TBT: Brisbane's Litter

There were seven puppies in Brisbane's litter, he was the third born to a lovely red heeler in an oops litter sired by a dog that looked a lot like a beagle. I went to visit them when they were four weeks old.

Brisbane in my lap, two white puppies and Rebel eating my backpack.

Unfortunately digital cameras were not quite as ubiquitous nine years ago. I only have a few film pictures of Brisbane and his brothers and sisters, and some digital shots from when they were six weeks old. I don't know exactly what they looked like when they grew up, and I was unable to keep in touch with their new owners. I'm still looking for them though, and every time I see a dog of the right age and coat color I have to look at these pictures again to compare markings.

Brisbane and all three white puppies.

There were three white puppies with markings on their faces, two blues and one red. The red-freckled white puppy had a patch over its left eye. The blues each had a spot or seriously freckled spot over their left eyes too. All three white puppies had heavily ticked ears and noses. Purebred heeler puppies are born white with solid markings, and then all their white areas begin to develop ticking right away. These dogs are probably still predominantly white rather than ticked all over.

Rebel at four weeks.

That heavily ticked blue puppy is Rebel, he was given to his breeder's daughter. He had a full black mask, tan points, and a black spot at the base of his tail. Rebel had very heavy, floppy hound ears and a domed skull that made him look very houndy despite his heeler markings.

Savannah was the only solid-colored puppy. She had the same domed skull and floppy ears that made everyone suspect that the father of the litter was a beagle mix.

Savannah at four weeks.

Savannah was a red puppy with white on all four feet, her chest, muzzle, tip of her tail, and a spot on top of her head. The white went further up the right side of her face than the left. She had ticking on her little white feetsies and probably developed freckles on her face and chest. The white on her left front foot went up higher than on her right front foot. Savannah went to a school teacher in Santa Barbara County somewhere.

Savannah and Rebel had much shorter coats than any of the other puppies. The white puppies had the longest and fluffiest coats.

I don't think I ever scanned my only picture of the seventh puppy. She was a lot like Brisbane, same curly medium-length coat, white in the same places, but she was black with tan points rather than sable.

Brisbane had a lot more white on him as a puppy than he has now as an adult. The white streak on his head separated into a white spot and a ticked blotch on the back of his neck. I suspect his brothers and sisters also got a bit more color and a bit less white as they grew up.

I know that Brisbane's breeder and her family moved to Idaho not long after the puppies went to their new homes. Rebel and the tricolored sister probably moved to Idaho as well. Savannah and the three white puppies may still be living in Santa Barbara county. If so, they would be nine years old now, and depending on the care they received they could look as youthful as Briz or much older. I would love to see them.

Throwback Thursday: Brisbane at 3 Months

These are from August of 2005, when Brisbane spent a week with a friend while I was out of town.

Brisbane was 3.5 months old, and his ears had just stood up. Prior to this we had believed his father was a beagle mix, and were expecting his big floppy ears to stay flopped.

He's actually laying on the floor in this exact same position right now.

Since each ear was nearly the size of his head, he looked a lot like a tiny aircraft.

He was devastatingly adorable, which is a good thing because he was the worst puppy ever and being adorable is really the only reason he survived. This was definitely part of the biting-something-or-asleep phase of his life, and towards the end of the point where he spent more time sleeping than biting.

I'm pretty sure he was herding some Labradors in this picture. I overfed him, so he was a fat little baby.

Whenever I think it might be fun to raise another puppy, I have to remind myself what a little monster he was. These pictures are really deceptive. He was a nightmare.

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.