CaseyKay

We live in a suburb besides a huge reserve/A & P showgrounds. We actually purchased our house to have the reserve to walk in. One thing I have noticed in my neighbourhood is that is not uncommon for people to have 2 or 3 dogs probably due to the terrific area to walk in. Goldies, labs, bichons and GSD seem popular. I get asked a lot what breed Scout, our Brittany, is. We have all different breeds and sizes of dogs but I have noticed a rising trend in French Bulldogs the past couple of years. Once lately, I got just inside the reserve and let my dogs off lead and a lady with a Frenchie came up to me and said "oh it must be soooo nice to have dogs you can let off lead", I said "why, does yours not have a good recall?" and she said "oh no he's FAR too valuable a dog to let off lead, we paid $3500 for him!". Took my apparently cheap and easily replaceable mutts away before I said something rude :laugh:

Until recently we had 4 girls; 2 senior BC, spayed, one 4 year old BC, spayed. One almost 2 year old Brittany, entire. Now just have the younger two. Never had any issues with any of them, ever. I do know people who have serious issues with 2 girls though and have to keep them permanently and very carefully separated, so in case I have just been "lucky" so far, next pup will almost certainly be be a boy.

Interesting thread :) my husband has recently began competing with his french brittany girl "Scout" in New Zealand in Pointer/Setter (no HPR tests here) and novice retriever. The former is going better than the latter. Interesting to read about the different breeds, here the most common breed would be the working ESS, in our region anyway. Obviously in spaniel trials but also in the novice retriever trials and all breed retriever. After that Labs and Goldies and then aside from the various pointer/setter/HPR breeds there isn't a lot of diversity but the NZ champs are on over labour weekend so hoping to see some different breeds there. Pleased last weekend that at her 2nd pointer setter trial Scout finished the course and got 3rd place on pretty good points. Her first trial she found out of order. Last weekend was also her first retriever trial, she got overexcited waiting her turn while others ran, and did not wait for judges command to "Send your dog" but wasn't the only one! We also have NZ Versatile Hunting Dog Test Association, natural ability test and intermediate test for the continental HPR breeds. NAT for dogs 6-16 months and Int for 16 to 16 months. This is very similar to the tests in North America. Scout was run in this in April 2013 at 15 months and achieved Prize 1. The first Brittany in NZ to do so :) but only 3 of the correct age have run, her grandmother got Prize 3. The most common breeds by far to have run in NAT are GWP and GSP. I worked out of the correctly aged dogs run (people can run older dogs but can't get a Prize grading) 43% achieve Prize 3, 2, or 1 and 15% Prize 1 in natural ability test. It is judged on searching/nose/pointing/attitude/co-operation/tracking/water and gunshot (can't Prize if any signs of gunshyness). It is judged by 3 judges who all agree on each catagory from 0 to 4. I really enjoyed watching this. The intermediate test has a lot more retrieving in it and Scout won't run in upcoming spring test, we will wait until next Autumn one. But we are interested to go and spectate at the next test in a month just to learn more. He also uses her for hunting (rabbits year round and birds in season) which is his main hobby. The girl waiting her turn to run pointer/setter trial last weekend:

My 3 border collies I have lost have all gone to cancer (3 different types) at 13 years, 13 years and 11 years. It seems too young to me but probably isn't the scheme of things. Good to hear about the Britts Rallyvalley! I will have to go find the database you mention, it sounds interesting.

It has been almost two weeks since my girls left me. It is a week today since their ashes were ready to be picked up. I tried all this past week to go and pick them up myself but I just couldn't. My husband Simon went and picked them up today so they are home again with Mr Toby our beloved fluffy cat who died in late 2005 aged 20, and taught them as puppies that you don't mess with cats. I wrote a letter for Simon to give to the vets. I have a lot of competitions coming up with Gael but I haven't been able to do any more than go on long walks with her and Scout. Last weekend she and I went to a field trial a few hundred km south of where we lived and watched Simon and Scout compete. It wasn't too hard as Gael was actually the only border collie there but I had a few hugs with some old grey-faced gundogs. Funny how I think of Madd and I just smile. I feel she is at peace and she is happy. We went to a cafe by the beach near the field trial one evening and there were a lot of seagulls. Maddie always loved chasing seagulls. I asked Simon which one did he think Maddie was and he said the one who is up the highest and flying the fastest just for the thrill of it. My favourite walk with Maddie, KC and Gael was beside the river in the big reserve behind our suburb. We never take Scout-the-Brittany on this river walk as she runs too far and too fast and ruins the peace I have always found there. The walk finishes in a little pine forest before we turn back for home. Here, every walk without fail KC would chose a pine cone to carry home. It had to be the Right Sort of pine cone, and she would choose and discard several. She would drop it at my feet and dance her feet up and down, and I would throw it for her most of the way back. She chased and pounced on it. She growled and woofed and bit at it. She made me smile every time, she had such a huge quirky personality. Gael and I haven't been back on the river walk, it will take some time...it makes me sad to think of all those pine cones and no one to choose them. I think maybe Anne will understand because of Monte who had epilepsy too, but it has hurt so much to lose KC. I looked after her all her life and worried about her. Not even Simon would take KC for a walk, she was my heart alone. I find her Pb pills for her epilepsy everywhere. I kept packets all over the place in case I needed some. I had said to people in the last few years that I never expected KC to last this many years and I was so happy she got to grow old and grey and that I understood every day was a gift. That I would accept when she left that I had had more time than I ever hoped for. But I can't, it is so unfair and it is so hard to let her go.

Thank you for your thoughts, I know people do understand (or at least look at their own dogs and can imagine), I have no oldies left now so if you have one at home can you give them an extra hug today and tell them how much you love and appreciate them? Stellnme, you lost two at the same time as well? I'm sorry to hear that, it's so hard, I just feel so bewildered how this could happen. I can only think maybe Maddie had finished all she had to do here, and chose to go and take care of KC for me, so at least KC was not alone with no one to look after her and go to. KC always expected everyone else in the family to look after her, she never worried about much, she was always loved and protected. I can see in Gael now, my young BC, she is so happy and playful the last couple of days. She always felt it was her job to look after KC on walks and make sure other dogs didn't frighten her. I remember last summer at the reserve where we walk, a horse event had been on and there was a big pile of horse manure raked up. Not sure what KC planned to do with it (eat it? roll in it?) but she was not leaving that treasure! After calling her a few times I kept walking and said "i'm leaving you here kc bear! I'm going home without you, you will have to live in this paddock". (I always had these one-sided conversations with KC). Walked over to the gate: "I mean it!". through the gate and closed it, looked back to see a belligerant little collie sitting determindly, ears flat. Like I would ever really leave her! Gael was beside herself, whimpering and staring at me and back at her: "We canNOT leave KC". I thought surely KC would follow so I went behind a tree and looked back. No, she had lay down. Shouted: "K. C. BEAR! I'm not coming all the way back there. Get here NOW". Gael made up her mind, cleared the gate raced across the paddock and lay down beside KC. I went back and had to put KC on a lead to force her to move :) KC always had us all at her beck and call. Maddie was just a good, good dog. She was such an easy girl, so obedient. She was my first ever agility, obedience, tracking and rally-o dog. She was the perfect beginners dog, especially in tracking. I just taught her what I wanted then trusted her to do it. We were even on TV together here in NZ on a show called "Tux wonderdogs" which was a fun competition type thing with agility, retrieving etc. Although Maddie was half NZ Heading dog, she and KC were actually cousins, something I didn't realise for a number of years until I refound some info that had come with her from the farm Madd was born on. There was a copy of her BC mothers pedigree in there, I hadn't taken any notice of the name when we got her, but it turned out Maddie's Mum and KCs Dad were siblings. Of all the BCs in NZ it seemed an amazing co-incidence they were related.

Two weeks ago I had four beautiful, happy, active dogs. Maddie a 13 year old border collie, KC, an 11 year old border collie, Gael a 4 year old Border collie and my husbands Brittany, 1.5 year old Scout. Every morning before work I would walk all of them for over an hour in the reserve behind my house. In the evenings I would do training with Gael or Scout, Maddie would then play bitey-face-wrestling with Scout and KC would get me to throw her ball for her over and over :) This time last week, Maddie got up from her bed in the night and collapsed suddenly, it was like she fainted. I got her stood up and within a minute or so she recovered and seemed tired but okay. In the morning we went to the vet and they ran blood tests, could not find anything wrong on examination except her pulse was quite slow or on the results that came back in the next half hour, and sent us home. We hoped a one off. The vet rang me two hours later and said bring her back her potassium is dangerously high you need to get her in here NOW she is in danger of arrythmia or cardiac arrest. I looked at her and she looked at me and she seemed okay to me, but we drove the 5 minutes and when I got her out of the car she suddenly collapsed again. They had to fight to save her and she ended up on a drip trying to bring the potassium down. They still had no idea what was wrong, she did not have any kidney or liver function problems. The following day she was still not right and stayed on the drip, they tested her cortisol for Addison's disease, negative. They gave her a b12 injection and antibiotics. The only other thing was she had lost quite a bit of weight in the last few months. I took her home on Friday and she seemed better but on Monday started having weird neuro sypmtoms. Her gait was strange and she stood staring into nowhere not responding. She would push her head into the corner of her crate and rock back and forth. Back to vet, redid some tests, her potassium was fine this time but the vet said it could be a brain tumour from her symptoms. Her optic blood vessels were swollen, they said they suggested maybe pressure inside her head, they did x rays to check for secondary tumours in her chest and abdomen, nothing. They gave her a shot of prendisone and said may see improvement in a day or so, depending on what problem was. She was obviously very unwell but they had no idea why, or if she would get better and I said if she became any worse I would have to consider putting her to sleep because I believed she was suffering and only getting worse and quite rapidly. In the early hours of the Thursday morning she started to have grand mal seizures and the decision was made to put her to sleep in my arms that morning Then the worse thing imaginable happened. My wee BC girl "KC Bear" aged 11 years became ill that SAME afternoon. KC has had a lot of health issues. She has had epilepsy with cluster seizures her whole life, she is on two meds for those. She has had a brush with death 3 years ago with acute pancreatitis, and her last blood work in June started showing liver and kidney issues possibly associated with all the epilepsy meds. She threw up a couple of times and looked slightly unwell, but KC often throws up or looks slightly unwell. She had a drink and I put her in her crate for a rest, a couple of hours later I realised she has soiled in her crate and when I tried to get her out she was all hunched up. I had seen this once before. We went straight to after hours vet presuming pancreatitis again, although I thought that was okay since she had that before and had beaten it. They took blood work and it was all over the place, a lot of things were bad but the indicator for pancreatitis was off the charts so guessed that was what we were dealing with again. They took blood for a more definative test and put her on a drip. They said she should feel better in the morning, but in the morning when I went back she could no longer stand up. I took her to normal vet, who had put Maddie to sleep only 24 hours previously and they all looked so horrified to see us carrying KC in (due to all her health issues KC is well known there). But I still thought she would be okay she just needed time and support to recover. She was on morphine so I wasn't worried about her pain levels. The young vet looking after her became very concerned in the afternoon and said I would like to take some fluid from her abdomen and maybe do an ultrasound, I said okay, she rang back and said the news is very bad the fluid is septic, she is seriously, seriously ill. I said no no you have to save her you have to do something I can't lose her too. She said I don't know if she is strong enough but we can try surgery. They rang me again during the surgery to say all hope was lost, it was not simple pancreatitis, a massive tumour had burst on her pancreas, causing the sepsis. They did not wake her up from the surgery. KC, my little battler, my happy girl with the smiley face who lit up my life every day was gone too. Within 48 hours I lost both of them. I was in shock for days. I think I still am, I feel sick all the time. I cannot believe they are both gone, and so suddenly. I feel so worried about something happening to the two younger dogs and I had a terrible dream last night that they got lost I have worried about KC all her life and more than once with terrible seemingly unstoppable clusters, and the last pancreatitis, the vet has said "I think this is it for her you need to prepare yourself" but she always came back, I never saw this one coming. The only comforts I have are that they lived long lives and were happy and active until the end which came suddenly and neither suffered as much as I could avoid it. A lot of people have said "they are together, they have each other" but it just seems so unfair.

My oldest BC girl is a very independant, workaholic type. She is REALLY not into cuddles and will put up with being patted but will lean away and look very put upon while you do it. I don't like this in a dog at ALL, she is too aloof and we don't get along very well. She is a fantastic dog to work with though, I have done heaps of different sports with her and she is very good at everything she has tried. Sometimes I forget and cuddle her and offend her greatly My next oldest BC is not a cuddler either. She likes attention/interaction and will follow me about and will nudge for pats, but doesn't do lap sitting etc. So when I talked to Gael's breeder originally I said I want a dog for agility and tracking but really above all I MUST have a cuddly dog. I got my cuddly dog, I adore her, she is very velcro, needy, in my face on my lap as often as she can be. She loves all her people friends too and feels they need many cuddles. She likes to sit on people's laps at agility shows and poke her nose down their tops and inhale noisily:("you smell so nice my lovely friend"). The Brittany is also a snuggler and a heat-seeking snuggler at that, and refuses to contemplate sitting by herself when there is a lap to sleep on. She is very affectionate but more with her family than like Gael with everyone. She is the sort of dog where you go outside to take the recycling out and she is overjoyed at your return as if you had been gone for hours. It is very cute and so I forgive her occasional naughtiness. Cuddly is the MOST important thing to me

Our 4 year old cat Essie lives with 4 active breed dogs. The older two dogs were brought up from puppies by our "big scary cat" Toby and his sidekick "evil white cat" (who we adopted as seniors and had been with us a while prior to these 2 dogs!) and they are generally very cautious around cats (as they learnt, go near cat = get whacked). Toby used to be able to remove either dog from a nice spot to sleep merely by looking at them and they would slink off. After they died a couple of years apart we got Essie as a kitten and Gael as a puppy not long after and they are the best of mates, this si the first time I have ever had a cat and a dog who are friends. Scout the Brittany is not loved by Essie as she likes to play by "bouncing" at the cat (she is not aggressive towards the cat, just overexcited by her). Essie likes to have high places she can get to that Scout can't reach. She also eats high up so the dogs don't bother her. We keep the door down to the bedrooms closed off to the dogs most of the time and the cat often sleeps in the bed. Last night it was cold and I had all 5 of them in the lounge with me including the brittany and the cat sharing the couch with me, so she doesn't mind Scout as long as Scout isn't bouncing at her! She never runs away from the pup, she just looks peeved off until I rescue her. She is very gentle, I don't think it would occur to her she has claws to defend herself with. We also have a courtyard area that is for the cat only and the dogs aren't allowed in there so she can roll around in the sun in peace :) Gael and Essie:

I had a busy/stressful day at work last week, went in early, came home late, it was dark and pouring with rain, husband is home with the animals until 3:30pm when he goes to work but they hadn't been out for a walk due to the rain. 4 dogs and the cat all over me demanding food and attention and traipsing in mud and leaves from being let out to toilet. I texted husband: "Arrrh. Tired of all these animals, running away from home and leaving all of you!!",. He texted back: "You are taking Gael with you, aren't you". Yep. Love them all, not equally!

We have 4 girls which I know is a terrifying number to "non-doggy" people such as my collegues. Two are my senior citizen BCs: Maddie 13 and KC 11 years. They are pretty easy going these days, happy for long morning walk, some quality time each etc. Then my young BC 3 years old, who competes in working trials (tracking etc) and agility, and I just adore her, she is my perfect dog (like Huski said, with no offence to the others!). And my husband's young Brittany 14 months who he takes hunting and trains for field trials and I have recently started training her for agility. Quite often on the weekend Gael and I are at agility and Simon and Scout are at gundog training or hunting and the 2 oldies get some peace and quiet at home!If Simon is at home for the weekend I will take KC away with me as well. I did tell my husband for me personally 2 dogs is a good number and he said two BC for you and 2 Brittanys for me, sounds good so don't like the chances of getting below 4 for long periods.. I work 9-5 and he works 3:30-11:30pm so they aren't alone much. I walk all 4 offlead in the morning for at least an hour, Scout also gets walked/training early afternoon and Gael gets training for working trals most nights I don't have agility training (Mon: Scout, Thurs: Gael). When we don't have the (very fit and healthy!) oldies anymore we can fight over who gets next puppy but that will be a few years down the track. Young dogs are a lot of hard work :)

My youngest BC breeder has a page on her site of her dogs owned by others that have titles etc, I really like that. Something for the future seeing as you haven't bred your girl yet! I also like it when breeders put up previous litters pages and you can see what they look like when they are grown up, that also makes me think they are a good breeder who cares about the dogs they breed and keeps in touch with their puppy owners. And I like to read interesting stuff about the breeder's dogs like something funny they do or about their personality on their separate page, more than a list of results/titles and a pedigree. Galleries of photos, eg show photos, working photos etc. Mainly keeping the page up to date!

Pretty much all the time. Even though we have 4 dogs which is at least one more than I'd like to have. 2 are senior citizens 10.5 and 13 next month. It is sad to have too many old dogs and too hectic to have many young dogs (my young dog is 3 years and my husbands is 10 months). Even if I lost both my oldies soon it is at least 2 years until my next pup. Gael will be 5 then which is a good sort of gap for me. If my husband wants more than one though we are never going to get back below 4!

I feed it frozen and have done for 5 or so years. 20kg (plus bones and my youngest dog is on orijin as well) lasts one young BC one senior BC and one young Brittany for 4 weeks. I could not afford to feed the freeze dried version :) Frozen costs me $40 per dog per month.

My husband met an adult female deerhound recently spectating at a gundog field trial he was helping at. He was pretty smitten too :)

I grew up on a large isolated farm with heaps of sheepdogs, BCs, huntaways, beardies. I always said when I grew up I was going to have 2 dogs: a german shepherd and a chocolate labrador. Not a "farm dog". After I left uni got a job and a house and was in a position to get a dog I did about a year of research on heaps of breeds (in the serious consideration catagory was GSD, Dobe, Vizsla and Briard) and ended up with one BC, 2 years later another BC and a few years later a 3rd BC. They suit me well, before the second girl, KC, I did consider getting a GSD again, before deciding the smaller size and lighter build of the BC was more suitable for sports. Before getting Gael my 3rd dog I looked into smaller breeds for agility. OH has a love of hunting and always wanted a hunting buddy. His top choice for that is german wire-haired pointer. But they are just too big and hairy for me. We went and watched some field trials and agreed on a Brittany, it just took 3 years to find her! We wanted parents who were hunted and were NZKC registered so OH could train for field trials. Had nearly given up and were looking into Vizsla instead when her litter arrived. She is 8 months old now and a lovely girl,she also fits in well with my 3 BCs. I definately think I am a "medium" size dog person.

I would have thought the breed club in Victoria was your best bet as they would know who is breeding and if any pups are around but you have tried them. There are a couple of current breeders in New Zealand but both had litters in January and only have one breeding girl each. You might have more luck with the American type as DOL lists quite a few breeders in Australia and some of them may have roan coloured dogs. Our french brittany girl was from one of those litters in January but we have waited some years for her! Edit: there is a Brittany thread in the breed subforum of the general forum.

I have 3 border collies and only really get comments like "aren't they a lot of hard work" or "aren't they very hyper to keep in town"? Gael is blue and white with no blaze and yellow eyes so sometimes I get asked if she is a husky cross. Then we got the Brittany pup and get asked a LOT about her. Usually it's "what is she? She is VERY cute" "she's a Brittany" "Oh a Brittany Spaniel!" "They used to be called that but they are more of a pointer than a spaniel so the name is just "Brittany" now"(or if I can't be bothered because then I get "but why are they called Brittany Spaniels if they aren't a spaniel": "a brittany spaniel, yes") Someone did say to me recently "wow your pup is VERY leggy for a cocker".

This is terribly sad news Owey I'm so sorry your family had to go through this heartache with Bailey We all get attached to little puppies so quickly, it must have been devastating...I hope in time there is a place in your family's hearts for a healthy wee puppy to bring you love and cuddles again. RIP Bailey.

I did 5 years of French in high school and still know enough to understand what someone is talking about. I'm actually thinking of taking some kind of community college refresher course since we got the Brittany pup and there is a french forum which looks interesting but I don't get the finer points of :) I always planned to visit France one day as well...one of the teaching assistants/PhD students at the uni I teach at even comes from Brittany.

My original pair of boys had 4 years between them but they died less than 6 months apart at 17 and 13, I got them both as adults at a similar time originally Now have 2 senior girls aged 12 and 10 and 2 junior girls aged 2.5 and 5 months. Life got easier for the seniors now we have Scout to play with Gael. It does mean you have a big gap between the pairs though! I didn't get Maddie now 12 until 2 years after the boys had gone.

Definately prefer females, to live with, and for sports which is what I do with them. My first two BCs were boys. When we got OH's Brittany pup I was pretty adament it should be a boy as we already had three female border collies. But there were no males available in the litter. So now have 4 girl dogs and a girl cat. Oops. My husband says he doesn't mind being the only male in the house. Next one, a long long long time in the future :) I think will be a boy BC.

I like breeds that were breed to work with people, taking direction while still having natural instinct and be biddable: herding dogs and gundogs. Border collies are my favourite breed. Less suitable for me: anything that isn't too interested in doing what I want when I want :laugh:

Have a thing about Salukis but will probably never own one, I think that physically they are the most beautiful dogs imaginable. I notice they always turn up on other people's lists too :)

One of the residents at the war veterans home where I take my border collie for pet therapy used to own and exhibit Scotties :) Lovely guy, his room is completely filled with Scottie paraphenalia. I do know one in real life from the local reserve, his name is Gus, he is a friendly boy, I think he is gorgeous!