Chowder the Skateboarder
Jami Delperdang and her husband Rich have a bulldog. Rich, got “Chowder” through a breeder, who did not want to keep him because he wasn’t “show dog quality.” Chowder is named after clam chowder, a nod to his Pacific Northwest home. They immediately noticed Chowder was bored with usual puppy pastimes such as playing fetch. He found his calling when he was 2, on his first trip to a beach on the Oregon coast where he “hijacked” a boy’s skimboard. (A skimboard is like a surfboard but smaller and without fins is used to glide across the water’s surface to meet an incoming breaking wave, then ride the board back to shore.) “He jumped on it and he started riding across the shore. It was crazy. It was like he’d been doing it his whole life,” Jami said. “People got up off their towels. We had this crowd around us and everyone was asking how we had taught him to do that. And we’re like, ‘He’s never seen one of these before.’”
Since skimboards are for the ocean, and the family lives a couple of hours from the coast, they purchased a second-hand skateboard for Chowder, who “immediately knew he was supposed to ride it.” Jami asked a skateboard shop to create a wide one just for him — and for the first two years, he just laid on it and rolled around in their driveway. “We didn’t even get him to try to stand on the board, because he didn’t seem like he wanted to but he started getting bored and barking like he was frustrated,” she recalled. That’s when Rich decided to take Chowder to their nearby church’s parking lot, which had a little hill. “Literally, the first time we took him, he jumped up on that board,” she said. “The learning curve after that was unbelievable. He started taking turns. He started going fast. It was like he had been waiting for it.” You can see Chowder’s skill in the video below. His parents are amazed at how their audacious pooch not only taught himself how to stop and turn, but how he manages to steer so flawlessly. “He’ll look at where he’s skating and he’ll think about it, like, ‘Okay, there’s a pothole here, or there’s a branch here,’ and he’ll navigate around it,” she said.
“If he has a bad run, he has temper tantrums and will flip the board over and will be growling at it,” she said. “We can never end a skate session after a bad run, because he’ll be depressed all night.” “He brought the board to bed a bunch of times,” she said. “If I were to tell him, ‘Chowder, you’re getting a new skateboard today,’ he literally will sit at the front door all day and wait for it.” Chowder will begin bugging his parents daily — reminding them when it’s time for him to hit the bricks. “We work remotely so he starts stalking us around 3 p.m. each day,” she said. “He brings me my tennis shoes. By 5, he is waiting by the door.” Although he is still an avid rider, Chowder is taking fewer risks as he ages. After all, he is 63 in human years. “He’s gotten a little bit more conservative as he’s gotten older,” she said. “So we laugh because he used to just want to take every hill and now he’s more thoughtful about it.”
Doggone funnies
Why did the dog not answer the phone?
Because he had no collar ID.
My kids want a dog, but I’ve refused to get them a Labrador.
It’s frightening how many Labrador owners you see that have gone blind.
My wife asked me if I’ve seen the dog bowl.
I replied: I never knew he did.
I can’t take my dog to the park as all the ducks keep trying to bite him.
My fault for getting a dog that’s pure bread./spa
March 13th Birthdays
1993 – Kaya Scodelario, 1997 – Monique Lynn, 1993 – Lucie Fry, 1972 – Adina Porter
1939 – Neal Sedaka, 1991 – Tristan Thompson, 1989 – Harry Melling, 1950 – Charles Krauthammer