BU

(Even Sweets Granting Pleasure, born 9.2.2006)

Bu’s story is a little bit similar to La’s: this time, I was searching for a blue-merle BC for two years, but everything went wrong with my merle options: at least 5 bitches never got in heat after I reserved a puppy (!!!), one stayed empty, one was diagnosed with eye problem and wasn’t bred then… I never imagined so many things can go wrong! In desperation, I started to check black&white litters too and that’s how I found out that Liz, a mother of already 19 great agility dogs, first two placed in WC 2005 for example, is pregnant. Too late to change her mind!

That’s how I got Bu. She might not be a blue-merle, but afterall, that’s already my third dog of the wrong colour, so that must be a good sign!

It didn’t look like it at the beginning, she was a really strange puppy, acting somehow autistic, not reacting at all to people’s voice or to excitement in a voice, she also didn’t follow, but just went off sniffing around. She showed no interest in communicating with the rest of the world, showed no prey or food drive and no wish to be with you.

I admit I was shocked, I never expected that from a BC… For months, I was watching her 24 hours a day with a clicker in my hand, clicking every thought in my direction and feeding every little piece of her meals from my hand, one by one. Eventually, she started to cooperate, started to offer behaviours and learned very fast, but still didn’t really bond with me, she needed months to recognize her name and even more to put names to all that behaviours that we shaped in all that time. She has always been great in learning, but she had major problems with understanding anything above click&treat, feelings were always a big mystery for her... It took months for her to understand things that any 5 weeks old puppy knows...

Now that I have little Bi to compare, I'm really sure Bu was heavily autistic as a puppy. By now, we can talk almost normally, but there are still areas where I don't understand her at all... She sure never cease to amaze me with new challenges! 

All that said, she is still my best behaved and best trained dog, she knows tons of tricks, has faster dog-walk than La and the best turns ever. She is really great for agility and while our team work still leaves us with lots of room for improvements, she has her moments of brilliance when she can even beat my crazy little unbeatable La. Not bad for a BC afterall!