Brockle Update --

Brockle is still wonderful. 

He has also begun to relax.

Which means there's some testing going on in the house.

He is still sweet, calm, gentle and obedient. In the house and when he's tired.

He's a ball retrieving, rabbit chasing goon outside and off-leash. 

Brockle is a cat burglur.

Once Jim and I leave he becomes something else. He becomes a sneaky little thief. He steals our stuff. Then he puts them some place where we'll find them. It's like a criminal's signature left during a crime spree.I'll find my boot in the middle of our bed. or Jim's back brace on the patio table. A single slipper hidden under the blanket in Charlie's favorite chair. Nothing is chewed, just placed gently in the middle of every single place he's not allowed to be. A piece of statuary from the table in the entryway sitting on the kitchen counter. I could go on.

"Wait!" I think. Maybe Charlie's doing it, of course Charlie isn't tall enough. How about a poltergeist? If the poltergeist has big giant feet and leaves muddy paw prints all over my furniture...

Brockle's heritage is constantly being brought under the gun. Nobody wants to accept the idea he just might be what I was told he is, GSD and collie. I guess they want him to be more exotic.

"He can't be GSD and collie, his color's all wrong," is the major one.

I was wondering if all of the armchair geneticists were right, and he was something more interesting, you know, cooler. But then I found these. So much for that theory.

It turns out, there is a gene, the pied gene, also called the white spot gene (I think). It's a recessive gene and GSD breeders are not happy when it shows up. But it took ten minutes on the Internet for me to find a Krazy Kolor GSD breeder who was doing this on purpose. So it's easy to see where Brockle gets his color.

I think I may have solved the puzzle though. 

I think he's a Lurcher.

Lurchers were developed by the Romanichals and Mouchers in England (the Norfolk Lurcher being the typical moucher dog) and other British countries during a period when hunting of game was reserved for the landed classes. The penalties for poaching were extremely severe, and greyhounds (as well as being very difficult to train) were also the dog of the aristocracy, so obviously a different dog was required. They were used for poaching rabbits, hares and other small creatures.  It is never bred to a specific standard and is not considered a breed, as the Lurcher is a crossbreed: usually three quarters sighthound but can have any amount of sighthound in them.  The most common combinations are the Greyhound/Collie and the Greyhound/Terrier.  The name Lurcher a is derived name from the Romany word lur, which means thief.  

 Lurchers are sometimes referred to as Gypsy Dogs as they were often utilized to steal chickens, etc. from the farmers.  Aptly named, nothing lying within reach is off-limits to these imps.

See? Born to be a thief. He's gotta be a lurcher.

He's making up for it though. He's about got fetching the paper in the morning down. He never, ever leaves my side by choice. I did a fairly serious PD pratfall down a hill last week. Brockle came off a rabbit he and Charlie were chasing and was standing over me, barking and nosing me, within seconds. He backed off nicely and gave me room to get back up too.

He's extremely fond of Snocone. He licks her face and gently sniffs her. In return she is beginning to play a little.

Charlie and Brockle are becoming fast friends. Brockle is even showing Charlie how to steal things. I'm so proud.

The crazy play never stops.

Charlie is turning into a lean, mean rat machine. He's lost five years of stuffiness.

On the training side of things, we've been doing good. I keep reading and watching videos and trying this, that and the other thing to see what works.

Treat rewards work well for some things, mainly if we're in the house and there's nothing better to do. He likes food, but he doesn't care enough to prefer it over some of his rowdiness outside. If he's seriously distracted, he doesn't care for treats, praise or even his favorite toy his tennis ball. 

For the moment, I'm working on a dog-version of my old Monte Foreman horse training techniques. 1. Ask for the behavior I want. 2. Tll him what I want. 3.Make it happen.

I'll use walking on the leash as a good example. If Brockle starts to put weight on his leash I make the hand holding the leash into a fist. If he backs off I relax my hand again.

If he doesn't respond I go to step two, give him a verbal Heh, re-position him and walk on. 
If he still doesn't respond I either turn suddenly and walk the other way for a few steps or bump him as hard as it takes with my foot until he's back where he belongs.

He only gets a food reward (a bit of chicken) if he does what I want at step #1. 

It's working nicely. Not great, still working. One reason he was turned into the pound was for pulling his owner over on the leash, now he doesn't go past step two anymore. 

His dog aggression is dwindling, we're passing other dogs on our walks like a couple of pros. We had seven dogs here for Christmas (missing two) and only had a very minor skirmish between Brockle and my step-sons notoriously aggressive Blue Heeler. It was mainly noise, the heeler was locked up in another room for a few minutes and everything stayed polite afterwards.

We spend an hour to an hour-and-a-half a day on walks. I can take him to the barn, tie him to an arena post while I ride and he lays down and watches with quiet interest.

Brockle's ball. We play fetch for a good thirty to forty throws every day at the dog park.

I'm not cast in stone on any of this yet, I'm still reading about different techniques, but Brockle is fast turning into a well-behaved companion in spite of me.

He lies at my feet and his intelligent eyes crackle with conversation and interest. Brockle can't wait for the adventure of the day to begin and he won't start it without me. This has the rumblings of something great.