Meet our dog, Bree! She’s our big baby “Breezy Girl”, super sweet, a little sassy, wee bit clumsy, Miss Independent when she wants to be, and total scaredy-cat of strangers and loud noises.

Bree came to us completely unexpected – quite literally. Her pregnant mother showed up on our porch one day in January, 2019, and was such a sweetheart that we fell in love immediately.

We had her checked for a microchip, searched out any possible owners on social media, and, luckily for us, no one came forward as her owner. My mom named her Annabelle and she was an instant member of our family.

We took Anna for a check-up and confirmed her pregnancy. The vet told us to expect “five or six” puppies. On February 27, around 9 o’clock in the morning, Anna went into labor. Within about four hours, she’d given birth to a colorful mix of eight pups!

Puppy Problems

At first, we had no plans to keep any of her puppies. Right away we started lining up good homes and working with our local no-kill shelter, A Second Chance Animal Shelter, to plan for them to take in any puppies that we couldn’t find homes for. (Dogs are typically viewed as nothing but lowly animals here in South Carolina. Finding responsible owners and loving homes proved to be somewhat difficult.)

In the meantime, two major things happened.

First, my dad developed a special bond with one of the little blonde boy puppies. We knew it was inevitable that he would end up keeping this dog when he started calling it by a given name, Bandit.

Then, at about two weeks old, there was a whelping box catastrophe in the middle of the night. Somehow, Annabelle snagged a lamp cord. The lamp came tumbling over and fell right on top of one of the little black and white babies.

This puppy cried inconsolably for hours and completely stopped feeding. By the following day we grew terribly concerned about her and made a late night run to Walmart for instant puppy formula and a bottle feeder. With a lot of hands-on coaxing and snuggling, we finally got the scared puppy girl to take the bottle. After days of routine feedings by hand, she eventually returned to latch on to her mother. However, her development seemed a little slow and she was smaller than the rest of her siblings after this incident with the lamp.

“Keep The Puppy”

Within a couple weeks I had grown quite attached to this special little one. There was a lady expressing interest in adopting this particular pup, so I knew that if I had any ideas of wanting to keep her, I had to make a decision quickly.

One night I was giving my husband Arnold a back rub, trying to butter him up before I broached the subject, but he already knew what was on my mind. He laughed and whispered, “Keep the puppy.”

That’s the beginning of our story with Bree, who we named affectionately after the main town in our favorite MMORPG game at the time, Lord of the Rings Online.

Bree continued to be much smaller than the rest of her siblings but eventually caught up in size and playfulness by about two months old. Soon, the rest of the puppies went to their forever homes, except for little Miss Bree and her brother Bandit, the puppy that my dad kept.

Bree developed her sweet, easygoing nature within the first few weeks of living with us full time. She was very playful and loved toys. We spoiled her rotten. She impressed us with her quickness to learn commands such as sit, lay down, and speak. She grew obsessive about her favorite toy, a Chuck-It Kick Fetch ball, which she begs to Daddy to kick for her daily.

Bree has some lovable quirks. Loud noises scare her (maybe from the lamp trauma). She’s terrified of thunderstorms and the lawn mower. She acts fiercely protective of us, but in reality will turn shy and run if strangers approach. She loves bacon and sausage and “people food” in general. (But ever since she learned that sometimes there might be pill hidden inside, she has to dissect any little bite we give her, just to make sure it’s “safe” for consumption.)

Daddy’s Girl

Arnold, who was indifferent about dogs before, quickly made a deep connection with Bree. She became a total daddy’s girl in short order. Her favorite time of day is when Daddy gets home from work, when she can bark and bounce around like a nut to greet him at the door.

Most evenings, she’ll beg Daddy to take her out for Ball Time, where she’ll run hard and fetch until her legs get wobbly.

Mixed Breed

Earlier this year, we ordered an Embark Dog DNA Kit to find out exactly what kind of breeds are mixed within this girl. Now, we were absolutely convinced that Momma Annabelle was a Catahoula. She has all the hallmarks of the breed in appearance, blue eyes, the way she scream-barks, and hind-leg-nipping herding behavior. Our best guess for Bree’s father was some sort of mountain dog, possibly Bernese. (Bree was the only puppy in the litter to have a full set of hind dew claws, which is usually only characteristic of mountain breeds.)

We had a great experience with the Embark Kit, which I will blog about in detail in a future post, but we were sure surprised with the results! Turns out, Bree is primarily Pit Bull, Chow, Husky, and Lab. And that means Momma Annabelle wasn’t a Catahoula after all! (Now we call Anna “fake Catahoula” or, even better, “little liar.”)

Bree has become such an important part of our lives. We have no kids of our own, nor plan to have any in the future, and we’ve decided that our furry four-legged “kids” are enough to make our family complete.

So here’s a few more shots of our baby girl (who’s three years old already!), just for good measure.