Judi Brown & Tehanu My Best Buddy (Buddy)
Buddy was originally picked up as a stray on the streets of 
Trust kindly stepped in and brought 32 dogs from the sanctuary over to Evesham, distributing them to their centres around
Although we had no information on Buddy’s history, we suspected that he had been harshly treated in the past. He would spin or cringe if touched further back than his withers, and would literally scream and panic if he stepped over his lead and it touched his legs. The first time he saw one of us carrying a roll of wrapping paper, he threw himself on the floor and almost turned inside out in panic. He didn’t know his name and had no idea of commands. However, he seemed happy to let our dog, Kimmy, be the top dog of the family which was a tremendous help, as he learned the house rules from her, and her trusting nature began to rub off on him.
Kim was already part of the Paws For Thought Dog Display Team, and the idea was that Buddy would be able to become socialised with the well-adjusted dogs there. We soon learned that entire males were not to his liking though, as he had only recently been neutered, so still had a lot of hormones in his system. Remembering the dog that had attacked him in kennels, he also had an aversion to black dogs in particular, and was quick to warn them off with a display of teeth and noise. On the other hand he was extremely friendly and keen for attention, with a ‘happy but clueless’ face.
Gaining Buddy’s confidence was a slow process requiring lots of patience and a considerable amount of learning for us. He mastered the basic commands quickly, to the extent that he was able to appear with the Display Team at Crufts in 2003, just 4 months after we rescued him. He had an almost tearful reunion on the Dogs Trust stand, when I described how we had got him, and the chap I was speaking to told us he was the van driver who brought Buddy over from Antrim. We don’t know what kind of mixture of breeds Buddy is, but he definitely shows signs of gundog somewhere. He is happy working at quite a distance from his handler, and is excellent at scentwork and flushing. This made training his recall a challenge! Somewhere in his past, someone had played football with Buddy, and as a result it took two years to persuade him to ‘fetch and hold’ a retrieve item, rather than throwing it at your feet and begging you to kick it. We took part in the Blue Cross ‘Take Your Dog To Work Day’ fundraising events in 2003 and 2004, and Buddy was a huge hit with all the pupils at the school I teach at. It was heartening to see great hulking 16 yr olds turn to mush and tiptoe around carefully so as not to scare the doggy! He made such an impression that he was cast in the school’s production of Adrian Mole in 2005 in the role of ‘Dog’. He knew his lines, hit his marks perfectly and adopted the ideal Soppy Grin when the character of
We had done some basic jumping with the Display Team, where Buddy’s fabulous turn of speed made him a popular choice for the relay team; though it was a little dubious where he would end up once he’d finished the course (Bud Lightyear – To Infinity and Beyond!). We joined an agility club in 2004, and very soon realised that teaching Buddy relay races was not the best foundation for an agility dog. Although he would jump and jump, he had no idea of directions or a startline wait, and had never seen contact equipment. Oh, and he barked. A lot. All the time he was on the course, in fact. Having missed out the beginner’s agility course of lessons, we have been playing catch up ever since... A season with the Kiddy Monsters Flyball team was Buddy’s idea of heaven. Tennis balls + speed + excitement, and a nice easy straight line of jumps. He knew how to do this and was very good at it, gaining his Flyball Dog Intermediate award in 2006. This taught him to be happy working ahead of his handler – good job too, as I don’t know of anyone who would be able to keep up with him! For the past 2 seasons we have concentrated on Agility, having decided that the discipline needed is better for his nature than the more independent style of Flyball. Buddy qualified for the SupaDARL finals in June 2008, having won lots of rosettes in 2007… almost exclusively in Jumping, it has to be said. If he had a theme song, it would be Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’; he loves to run and jump, but can’t see WHY he should stop on the contacts! I’ve had many an agility run end with the judge in hysterics;- beating Bud to the end of the A Frame and facing him down it is a sure-fire way to get a close-up of his undercarriage as he will quite happily jump right over the top of me. He’s also very good at hitting the down ramp of the dogwalk at just the right point (about 14” from the top, if you want to try it) to use it as a springboard from there to the ground in one leap. This causes the ramp to bounce out of its hinges and crash to the ground, causing gasps and screams from spectators, and a big wide “Did you see what I did there? Clever or what?!” grin from the Bud. When asked what my release command is for him, I usually tell people it’s “Come Back!” We retrained his contacts over the winter of 2007 and have had more success this year. Buddy even managed to come Third in the SupaDARL finals; I’m still not sure how he got all his contacts on one course! We went back to Roden on their Open Day to tell them all about the SupaDARL finals, and Buddy promptly won Best In Show there!
Buddy has had a brilliant season in 2008 with so many achievements. He has won through to Novice at Agility Addicts and gained his Jumping Expert award. He has also progressed to Novice in both performance and Steeplechase at UKA, (and as soon as he gets his contacts, he will be senior!!). He won out of Grade 1 at
Judi Brown