Brogan, our second dogue de bordeaux and 5th dog

Brogan came into our family when we were all so sad that I wasn’t sure how he would do. We had lost 3 dogs in 3 years and I kinda felt a little cursed. But Brogan would have no part of sadness. He goofed off constantly, and was the biggest clutz I’ve ever been around. It was like he had no idea where his body parts were. It was so comical to watch him do anything. And he was a drama Queen. If it hurt a little he screamed like he was dying. And if he got tired on a walk he just quit. Either he got carried home or he would just stay were he was. He didn’t seem to have basic survival instincts. He just expected that we would rescue him. It was the exact thing we needed. He brought joy back into our sad house. His drama was a distraction and comic relief. Hard to stay sad when you are laughing at a clutzy puppy. And Rosco absolutely loved him. I had went from 1 very serious “responsible” obedient dog and a nervous puppy, to 2 crazy puppies. They kept us busy. When one did something bad and you caught them at it and scolded them you knew to watch for the second one to try it. Double trouble through and through. But also double the amount of fun and laughing.

Brogan didn’t let us get away with completely normal and healthy for long though. The poor guy ended up with a bad gastroenteritis and acted like he was going to die. I was still pretty traumatized by Sloan, so we rushed him into the Vet right away. They ran some tests and confirmed that he was indeed just suffering from a bad gastroenteritis and would be okay. But he was dehydrated so they did want him on fluids until he was feeling better. Luckily for all of us he was back to his normal pain in the butt puppy in a couple days.

Rosco was his side kick the entire time he wasn’t feeling well. Rarely leaving his side. It was cute to see, but a little stressful because I was so worried about my puppy being sick so soon after we got him. After that little bump in the road we were back to smooth sailing. Our first year we did puppy and beginner obedience classes (separately so they each got one on one time with training) and then we would do our homework together at home. They were both pretty eager to please. However Brogan proved that he had a bigger stubborn streak than any dog I had worked with before. He would do things for you once, maybe twice if you were lucky and then he would look at you like you must be slow because why else would you ask him to do something repeatedly when he had already shown you he could do it. There wasn’t a treat in the world that would motivate him to show you the same thing repeatedly. Which any of you who have done puppy classes will know is mostly repetition. The instructor suggested I bring better treats for him at the beginning, so I showed her the ham, turkey and cheese I was using. She laughed and told me that we could mix stuff up and not follow the 20 sits that the rest of the class was doing. He obviously understood the command, just wasn’t interested in doing it. This was hard for me because I had always had “eager to please dogs”. He was eager to please, just eager to please himself and not others 😋. That hasn’t changed with age for him. He is a master manipulator and I think may be the most intelligent dog I have ever had, just not the most obedient. He knows what you want, he just needs to think it’s in his best interest to do it.

Rosco, on the other hand, was crazy food motivated and really eager to please. The only thing we struggled with was loose leash walking. The leash and him just did not go together. He would walk perfectly beside me without a leash, but put a leash on and he felt the need to keep it as tight as possible at all times. We tried everything, be a tree (where you don’t move until the leash is lax), zig zagging (so he has to focus on where you are going) and clicking and treating every time we managed to take a few steps with a loose leash. Nothing worked for him. Brogan excelled at loose leash walking so it was harder to work with Rosco on it when we were walking together. They were fantastic off leash though, they stuck close to me and to each other and both had fantastic recalls. So eventually we gave up on walking on leash and just did dog parks and other places it was safe to go off leash.

You would think that these two were littermates with how close they were. They were either playing together, finding mischief together or cuddling and sleeping together. We estimated Rosco’s birthday to be in April and Brogan was born in August so they are very close in age.

Finally we had “normal” dogs. That we could just enjoy. No pharmacy of medication or high chairs or worrying every time they looked at me strangely that something was seriously wrong with them and we needed to go back to the vet. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have given up one second I had with the other 3. They brought me more joy and love than one could imagine. It was devastating to lose them because they consumed so much of my time. But they were special and we loved them. It was just kinda relaxing to have 2 Dogs that could eat normal dog food and didn’t have a terrible prognosis.

I will continue their story in future posts. They are our only kids, furkids, but like kids for us. And anyone who knows me knows I love to talk about them and share stories about what they have done to brighten my day.