When at first you succeed in posting a pic, do another the next week, another the week after, and another the week after until you can just about write the directions yourself.  It took me ages to get it down, because I would do one on a single occassion, then a next so long after I'd forgotten ........  Each one was awful. 

But finally:   

That lassie is almost 7 years old and that is actually taken in a gravel pit near Quebec route 389 near Manic V last month.

Here's her 1/2 sister and my namesake, Kopit.



All curled up for the night camping.


I must get around to adding the smaller version of that pic as avatar.

Cheaspeake Bay Retrievers.

Way back, back in time, back to when the Basques, the Portuguese, and the Spanish discovered the then lush fishing and whaling off of Newfoundland and Labrador's shores, there was a 'Portuguese Water Dog', different from the one today, but still used off these waters.

The Newfoundland Dog, the Labrador Retrievers, the Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, and the present Portuguese Water Dog all have evolved from those dogs.  Two of them were shipwrecked off of the Chespeake Bay.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay  Hence the name.

You have them in Oz.  http://www.dogzonline.com.au/breeds/community/chesapeake.asp

They come in many colours  http://www.beartownchesapeakes.com/colours.html

& if I haven't overloaded you yet, here is a really good sequence from birthing to permanent homes from a family known in rving circles as 'camping chessies':  http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/applecreekchesapeakes/my_photos

I sort of have this idea that I might like to bring an Aussie Chessie pup home as my biggest and best souvenir of Oz.