Our dogs, part 2 of 3, Bremo and Zachary

Bremo is a rottie mix. His mother , Maggie, was our first Animal Connections foster dog. She appeared to be a rottie/lab mix. Dad just have been a big, long legged dog, and the brindle markings on Bremo makes us think Dane. Bremo will be 10 next spring. Bremo was a pudgy little sausage of a puppy. He always had a great interest in food and would not hesitate to push others out of his way so he could have more. He had longer hair than the rest of the litter as they began to grow so we called him Fuzzzy Bear before changing his name to Bremo, the name of an old plantation home here in Fluvanna County. All the other puppies got adopted before him, perhaps because his variable length coat wasn't terribly attractive. I was a sucker for the last-to-be-picked, so we kept him ourselves.

Bremo has led a very secure and sheltered life. He was born here and has rarely left the property except for vet visits. He's friendly with strangers, however, seeing them as potential sources of his two favorite things, food and petting. He doesn't talk much but does have a nice voice in the occasional group howl. Gypsy and Cabell pretty much raised him on their own. He used to have a thing about taking wooden spoons off the counter or out the sink and then chewing them up like rawhide. He went through a lot of them over the years but seems to have finally given that up, or maybe I've just learned to be more careful with them now. He's a typical rottie personality, friendly and slightly quirky. His quirk is a rather curious obsession with food dishes. Bremo will gather up empty dishes, line them up, and then lay near them to claim them. I'm convinced that he thinks that if they magically become full again, then he will have them all to himself.

Zachary is our poster boy. He's just plain pretty. He could also be the poster child for a number of diseases or disorders that plague German Shepherd Dogs because of breeding.

He came to us when he was a puppy, as a result of a breeder's divorce. He came along with his father and an adult female that was not his mother. Apparently, the wife left and the dogs stayed with the husband. He barely fed them and even if they had been fed, the two males had a digestive disorder that prevents them from digesting most dog foods. Consequently, they were nearly starved and being the youngest, Zachary was getting very little of the available food. A local animal control officer told the guy to either give up the dogs or face charges, so the dogs ended up here.

The digestive problem is at least partly an allergy to grain. Zach now eats a grain-free dog food, Evo, supplemented by a raw food. The same diet worked on his father too and both males are now thriving. The female fortunately did not have that problem. Zachary also has pannus, a chronic eye disorder that requires daily eye drops. He's a high maintenance dog, but he's also the sweetest German Shepherd we've ever had or known. The picky people who wouldn't adopt him when he was a puppy because he was thin and had a skin problem missed out on a helluva good dog.

He's entirely Clay's dog, in spite of the fact that I'm the one who feeds him, protects him from Gypsy, and takes care of all his many needs. Clay brought him into the house and let him lay on the sofa with him when he was a pup. It must have been at the perfect age for that imprinting to occur, because I've never seen a dog with a tighter bond to his person.