Jakeismydog2
Member
I assume that if we had a poll on the forum and asked the question which breed is the toughest there would be a wide variety of opinions. My guess is that the German breeds and most of the wirey haired ugly dogs would be high on the list. I am not real certain where all the breeds would fall but I think I could safely assume that Setters would not be at the top of the list. I assume they would be about 2/3rds of the way down the list.
Ox is a couple of years old now and determining how "tough" he has been over these years is a bit difficult. He sure seems dainty and fairly fine boned to me. I have never been around dogs that seem to have such thin skin. It feels like its a 1/3 the thickness of the skin on my other mutt (shar-pei basset mix). He has sliced himself open more than any other dog I have been around. Granted once that was by razor wire at a military base. But there in lies the rub. He hunted 2 miles on the GPS after slicing his foot down to the bone. He literally has never acted hurt in his life. I once dug a thorn out of his pad that was 5/8" long and we had not hunted in a day and half. The only reason I found it was it felt weird when we "shook hands".
All that leads to today. Ox goes to work with me everyday. He rides in the back of my truck (I have a topper). This morning though I was in the work truck (no topper) and he was riding in the back. I was driving about 55mph down a paved 4 lane road when I hit a bump or something and the item I was hauling in the bed of the truck fell over and hit Ox. Which knocked him out of the truck. Now he did jump out of the truck, but I think he thought that was his only option.
I watched him skid and barrel roll about 30 ft on the asphalt. I assumed he was dead. He popped up though. He was quite dazed and confused and I had to pick him up to keep him from running into oncoming traffic. Fortunately I was only a few blocks from my friend who is a vet. I took him straight over to get checked out. To my amazement he seemed to have no broken bones. No major cuts. No bloated contusions. His face was tore up pretty bad around his eye, but amazingly his eye was unharmed.
Within a half hour of the accident you would have no idea that anything had happened to him other than all the random blood spots on his body and his fairly gruesome eye area. He was out running around the yard, and when I had him on a leash pulling against it like he had not been out of his kennel in a week.
Ox is one tough dog. If you have got a tougher one I would like to hear about it...
Ox is a couple of years old now and determining how "tough" he has been over these years is a bit difficult. He sure seems dainty and fairly fine boned to me. I have never been around dogs that seem to have such thin skin. It feels like its a 1/3 the thickness of the skin on my other mutt (shar-pei basset mix). He has sliced himself open more than any other dog I have been around. Granted once that was by razor wire at a military base. But there in lies the rub. He hunted 2 miles on the GPS after slicing his foot down to the bone. He literally has never acted hurt in his life. I once dug a thorn out of his pad that was 5/8" long and we had not hunted in a day and half. The only reason I found it was it felt weird when we "shook hands".
All that leads to today. Ox goes to work with me everyday. He rides in the back of my truck (I have a topper). This morning though I was in the work truck (no topper) and he was riding in the back. I was driving about 55mph down a paved 4 lane road when I hit a bump or something and the item I was hauling in the bed of the truck fell over and hit Ox. Which knocked him out of the truck. Now he did jump out of the truck, but I think he thought that was his only option.
I watched him skid and barrel roll about 30 ft on the asphalt. I assumed he was dead. He popped up though. He was quite dazed and confused and I had to pick him up to keep him from running into oncoming traffic. Fortunately I was only a few blocks from my friend who is a vet. I took him straight over to get checked out. To my amazement he seemed to have no broken bones. No major cuts. No bloated contusions. His face was tore up pretty bad around his eye, but amazingly his eye was unharmed.
Within a half hour of the accident you would have no idea that anything had happened to him other than all the random blood spots on his body and his fairly gruesome eye area. He was out running around the yard, and when I had him on a leash pulling against it like he had not been out of his kennel in a week.
Ox is one tough dog. If you have got a tougher one I would like to hear about it...
Immediatley took him to the vet and all was well. He also hunts the dessert and can run with cactus in all his paws all day long but if he gets one goat head at home he runs straight to me to get it pulled out.