Brooks came from the Koue Bokkeveld area close to the town of Ceres in South Africa.
Quick story about his name:
His name comes from the Country Singer Garth Brooks, which is one of my favourite singers. It is more linked to his song, "The River", than to the singer himself.
I woke up one night with this song in my head, not really understanding why. My faith is very important to me, and I heard a voice just saying, this is his name. The song is about basically a dream being like a river, and my dream was to try and find better solutions for Avian Influenza detection. Honestly I wasn't sold on the name, River for my dog, so I looked for names linked, to rivers, water or streams. Hence, Brooks, it was also just a nice tie in that it is the singer of the song's last name.
I didn't really have a checklist of what I was looking for in a dog, basically my only requirement was for it to be a Border Collie, preferably a male but that wasn't set in stone. Colour also did not matter to much but I prefer the Black and White Border Collies. I know the breed, as I already have a 12 year old male BC (Jethro) at home and he is just the sweetest boy ever.
I have to say that I did go into this thinking that I would have the same experience raising Brooks as I did with Jethro..... Boy was I wrong.
Brooks is a very sweet boy but the total opposite of Jethro. He is very stubborn, very vocal and gets super frustrated when you are not matching his pace. He also has no off button, which makes it hard for him to settle at night.
Saying that, he is also a lot more affectionate and loves to be close to you, where Jethro is a lot more independent.
None of these traits makes Brooks a better or worse dog, it just leads to a bit more frustration from my side as it is a challenge, especially when you have an intense work like I do.
We are working on understanding each other better everyday, and trying to find solutions to work through his frustration and to help him settle better when the excitement is just too much for him. But, I have to add, he is 4 months old and does extremely well off leash in public places and his interactions with other dogs get better each time we go out.
Currently, we are slowly starting his scent training, as we tried to focus on basic obedience and socialization before getting him to do more intense training.
We are focusing on detecting Rooibos Tea until we can figure out how to safely detect the Avian Influenza Virus.
As his training progresses, we will be posting more videos on our social media platforms. I will also try and do more blog posts.
Till next time...
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