21st October - best sailing dogs

Wednesday 21^st October 2015

Many people have dogs and cats on board their boats.  It must be very nice to have a furry companion or two.  NOT nice enough to make me want one… Too much to worry about!  What if they fall overboard?  What if you want to leave the boat in a carefree way and jaunt off on land?  What if you want to come back to Australia and have to go through fearsomely lengthy expensive quarantine ordeals!

Jacqui and Luc, on SV Sloepmouche, have THE BEST little dogs, Zonta and … another name beginning with Z which means CRAZY.  They are schipperkes, Belgian barge dogs, bred for boat life.  They can swim, they can bark like crazy when strangers approach the boat, and they can be strained very swiftly to pee and poo on their own little strip of fake turf, easily washed off into the forgiving sea.  These two are only four months old, and they are going to be allowed to breed.  I think Luc and Jacqui will have no trouble at all selling cute little boat-ready pups in the sailing world.

This is what they will look like fully grown