UWPCH URO1 Bella Bulldogges Captain Quint RLPX RL1 RL2
Born July 3, 2015 out of Bella Bulldogges Jezebel and Top Notch Legend (Jezebel is a littermate to Hooper). Currently 64 pounds and 18.5″
“Are you sure you want THAT one?”, “He’s going to be high energy. What about this bigger boy?”
These were things frequently said to me by my husband, Bob and by Sue (the breeder). They both wanted to be sure that I knew what my request, “I want a drivey dog” meant. See these are the times when I know that the LB is the right breed for me. I decide what I want, and you’ll be hard pressed to get me to change my mind or distract me from the goal… and I can be bought with cookies. Okay I should back up and explain why everyone wanted to be SURE I knew what I was doing!
When we found out that Sue was going to be breeding Hooper’s littermate and Legend, we knew it was time for another pup. We’d been eyeing Legend for awhile and loved his look, but we were also in love with Hooper and his temperament so this seemed like the perfect breeding to us. Hooper and I had done A LOT in the first two years of his life, and by now, we knew we wanted a dog that would compete in weight pull. Bob and I discussed the kind of temperament we wanted in a new pup, what would work well for the family and for Hooper, and we asked Sue to do some temperament testing on the litter and told her what we were looking for. She’s really good at reading pups and I trusted her judgement. We went to see the pups at 4 or 5 weeks and they hadn’t been handled by anyone other than Sue’s family at that point. They hadn’t been taken out to free roam on the floor yet. We all sat on the floor, and sue took the pups out one by one and put them down. They all stayed still, or crawled slowly back to Sue to hide. That is, until she pulled the little guy with the red collar out. She put him down and he ran as fast as his little legs would carry him over to me. He let me pick him up and immediately was exploring all over. Bob said something like, welp, we know which one Kerry wants! He wasn’t wrong! We asked Sue to watch him over the following weeks and note any changes or other pups that might match his energy. We discussed back and forth over the following weeks and we narrowed it down to two males. Ultimately, little red collar became Captain Quint.
He hasn’t stopped running since we took him home. If Hooper is calm, cool and quiet, Quint is his polar opposite. fast, crazy and loud.
We began with puppy class at the Vet just like Hooper, and we went back to the MSPCA for basic obedience classes. In the meantime, I had a better idea of what to expect, and how to train basic behaviors this time. I knew there were some things I wished I’d trained Hooper on earlier, like ‘stand’ and ‘back up’. I found that I hadn’t worked with Hooper on ‘hind end awareness’ at all as a youngster, and it turns out, that makes other behaviors a little challenging to train! Happy to say Quint had a solid stand early on, and we started going to a K9 fitness class when he was just 4 months old. He learned to balance on things and to just have general body awareness. We continue to go to that class even today and it’s been fun helping him figure out how to move his body as it has undergone changes as he grows.
Quint started taking rally obedience classes early on too, as I think they are great exercises for every day as well. We were able to actually trial in puppy level in WCRL rally and Quint quickly titled in puppy, and then went on to puppy champion before he aged out at a year! A really cool thing about puppy level in WCRL? You can treat your dog ANYWHERE on the course! Sadly, there is no more puppy level in that venue as they’ve just made some changes, but I was SHOCKED that we even qualified, let alone titled. The thing about this crazy, fast dog? He really does well if he’s given direction! I think he actually loves obedience because he knows exactly what he’s supposed to do. Hooper is a ‘I can figure this out’ dog, where Quint is a ‘I’m not really sure what to do unless you tell me’ dog. So, I found that he actually has really great obedience as a result! In fact, Quint has titled in Rally all the way to Level 2 (off leash!) with maybe one non qualifying score ever! AND, he earned an Award of Excellence with his level 2 title, which means he scored over 195 points in all qualifying runs! Pretty proud of that accomplishment!
You’ll note that Quint is NOT a Canine Good Citizen or a therapy dog. He hasn’t been able to pass the part where you have to ‘calmly greet a stranger’. He is in love with people and coupled with his need to break all the rules of personal space, we haven’t been able to check that one off the list. Loving people is not the worst trait in a dog though. Quint just loves… a lot.
Quint has become a weight pull dog, though I’m still trying to work out exactly what motivates him in this area. He seems to really enjoy training for competitions, but we haven’t figured out the best way to motivate him when he’s pulling the cart. He’s no slouch, he has pulled 2800 pounds already, but he weighs 64 pounds and it is clear that it is not the weight on the cart holding him back, but the mental game. That’s for another blog post though!
We’ve tried some things with Quint that are new to both of us! Lure coursing! This is where the dog chases a plastic bag on a pulley. Typically, this is a game that sighthounds excel in. Quint loves chasing though! We tried it out and once he figured out what he was supposed to do, he was off and running! We don’t get to do it often in our area, but when we do, he really loves it.
We also entered into the world of showing in conformation. He meets all the standards for an LB/OEB and is still intact. A friend encouraged me to enter him in the show when we were attending a UKC weight pull event. In UKC, you can get a total dog award if you place in the group in conformation and also qualify in a performance event (like weight pull or rally). They are trying to encourage people to do sport with their dogs and it’s really working! We’ve seen all kinds of non-traditional weight pull breeds at UKC show simply so that they can earn this Total Dog award! I had NO idea how to show a dog, so my friend offered to do it for me. Have I mentioned Quint is a handful and LOVES people??? Yeah.. it was interesting.. and yet.. he placed in the group at that first show so I knew I had to learn what to do! I’ve taken a few classes and asked lots of questions and worked with Quint to keep him under control (it’s REALLY hard with a shoestring leash and a 64 pound weight pull dog!). We’ve had more non-placements than placements (a lot more), but the thing about conformation is that it’s often about how well the handler handles and less about whether your dog is correct or not. That said, we got to show under Mr. David Leavitt himself earlier this year at a bulldog show (got to visit his home and his bulldog room too!), and Quint took Best in Show at that show! I really don’t care what any other judge thinks about him. That was validation enough for me. SO, we will hopefully earn that show Champion title this season. Stay tuned! I think we might have figured this all out!
Quint’s latest accomplishment is that he has sired a litter of 12 puppies with Royalty Leavitt’s Onyx! Stacey let me get involved in everything from breeding through whelping and puppy vet visit and I’m so grateful to her for that opportunity (and also sorry she had to manage 12 puppies!). Onyx was incredible.
I can’t wait to share more of Quint’s adventures! He’s learning agility now too.. and did I mention he does everything FAST? Agility is no exception!
The Determined Bullblog 