Page 4 - LeMagFall2014

The Helper Briard
by Juliane Essig
Introduction
When I was asked to share some of my Briard ex-
periences, I uttered an enthusiastic “I’d love to!” After all,
I love talking about Decibel (more about the name later)
our beautiful Helper Briard (I’ll get to that, too).
So why then am I staring at a blank page?
…Because it is difficult to find a good starting
point. I could do this chronologically, but that means
going back four and a half years, and it feels stale to recap
things in the order they happened. Besides, while I do
that, Decibel keeps on doing her thing, and you’d miss
out. Worse yet, I would miss out. This became abundantly
clear to me when I reviewed Decibel’s photos and put the
best into an album. I’m at number 422. That’s only the
best of them. If I clipped all these together in a flipbook,
you’d have to get popcorn for the movie.
So maybe thematically?
Or maybe I should do the polite thing and intro-
duce us…
…We live in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. Now that’s
redundant. We’ve had multiple dogs for two decades
now, and at least one Briard for almost that long. We have
a small farm populated by a variety of animals, resulting
in what I call the Baskin Robbins of manure… (31 flavors
of poopsicles).
As I write this, I know what time it is without look-
ing; about 8:30 pm. Decibel is upstairs on the bed and has
begun her evening ritual – a steady bark that would be
soothing, if it were not so LOUD. If I ignore it, she will bark girl’.
up there for half an hour, then she’ll come flouncing down
the stairs to join us again. I can easily stop her barking,
either by turning on a hallway light (if she is afraid of the
dark, then why not stay in the living room with us?) or
asking her what she needs. But usually I just let her bark.
If I go to bed before 10 I’ll have the bed to myself.
If I get there after 10:30 pm I’ll be wrestling for space and
blankets. Those are the rules.
When we go to bed, Decibel will join us five minutes af-
ter lights out. That’s another one of her quirks. At this
time Decibel will perform a Briard magic trick: Weight of
the world. She will put her head on Harold and let grav-
ity take over, until he moves and lets her up on the bed.
Always him. Never me; she knows where success lies. Nor
does she take the easy way out and hop on the bed from
the foot end. No, not Decibel; that’s not her style.
2 ASBC
Once on the bed (it’s a king) she’ll stand in the
middle, and collapse with exquisite precision so some of
her weight rests on my left arm. That’s how we sleep. She
doesn’t fidget, snore, or bother me; I sleep just fine with a
warm dog on my side.
In the morning we stretch, smooch and then she
walks off the bed with her front legs, dragging the back
ones behind froggy style. That’s the only time she does
this. Any other time or place, she’ll jump up or down;
she’s a great jumper.
Clearly Decibel
is something special. No sur-
prise then that she is a Briard. And she is a big
girl, in every sense – a big dog, and a lot of GIRL.
She is a mixture of typical and unique.
She was an easy puppy to raise and train… eager to
please, but she didn’t like to be alone. This was neither
‘separation anxiety’ nor lack of practice – she just didn’t
like it, not one bit, and so she would perfect the art of
throwing a tantrum; the tornado-Tasmanian Devil kind.
My – she could bring the house down!
She learned the “dogs poop outside” rule in a mat-
ter of days. By week two at our house bounded
through our double doggie door without much of a slow
down. Then came the day when she trotted over to her
‘brother’s’ crate (AWAY from the doggie door), and, look-
ing straight at me, peed on his bed. Words failed me.
I had done all the right things, according to the manual…
took her outside frequently, praised for doing her busi-
ness, kept a routine, had her earn freedom in a room, etc;
surely this was a fluke? Then she did it again. On her own
bed, this time. Locking eyes with me.
I forgot the manual and threw a fit. I stomped,
scolded, chased her little highness outside and left her
there for twenty minutes. After cleaning up I went in the
backyard, called a very subdued puppy over to me, played
with her and finally we went back in together. She never
peed inside again. She almost instantly became ‘Daddy’s