By Lisa Peterson

Showing a brace of dogs first captured my imagination after watching a friend earn a Best Brace in Show award at a large Boston dog show more than a decade ago.

The practice of showing a brace can be traced back through one of my favorite pieces of Westminster Kennel Club memorabilia from 1911. An elegant sterling silver Tiffany cup engraved in old-fashioned lettering announces the “Best Brace of Sporting Spaniels Other Than Cockers” award.

In its simplicity, a brace allows you to double your fun by showing two dogs with similar looks performing together as a mirror image. And so I entertained the idea of putting together a brace of Norwegian Elkhounds to show at our national specialty in 2000.

Ultimately, I chose Bruno, my then eight-year-old male with his niece, Basia, a six-year-old female. Paring two intact dogs of opposite sex reminded me of an old video I’d seen which inadvertently demonstrated what happens when this sort of coupling is shown while the bitch is in season. Needless to say, as Murphy and his law would have it, Basia watched the video one time too many. Some competitors might say I had an unfair advantage in regards to closeness of the brace. But our training efforts paid off and “team Elvemel” went Best Brace in Show at the regional specialty the day before the national.

A fitting debut, since presenting our trophy for the show photo was none other than the same friend who I had watched in Boston so many years ago. At the national, we won a third place, which I attributed to Basia losing that closeness factor.

Bruno and Basia were more than just my brace; they were best buddies to each other and best buddies to my husband Ray and me. They filled our home with stubborn Norwegian stoicism, tons of laughs and companionship unparalleled.

Recently, my Best Brace headed off to Valhalla, a place in Norse mythology where the souls of slain heroes go after battle. Losing a buddy is difficult, but losing a brace of buddies is … well, in a way it makes sense. Like an old married couple, first one departs, followed shortly by the other partner.

Fortunately, a brace leaves memories in duplicate!

 

Basia

After a stellar, but brief, show career Basia jumped in the whelping box and never looked back. Her first puppy born, her daughter Stasha, was so large Basia screamed bloody murder during delivery. I could just imagine Ray’s face as he huddled upstairs with the other dogs, tilting their heads in puzzlement from this noise coming from the dog room. Was she giving birth to the swamp thing or what?

Motherhood became her. So much so that in her later years when she thought she should be nursing something in a frenzy of a false pregnancy, she would carry around this little red rubber fire hydrant. The toy with its comic face squeaked in the same frequency as a hungry pup. She would curl up next to it so it could nurse.

When Basia wasn’t hanging out near the “bone box” in the living room to steal Bruno’s bone, I could always find her by her locator noise. She had this habit of tongue licking, which sounded just like that sucking noise coming from baby “Maggie” on The Simpsons.

The highlight of her week was going to the dump. So keen was she to go, with Bruno of course, that when Ray picked up the single pair of truck keys – which made a certain tinkle that our “regular” keys didn’t make – you couldn’t get her to stop barking until she was loaded into the cab. It got so bad that eventually, Ray would have to load the dogs first and then the garbage because we worried their exuberance would trigger a call to the dog warden about nuisance barking. These trips included barking contests with the dogs at the pound and meeting a member of Congress who came to the dump to stump.

Bruno

Easily bored by the contents of the bone box, Bruno would venture into the kitchen where he lifted a salmon steak off the counter (when no one was looking). Later he became emboldened and took a huge hunk of Romano cheese off the same counter (when someone was looking) and finally came the pinnacle of bad manners. While a guest was trying to sit down using an extended arm holding an appetizer to balance, Bruno jumped up and accepted the hors d’ouevre with pleasure. But she had her hand out! In my direction! 

As Bruno’s breeder I took him as a seven-week-old pup to all of Newtown’s hot spots for socialization. He hit The Newtown Bee, police station, post office, town hall. Based on this early civic exposure, Bruno grew into a distinguished member of the community. As a therapy dog he made a couple of visits to Ashlar and walked in the Labor Day parade including lifting his leg on our town’s landmark – the flagpole!  

But Bruno’s favorite moments were his long walks with Ray. The early walks began in Milford, along Gulf Beach. Not actually on the beach – Bruno hated water. The first time he saw a murky wave slowly roll towards him, he bolted to the top of the jetty and took off. We were off in hot pursuit, well, as hot as one could pursue running uphill in sand. If not for a smelly old mattress someone had dumped roadside, which being a scent hound he was genetically obligated to stop and sniff, he’d have made it to West Haven in no time flat.

After moving to Newtown, walks around the block became part of the daily routine graduating to the “mother of all walks,” an hour and half roundtrip jaunt from home to the summit of Holcombe Hill. Bruno became the great protector whether it was against coyotes, fox, deer, skunks or other dogs.

On one infamous Sunday night “poop walk,” after an early episode of The X-files, the dynamic duo found themselves on the road next to the seventh hole at Rock Ridge. The pair watched as glowing orbs floated above the tee.

Well, let’s just say Bruno kept his cool. This “alien sighting” turned out to be “midnight golf” markers.

In Bruno’s later years, walks around Fairfield Hills became the norm where he enjoyed meeting up with canines Max, Toby and Cocoa for the “giving of the toast”.

Have Brace Will Travel

The brace was well traveled from Cape Cod to Texas and the upper reaches of New England to Virginia.

Our trip to Texas last year for our national specialty became the swan song for the brace. Along the way they refined their art of “bed bouncing” between double beds they insisted I always reserve for them in Red Roof Inns. It was a comfy trip in the Honda Odyssey compared to the drama of the dreaded 1996 Milwaukee trip in the Honda Civic complete with “furricane.”

Note for future trips: Never place three freshly washed and shedding elkhounds into the backseat of a compact car with the windows rolled down for drying purposes. 

The brace rolled into Hutto, Texas, as you may recall is the “Home of the Lady Hippos”, ready for action, partner. Bruno and Basia repeated with a Best Brace in Show at the regional specialty and a third at the national. The brace gave a brace performance.

These days our home is filled with Basia’s son Obie and granddaughter Jinx, a five-month-old puppy bitch. This pair loves to frolic in the paddock. Curly tails effortlessly trotting side by side after a brisk wind blows them together. Dare I dream of a new brace? As I watch these puppy antics through the window I can’t bring myself to wipe away a brace of nose prints I’ve spotted on the glass.