CaseyKay

My first two dogs were elderly when they died (13 and 17 years) but they died only 6 months apart. The younger died first and I did not want to upset my old boy with a puppy around but I planned to get a puppy when he died. But then it took me two dogless years to get a puppy. I did think about it a lot and researched breeds and I had a borrowed dog that I walked most days as his owners were busy and I missed my dog walks. Two years after they died I got a female puppy, and it was still really hard as a puppy is nothing like your old mates you have had for a long time and it made me miss my boys all over again Then two years after that another puppy. Then 7 years to the next and 2 years after that to the next until I had four of them! Then my two oldest girls died last year, only a day apart, over a couple of horrible days in October. I think most people including my husband expected me to be out looking for another BC pup pretty soon but I found the whole thing very emotionally hard. I am happy with my two young dogs for now, they are just 4 and 2, and I think it will be another year yet before we add another puppy. I don't think I could go dogless again though like I did the first time. The first two were my first dogs and I went through the whole it hurts too much I'm never never getting another dog thing. But if I hadn't got any more dogs, I would not have had KC-Bear (now gone) who was like my child and I would not have had Gael who is my best friend. And that is unthinkable.

This is my plan :) I have the two spunky girls already! We had four bitches for 2 years without any issues between them. 3 border collies aged 13, 11 and 4 all desexed and an entire Brittany aged 2. The oldest BC and the Brit were the best mates of the lot and the middle two played together as well. Gael, 4 year old BC, can be a bitchy jealous creature and used to slink about making what we called "snake eyes" at the older 2 when they came to me for attention (the BCs are my breed, the Brittany OH's). They just ignored her! The older two died last year. I don't think Gael considers Scout competition for my attention because she never makes snake eyes at Scout even when Scout is hogging my lap :) But it was enough to make me think my next BC won't be a girl as I imagine if you had two like Gael there "could" be clashes and I don't want to risk that. I know plenty of people with serious female-female aggression issues (although none have BCs) and it seems to me once they decide they don't like each, other permanent seperation is the only answer.

The breeders chose the 2 dogs we have now based on what activities we wanted to do and what sort of temperament was important (cuddly and interested in people always tops my list). I figure my job is to pick the right breeder and it is their job to pick the right pup! We met both Gael and Scout for the first time at the airport. They have both worked out so well Our previous two I wished we had had a great breeder to match us with a pup. Both the last two were the last pups left (BC farm litters) after everyone else had chosen. Could have said no but that is hard when you are faced with a cute puppy, both had temperament flaws that I mentioned to both Gael and Scout's breeders as things I absolutely wanted to avoid. Neither pup was very keen on interacting with us, KC because she was extremely timid, and Maddie because people were never that interesting to her and she was always a very aloof dog and not at all cuddly

Increase in French Bulldogs where I live.

Gael, my very affectionate border collie girl, loves to have cuddles with people. When they are sitting down she will put her paws on their chest and look adoringly at them, kiss their face. Then suddenly shove her nose right down inside people's tops, and make VERY loud sniffing noises.... Scout, my female Brittany, loves to play rough bitey games with DiscoDobe's Elsie at agility shows, and all goes well for about 5 minutes then they get overexcited and start vigorously humping each other...

I also have a love of Salukis....Bella is stunning :D Our current pack: Gael the BC and Scout the Brittany:

I got my first dog as an adult when I was 24, a week after starting my first job out of uni (I have money! What will I buy? A puppy!). This was Maddie who was born in 2000. A BC/NZ heading dog cross. She was very independant her whole life and hell on wheels as a puppy. When we went to look at the litter I really liked her Mum who was very sweet but Maddie herself found people very uninteresting. We mainly took her because we had driven 3 hours into the middle of nowhere to go get her and she was the only one left. She used to drive me nuts because she didn't seem to like me at all and destroyed all my stuff and embarrassed me at puppy school by doing very little besides standing on her hind legs straining at the leash and shrieking at the other puppies. She hit 18 months and suddenly became a very obedient, easy dog. She was my first obedience/agility/tracking/rally dog and she was way too easy. You taught her something once and she was very solid. She was very kind and forgiving in raising the other three as puppies; I learnt alot about how to treat puppies from watching Maddie interact with them. I don't know who will help me with new puppies now When she got to around 12 years old she lost all her aloofness and became quite cuddly and clingy and I just loved seeing that side of her. She died in October 2013. RIP Madd.

For 7 years we just had two border collies 2 years apart in age, which was a nice manageable number. One was a sports dog and one was a pet (she had health issues). We lived like normal people. Then after 7 years when they were nice and quiet and easy, we for some crazy reason added 2 very active pups: a 3rd Border collie and a French Brittany within 2 1/2 years of each other. I can freely admit that the two years we had the 4 dogs it just seemed like "too many", it made life a bit difficult logistically (you would never have been able to separate me from ANY of them though) but the main issue was that I did feel the oldies got a bit left out which made me sad. We are now down to two again aged 4 1/2 and 2 years, and I think my maximum comfortable number is THREE, but the issue is OH and I have a different breed each which we do different things with, and we disagree who gets "nextpuppy", and he thinks 4 dogs is fine as that is only "2 each"!

Thanks, as well as competing with Gael and Scout I am having fun doing puppy research and making a list of potential male BC names :)

Update end February:

Run free little Stella. I hope Cooper is coping without his friend and hugs to your daughter, that must have been hard for her

That is so sad, she was far too young and you had your beautiful wee girl for such a short time, although I have learnt myself with dogs it is never the length of time that matters and the time is always too short... I liked how you wrote she was there for you last year when you were so sick and then you were there in return to comfort her at the end. Run free little Tynka.

My epileptic border collie KC had many types of seizures, the most common being a "typical" grand mal which continued her whole life, but when she was younger than 5 and before she went on Kbr, she also had clusters and she also had "behavioural" seizures (trying to eat things, repetitive behaviours) which went on for many hours in some cases and were more scary to me than a grand mal! She was on Pb from 18 months and KBr from 5 years and had 6 monthly blood tests for those levels and her liver. Only in the last two tests of her life (she died at 11 1/2, cancer not epilepsy-related) did the tests start to show changes in her liver values. I logged all her seizures and never found a definate trigger, although stress could bring on minor seizures, twitching/jaw snapping but no collapse. In her weird behavioural seizures she was never responsive to me/fixed staring. Sometimes she would be focussing on something and I said something to her and she would look at me, so I knew she was sometimes just "busy" not having some neurological event! She sounds like she was a bit of a mess but she had a happy active life and I miss her very much

We have a French Brittany named Scout who is 2 years old (pictured below with my BC), we live in New Zealand and she was bred here. In the house she is very calm, kind of a heat-seeking couch potato. She is a very sweet-natured, cuddly girl who adores her family. When out she is a little hunting machine and she will go all day without tiring. She has just been rabbit hunting in the hills all weekend with my husband and is now crashed upside down on the couch. In sports type stuff, she has her Rally O Novice Title with me, and I do agility with her, at the moment just jumpers, but her hunting instincts are VERY strong, bearing in mind she was purchased as a hunting and field trial dog, not as an agility dog. She is "agreeable" to doing agility and rally with me, most of the time. Sometimes she makes stuff up on course, but she always has a good time. I agree with showdog, you should look at breeders who do other sports with their dogs, or who have sold pups to sports people and they should be able to give you a fair idea of how those dogs are doing. I don't think it is fair to say the French Brits are calmer and more attentive though? All the Brits I know, some French, some American, some a mix of lines are all pretty similar. They are happy to do stuff with you and they are happy to lie around the house provided they get plenty of exercise and things to do. They are active, energetic dogs. You would need to check with individual breeders re health tests but I have seen plenty of Brittany breeders on DOL who mention eye testing, hip and elbow scoring, and it seems more common for American Brittany Breeders.

Have recently lost our oldest two girls we are now down to two girls aged 4 and 2 years. I had forgotten how easy life is when you only have 2 dogs. But you can also spend vast amounts of time amusing yourself and doing research by asking questions like "what kind of puppy should we get next? Another BC for me? Another Brittany for Simon? Boy or girl? (last 4 have been girls)... Something completely different?". This can be endlessly fascinating and is great if you have a dog-loving friend also doing research, so you can discuss it for hours without boring anyone else :laugh: . When Maddie was 6 and KC was 4 back in 2006 I decided the time was right to get another BC as that was a 4 year age gap which seemed good timing, but I spent a further three years until KC was 7, happily in the research stage before adding...a third female BC! Then 2 years after that Scout the Brittany joined us so I still haven't quite mastered my ideal 4 year age gap.

KC was often incontinent in her sleep for a day or so after severe seizures. I wonder if it was the muscles everywhere being loose from the seizure activity or she was less aware (she was spayed at 6 months old). The first time she had pancreatitis and was a very sick girl she was incontinent in her sleep for about a week. She would also usually lose bladder control during a seizure but that was different as it would be sprayed around a little in droplets and her back end would end up covered in it. The post-seizure incontinence would be in the form of a puddle on her blankets.

I'm so sorry to hear Stella had another seizure, I was really hoping for you it was a once-off Having a seizure is very hard on the body so not surprising she was exhausted, poor girl.

My ideal sort of dog is medium sized (say between 45-50cm) and anything bigger than that is a "big dog" despite how giant it actually is. So to me labs etc are "big dogs". "Small dogs" are toy breeds or smaller terrier type with very short legs.

Ohutu Gaelic Blues CDX UDX WDX JDX RA Gael: 4 year old Border collie Gael had a great end to 2013 getting the 3 wins in each required to move up to top level agility and jumpers, JDX title, plus her first WDX in Working trials. AD/ADX eluded us...still no CRC there. We also started back in Rally Excellent last weekend after two years off, to get RE title in New Zealand requires 3 quals on 100/100...very tricky. But as I take other dog to Rally comps, may as well keep trying. CRC in Jumpers A CRC in Senior Agility AD title (0/2) ADX title, needs AD first 2nd WDX Teach Hard Surface tracking for TD CDX-Silver title RE title (0/3) Eclaireur du Montier RN Scout turns 2 in January 2014, French Brittany My husband's Dog (hunting feather and fur/field trials/NZVHDTA) I borrow when I can for Rally and Agility. RA title (0/3) 10 CRC in Jumpers C (0/10) Pass NZ Versatile Hunting Dog Test Association's Intermediate Test (w husband) QC title (w husband) Get above 75 points in Champ Pointer/Setter trial(w husband) For me: Maybe a new BC puppy late in 2014?

I would much rather the breeder chose the best puppy for me knowing what I want to do with the puppy. My "choice" in the matter was choosing the breeder/parents of the puppy. The 2 young dogs I have now I met first time at the airport to pick them up and they have both been fantastic dogs that fit us so well. I would get a pup from either breeder again and I would ask them to choose. In BCs there are some colours I just don't like and I much prefer females so I might be hoping for a black and white girl, but if Gael's breeder told me the best pup for me in a litter I liked was a merle boy, I'd take him! My older two BC girls (recently passed away), both were last in their litter to go at 10 weeks (both unreg puppies, from farms) so the only choice we had was whether to take them or not. Both were technically not the best choice as Maddie was very aloof with people and KC was terribly shy. Both these things were obvious at 10 weeks and to some extent they stayed like that their whole lives. So in some ways it is easier for me if I don't see the litter at all, and especially if very soft-hearted husband doesn't see the puppies!

Sorry for the loss of your beautiful Baylee. The pictures of her as a dignified older lady made me cry Run free beautiful girl...

No one warns you about the naughtiness of gundog puppies :) When they grow up they are such lovely, calm, beautiful dogs. I grew up with Border collies and other assorted sheepdog breeds. Didn't prepare me at all for the whirlwind that was Scout (Brittany) as a baby puppy. The other gundog owners I knew all when I told them my woes. Put Gael my BC in her crate as little puppy, puppy curls up and goes to sleep. Awwww. Put Scout in crate as little puppy at bedtime = screaming and tantrums "Don't want to be in here!! Will not sleep!! And neither will YOU!!". Also I had to learn you can't take your eyes off them for a second. She got up to mischief in a way that would never occur to any of my BC puppies. It took me longer than you might think to learn to not leave stuff like shoes lying around

Every day, at least once a day sometimes twice. We bought our house in the suburb we did as it backs on to a big reserve/A and P grounds. 5 minutes walk away, I love it. First walk is about 6am in summer and I rarely see anyone else. The only time we don't walk on there is weekends too busy, dont know the dogs. We drive to the forest/river/lake. We never go to "dog parks" I don't like them.

I am sorry you lost Ares I have been reading your thread hoping for the best for him. Big hugs to you and his brother Apollo.

My BC girl sleeps in crate in bedroom except when I first go to bed when she sleeps on the bed. She gets put in her crate when OH comes to bed around 2am. His Brittany girl sleeps in a crate in the lounge except for when I go to work at 8am and then she sleeps on the bed until he gets up 10:30am! The cat sleeps on the bed all of the time regardless of what people and dogs are also there, can't tell her what to do :)