TBT: Puzzle Toys We Used to Know

Brisbane can be picky about his toys, some fail to pique his interest while others lose their novelty after a while. Brisbane was my only dog for five years, and I didn't start fostering dogs until after Ru pranced into our lives, so I didn't used to keep toys around just because someone else might like them. A couple of times we have run out of storage space and just rounded up neglected toys and donated them to the local shelter to make room for new toys. Whether they were destroyed, donated, or simply vanished, here are the puzzle toys we had at some point in the last ten years:

Busy Buddy Tug-a-Jug.
Concept: Unscrew the bottom to load with kibble, then screw it back on. The dog can roll the toy or toss it by the attached rope to make kibble fall out the hole in the top.
Fate: Brisbane unscrewed the bottom and then gnawed the threads into oblivion.
Verdict: Would buy again. That was a cool toy and we used it all the time.

Molecuball
Concept: Drop kibble or other treats into the hole and they will fall out as the dog noses the toy around.
Fate: Originally bought for Oakley my dearly departed cocker spaniel in 2004, Brisbane could empty kibble out of this thing faster than I could empty it by turning it upside down and shaking it. Was either donated to a shelter or sent off to a friend for her excessively destructive blind senior German shepherd, Kole.
Verdict: Too easy, would not buy again. Puzzle toys have come a long way in the last decade.

Buster Cube
Concept: Drop kibble through the hole and spin the center shaft to change how easily the food drops out.
Fate: Nobody knows.
Verdict: Will not tempt fate again.

Hi Q
Concept: L-shaped pipes can be interconnected and stuffed with kibble, peanut butter, and assorted other treats. Flaps at the ends prevent food from escaping too easily.
Fate: I used to stuff these with ground raw dog food for Brisbane. When I quit feeding him that way, I sent our red, yellow, and blue Hi Q pipes to Kole.
Verdict: I don't think these are even in production anymore. If they were, I might give them another try.

Busy Buddy Twist-N-Treat
Concept: The two halves can be filled with kibble or small treats or stuffed with peanut butter before screwing them together. The tighter it is screwed, the harder it is to get the food.
Fate: This was the first food toy I bought for Oakley, and after 10+ years it started to look a big aged so I tossed it.
Verdict: Would not buy again, though at the time it was amazing.

Canine Genius Leo
Concept: Fill it with treats and they will fall out as the dog paws and chew the soft rubber.
Fate: Discovered that Brisbane would not chew or bite the toy to get the food out, no matter what was inside. Made a somewhat decent kibble-dropper but was somehow intimidating so we sent it to Kole who enjoyed it very much.
Verdict: Now being sold as the Kong Genius, we have a related toy and I will probably give the bowling pin one another try.

Starmark Everlasting Fireplug
Concept: Holds two Everlasting Treats with space in the middle for extra goodies.
Fate: The only toy Brisbane has ever outright destroyed rather than defeated like the jug. Within a day he had chewed the entire lip around the top off. This toy went into the trash and made me leery of Starmark products for years.
Verdict: Would not buy again, there is clearly a design flaw and plenty of other non-destructive chewers have killed this one.

The Wisdom Panel DNA Test

When Brisbane was a deceptively adorable puppy, dog breed DNA tests were just beginning to hit the market. When I first heard about them, there were only two available. The Canine Heritage DNA test was done with a cheek swab, but only tested for the 20 most common breeds at the time, and did not include Australian cattledog, border collie, Australian shepherd, Shetland sheepdog, or any other breeds we thought Briz might contain. The other product on the market was the Wisdom Panel, which required a blood sample but could detect over a hundred breeds. The test kit itself cost over $100, and a vet appointment for a blood draw was an additional cost.

I knew Brisbane's mother, Sally, was a working Australian cattledog, but his father was a huge mystery. His breeder had been intending to produce a litter of purebred cattledogs, but on the way back from visiting the stud dog at the next ranch over, Sally jumped out of the back of the truck. A different neighbor returned her the next morning, apologizing for letting his beagle mix get to her. She produced a litter of seven puppies, two short-haired and houndy-looking, two tri-colored curlies including Brisbane, and three white fluffies with markings only on their faces.

I have been collecting breed guesses on Brisbane his entire life. Corgi fans often suggest his dad was a corgi mix. Sheltie-lovers are sure he's a sheltie mix. When he was a bitey little monster we joked that he was a land-shark.

The only sure thing was that he was half Australian cattledog, and that he has inherited 100% of the heeler temperament from his mother. I've always thought of him as a funny-looking ACD. Experienced herding trainers have watchied him work sheep and said that he is an absolute natural and needs very little training or direction. He's better at herding than a lot of purebred herding-breed dogs. I had always figured that his dad must have been a hodgepodge of other herding breeds.

By the time I finally got around to forking over the money for a DNA test last year, the technology had improved tremendously. Mars Veterinary had bought out pretty much all of their competitors, and had grown their database to over 200 different breeds. Ongoing research means their product just keeps getting better. I followed their instructions for carefully collecting a cheek swab, and mailed it off.

I also made this for Brisbane's fans when I announced I was getting him tested:

After three weeks I got the results, which were...unlikely.

I was ready to write off the DNA tests as amusing but obviously inaccurate. However, I noticed that on Amazon.com every bad review was followed up with a reply from the company requesting that the customer contact them. I sent them a picture of Brisbane and also this picture of his mother, asking them to tell me with a straight face that she was actually half bullmastiff.

A month later, an actual geneticist from Mars Veterinary called me and geeked out about dog breeds with me for nearly an hour. I learned that the sample dogs used to develop the breed algorithms were all AKC registered. Sally was from working lines and not a perfect match with the AKC dogs, so the computer came up with bullmastiff as a false positive. The geneticist was able to look at all of the possible results, and gave me a new analysis with the breeds that showed up in every projection. She said the bullmastiff genes were very strong, and that the Cavalier King Charles spaniel showed up in every projection. Here is Brisbane's official result:

I am very happy with this result, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is definitely the piece of the puzzle that I was missing. Brisbane has very spanielly ears and a perfect spaniel tail as well. AmStaff and mastiff is a very common mix. The best part is that the geneticist thinks Brisbane's dad was a mid-sized, short-haired, stocky, tri-color dog with big floppy ears. Sounds like a beagle to me! Here's what that "mixed breed" could mean.

According to the geneticist, the Xolo shows up as a false positive for a lot of pitbull-type dogs. I was hoping it meant "Mexican street dog", but apparently the Xolo genes cluster pretty tightly with European terriers. I see two spitzy-type breeds on there, which could explain why Brisbane carries his tail curled over his back instead of straight like all the identifiable breeds in the mix. Patricia McConnell, one of my favorite authors and behaviorists, has a great explanation of some of the finer points of interpreting breed DNA tests if you'd like to read more.

Those Other Dogs.

While everything really is all about Brisbane, I actually have a second dog and often have a foster or two, or three. My house also contains three cats, over a dozen small birds, several box turtles, a leopard tortoise, and an extraordinarily tolerant husband. The unloved second dog is Ru, a poorly-bred chihuahua we brought home as a souvenir from a family reunion.

He was approximately four months old at the time, and has topped out at a whopping 6.5 pounds. Owning Ru has also been an education, but mostly about the differences between chihuahuas and 'real dogs'. Prior to acquiring the little rodent, I had truly believed that a chihuahua would act like a normal dog if it was treated as a normal dog. I was wrong. Ru is motivated by heat more than anything else in the world, and appears to be at least partially reptilian. He learns slower than super-intelligent Brisbane, which makes training him less rewarding for me. I blame the ADHD for that. Ru also has a terrible work ethic, and is only willing to play/train on his own schedule. He doesn't understand human body language at all, and at four years old still isn't quite totally housetrained.

Due to his tendency toward hypothermia and our coastal location, Ru is dressed pretty much all the time. His back is about twice as long as it would be if he had been bred by someone who knew or cared how a chihuahua should be shaped. When we brought him home in July, the pet stores didn't have dog sweaters in stock and I ended up making him sweaters out of fuzzy slipper socks. During sweater season I rapidly discovered that his length and general tinyness made him difficult to fit.

Most store-bought sweaters are either too big around the neck and chest, or too short in the back to fit His Tinyness properly. Fortunately, I enjoy sewing. I also learned how to knit for the sole purpose of making him sweaters.

It's worth mentioning that I really wanted another dog at the point in which Ru pranced into our lives. I was planning to get another cattledog or mix thereof, and I desperately wanted it to be a girl so she could wear pink and dress up and generally be a fashionista. I had discovered the world of dog clothes shortly before losing my cocker spaniel, Oakley, and Brisbane had (and continues to) steadfastly refused to wear anything resembling 'clothing'. As he is already a chihuahua, and was neutered shortly after coming home with us, we decided that Ru couldn't possibly be emasculated any more than he already was. That is how he became our girl dog. He doesn't seem to mind the nail polish and jewelry, and he prances ridiculously when he is wearing a pretty dress. I cheerfully challenge gender norms and proudly state that boys can wear dresses too!

This past December did bring a genuinely female dog into my life, but not one small enough to wear adorable dresses and sweaters. Josie is a German Shepherd Dog, 12-14 years old, with severe spinal degeneration and bowel incontinence. She is a hospice foster and is here for the rest of her life. We can't be sure whether she has Degenerative Myelopathy, Wobbler's Syndrome/Cervical Vertebrate Instability, or some other type of spinal problem. We do know that she has bowel incontinence, can't move her tail, drags her back feet, and has recently begun dragging a front foot as well. An exact diagnosis would involve extensive imaging and tell us if surgery would fix her issues, but we don't feel she would be a good surgical candidate so we are content to let her live out her life. Josie does see a veterinarian regularly, and has been prescribed Gabapentin to help keep her as mobile as possible. She has given me a chance to experience the world of senior dogs again, and I am enjoying the lack of training goals and chance to fill her life with joy with very few limitations.

In the Beginning...

Once upon a time, on June 11th, 2005, I brought home the most amazing dog. No, wait, actually I brought home a possessed demon deceptively shaped like an adorable puppy. It was a trap.

<---Really, who would suspect that?

I had spent most of my 22 years reading every dog training book I could get my hands on, and had trained my cocker spaniel to do every trick I had ever seen or heard of, so I figured I was now an experienced dog owner. It was time to start fresh with a brand new puppy of my very own, to mold and shape and socialize into the perfect dog. I had just graduated college and was working at a pet store, it was exactly the right time to get a puppy.

This was going to be my ultimate dog. He would be a canine athlete and excel at agility, obedience, flyball, tracking, dock diving, scootering, disc dog, musical freestyle, and herding. He would be a therapy dog and an animal actor. This puppy held the promise that I could do everything I had read about while I was growing up, everything that my cocker, Oakley, was too old for. She knew oodles of tricks, but was already blind and arthritic by the time I was adult and finally able to fully participate.

Of course, life has a way of sending you the dog you need instead of the dog you want. Brisbane was devastatingly cute, but was also a monster that came packaged with issues I wouldn't recognize for years. He was, and continues to be, a whole lot of dog in a relatively small package. Briz cut his baby teeth late, and finished getting them in just in time to start losing them again. This meant roughly six months of teething puppy. He also had noticeable spinal issues from about 4 months on, and various veterinarians have speculated that he could have been born with damaged discs.

That was just the physical stuff. Behaviorally, Brisbane was also a terror. When he wasn't sleeping adorably, he was biting something. Not chewing, he was never a big fan of gnawing on random objects. He just liked biting stuff in an obsessive fashion. Anything was fair game, from shoes and books on the floor, to the pants I was wearing, to Oakley's ears. I used to cover everything in Bitter Apple spray each morning.

On top of all the biting, Brisbane was overstimulated by everything. In retrospect, the biting was actually because he was so overstimulated. Basic handling, grabbing his collar, trying to clip his nails, everything sent him into a screaming, flailing meltdown. None of my puppy books had taught me how to deal with this. I took him to puppy class at Petsmart, and the trainer there was equally baffled. It took me most of a year to find the right books, the right online communities, and people who understood how Australian cattledogs work. It took even longer for me to learn the right words to describe his behavior, and the right books to read.

Owning Brisbane has been a fascinating education in all things canine. His innate behavior issues drove me to learn everything I could about dog behavior, body language, and behavior modification and management. His physical issues forced me to abandon the plans to make him an agility champion and flyball star, but taught me far more about conformation and structure than I ever would have learned with a more functional dog. He is confident enough to let me know how he feels about things, and infinitely trainable. Brisbane will be nine years old in a couple of months, but he still looks like a dog in his prime. I'm sure he has plenty more to teach me, and he has worked hard to train me to listen.