirky Adventure Dogs

About the Fishing Mutts

Teddy

Cole rescued Teddy from a shelter in Seattle when he was eight weeks old. The shelter said Teddy’s litter came from the Yakima, Washington area. Teddy’s DNA test showed 19 breeds and the top three were husky, pit bull, and chihuahua. From the beginning, Cole could tell Teddy had a unique, funny, and somewhat anxious personality. Teddy is incredibly smart and equally neurotic. He has gone viral over a dozen times for his quirks, including an extreme fish obsession and his upside-down-begging. Cole is a fly fisherman and former fishing guide and he started bringing Teddy along when he was about six months old. Teddy was instantly obsessed with fishing. He did his signature fish-freak-out at the very first fish he saw. Folks often ask us when/why Teddy started begging the way he does (upside down, more or less). Long story short, he just started doing it on his own - nobody trained him to do this. However, we’ve obviously reinforced the behavior because, well, it worked and earned him treats. Teddy did know the “spin” command, and our best guess is that he may have started the weird begging in a half-effort attempt of “spin” to get attention while we were eating. Teddy has some mild dog reactivity that we also work on transparently.

Lennie

While living in Missouri, Halie found Lennie dumped on the side of the road. Lennie was in rough shape - underweight and covered in flees and scratches. Halie and her college roommates searched for Lennie’s owner but nobody claimed her. They already had three dogs so they planned to rehome Lennie, who was just called “Dog” at that time (you know, so they “wouldn’t get too attached”). But right from the start, Lennie was sweet, snuggly, great with the other dogs, and never caused any trouble in the house. Obviously she was never rehomed and has been Halie’s best friend and adventure buddy ever since. As sweet and derpy as Lennie is, she has a high prey drive, some excitement reactivity, and a stubborn streak. These are all real things we are very transparent about on our channels! Recently, Cole got into upland bird hunting. At the age of ten, we discovered that Lennie is a natural hunting dog and she was finally able to channel her prey drive into something productive! She instinctively works the field, using her nose to find and flush birds, and she retrieves all bird with a soft mouth. She’s a testament that mutts are amazing and capable.