Bracken the Rescue Dog was lovely. Great looks, fabulous coat, bags of energy and personality.
To say the early weeks and months with Bracken were exciting and entertaining is something of an understatement!
Bracken quickly showed us that in his world everything was a game, anything edible within his reach was automatically his and running off across the fields to explore the world was just what you do!
It was very evident that the reason Bracken had ended up in Birmingham Dogs Home was that he had been given zero training. We were starting from ground zero with him!
Bracken The Runner!
In the early days we walked Bracken on a lead round the fields and park we tended to use for dog walking.
We sort of suspected his short vacation at the dog home would be due to him running off and getting lost. Why his original owners didn’t try to find him we will never know but their loss was our gain!
We wanted to make sure he had a good sense of his surroundings before we let him off the lead.
I was using a long training lead to get him used to coming back when called and he seemed to be getting the hang of it to the point where the time came to test him out without the lead!
The first couple of times I took the lead off he was fine coming back easily when called albeit from a fairly short distance away.
My confidence in him grew it was however short lived!
I’ll never forget the first and certainly not the last time he ran.
We were in the fields which, were a very large area with lots of hedgerows between each field and reasonably well away from roads.
Things started off fine but suddenly when he was about 20 yards or so away from me he set his sights on something in the distance and shot off!
Despite my calls he just kept running and eventually disappeared through a hedge row!
I was for want of a better word ‘gobsmacked’ he had been doing so well but clearly he had different ideas!
I was soon in hot pursuit – running across the fields after him. Eventually I located him in filthy stagnant pool in the corner of a field.
He was filthy and stinking! It took a fair bit of hosing down and shampooing when I got him back home to make him wholesome again!
There were two further memorable episodes where he suffered total hearing failure and took off.
On both occasions despite my best efforts I couldn’t find him and we began to think we might have lost him!
The first time he turned up late in the evening and sat outside the front door howling! Filthy and stinking again!
The second time he materialised at about 1.00am! This time he sat himself at the entrance to the fields about 20 yards up the road from our front door. More howling which woke our neighbours up before we could retrieve him!
Where he got to and what he got up to on his runaway adventures we never knew. As nobody ever caught him or reported seeing him our guess is he stayed in the fields and woodland probably having a great time!
We eventually got him out of the habit of running off and not returning when called thank goodness!
Bracken The Washing Line Fiend!
Yep Bracken had a thing for washing blowing in the wind!
It was a great game to him chasing around it and pulling it off the line.
Not so great for us when he ripped sheets and towels.
We began to wonder if this and his running were reasons his previous owners didn’t appear to make any effort to get him back!
It wasn’t as if he had nothing else to entertain him – 2 toddlers, dog toys, us!
Fortunately unlike his runaway behaviour this was much easier to train out -we got a tumble drier! – only kidding. We just made sure that if he so much as looked at the washing on the line he was told NO and before long it was of no interest to him.
Bracken Thinks All Edible Stuff Is His!
We look back on this stuff now and can laugh about it. Despite all his early day antics you couldn’t help but love Bracken especially when he gave you the ‘it wasn’t me’ or the ‘what did I do’ looks.
If you ever want your dog to have a super glossy coat just give them a pound of butter! – actually don’t do that.
There were many events when Bracken took food that wasn’t for him.
All we had to do was forget for a minute and leave food that was within his reach which. being the size he was is impressive and it would be gone as if by magic!
A pound of butter had been partially unwrapped and placed on the butter dish and left on the kitchen worktop.
Clearly we bungled as most of the worktop surface was we discovered well within his reach.
A short while later there is a search under way for the missing butter. The dish was still on the worktop but no more butter!
It wasn’t long before we found the chewed up remnants of the wrapping and it was clear Bracken had wolfed it down!
Not sure if it was our imagination or not but hos coat really did seem to be super glossy for quite a while after the event.
The other spectacular food pinching event was one Sunday dinner time!
We were having a roast chicken dinner with all the usual trimmings – yummy.
We had set the table in the living room and my wife had plated up the food for our two kids and put it on the table to let it cool a bit whilst our plates we made up.
It really wouldn’t have been that long between the kids plates being left and us all trooping in to the room to sit down and enjoy our Sunday dinner.
Another bungle on our part Bracken had been left in the room on his own and he took full advantage of the situation!
When we came in to the room both the kids meals were gone and Bracken was looking very satisfied!
We never did break him of his food pinching but we did get much better at not giving him the opportunities.
So there you have it – a few of the more memorable moments Bracken gave us.
He really was one of a kind for us.
