AloeVeraPuppy

5th Nov, 2020

Written by Lindsay Linklater

Professional photography by Jackie Wernberg Photography

“They’re off! AloeVera has made a bad start! Bro-collie Dog is the frontrunner and Spinach the Dog is just a little behind Bro-collie Dog, and on their heels here come Beans and Butter Dogs. They’re coming to the home stretch and what an incredible finish this is going to be – they’re leaving firm favourite AloeVera at the back, but wait... here comes AloeVera! Can she do it? Yes, YES... AloeVera wins another fun play-day race with friends.” (Instagram Feed: 16 August 2020 - @bizzibabs_pra_siamese.)

The above describes our beautiful one-year-old AloeVera perfectly, but her speed and agility were not something we expected when we met her for the first time just over a year ago. It all started with us driving past a small shopping centre in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town and noticing a large banner pinned to a wall: “ROAR for PAWS – Adoption Day Here”. 

We had a split second to decide: turn in and go take a look at the puppies or keep going forward – home. Our senior, small dog, Toby, had recently crossed the Rainbow Bridge after a brave and long battle fighting diabetes and liver disease; we were, at the time, only “sort-of” looking for a new dog, just because we had Toby’s space to give a new dog a forever home. It actually felt a bit soon to be viewing a “new” dog, but I like to believe Vera called to us from the playpen she was playing in with a few other ROAR for PAWS puppies up for adoption. Long story short, we turned… and there they were: a playpen full of beautiful puppies. But it was the one with the “V” on her forehead that stood out. 

“I’m looking for a small dog – 8kg or less,” I remember saying to the volunteer in charge of the Puppy Adoption Day, and, “She is beautiful,” as I scooped up the smallest puppy. I was thrilled to hear that her mother was a small dog, living on a farm in the Agter Paarl region. One can never guarantee with a mixed-breed pup, but they were sure she’d be small to maybe medium size… and that was what I wanted to hear. We filled in the adoption papers.

A few hours and a home check later and our puppy with the V-shaped marking was here. Her name, then Vera, was changed to AloeVera, and she met her new brufur, our other rescue dog. Used to having another dog in his home, he welcomed AloeVera into it without a grumble.  

Then it was time to show her off to family and friends. “A Jack Russell puppy – adorable!” everyone exclaimed. And, when she was a very, very busy puppy at puppy school: “She has Jack Russell in her, for sure,” her puppy playmates’ parents told us again and again. At the park it was also: “Amazing dogs, those Jack Russell pups, but they – she – will demand a lot of attention and need training.” Yes, we also thought something about AloeVera looked a lot like a Jack Russell when she was only a few months old. But her legs kept on growing longer and longer, and when she played with dogs off-leash, she wasn’t running up and down, we noticed she always ran in circles – as if she was herding! And she was fast... really fast!

When AloeVera was six months old we decided to approach MuttMix to have them determine, via DNA analysis, her ancestry. Folk around us were still trying to convince us that she was Jack Russell. We could no longer see anything Jack Russell in her, but there was a chance that we were wrong. We also wanted to understand her personality better. Her need to run circles was by then firmly established as something she loved doing and she was outrunning every dog crossing her path. 

In a matter of days after buying a kit online, it had arrived. We’d placed the first cotton swab in her mouth and brushed the inside of her cheek and did the same with the second swab on the other side – a painless procedure that went smoothly. We sent both swabs back to MuttMix and waited… is she or is she not a Jack Russell? What is she? By then she was already over 8kg; she wasn’t a little Jack Russell-sized dog, she was medium size and the best AloeVeraPuppy in the world.

Six weeks later an e-mail arrived from MuttMix… Jack Russell? Nope! Not a dot! So, what did they find…?

AloeVera’s MuttMix Results:

        Level 3                        -           Samoyed

        Level 3                        -           Rhodesian Ridgeback

        Level 4                        -           American Eskimo Dog

        Level 4                        -           Shetland Sheepdog

        Level 4                        -           Pomeranian   

Our thoughts when the results arrived... “AH-HA, that explains a lot of her behaviour!”  

The Samoyed: When we read that the Siberian Samoyedic people bred the Samoyed Dog to sleep on top of them at night to keep them warm, it was a bingo with AloeVera. Although she doesn’t sleep on top of us at night, when it’s “TV Time” her favourite place to be is on the sofa half draping herself across laps – I think she thinks that she’s keeping us warm. And, like a Samoyed, she’s lively, alert, friendly and playful, but she can be stubborn. 

The Rhodesian Ridgeback: AloeVera struts around here with the independence of a Rhodesian Ridgeback and the beauty of a Ridgeback – her legs, tail, neck all perfectly proportioned. 

American Eskimo Dog: AloeVera spins when excited or when playfully chased by another dog to change direction to fool the other dog. Spinning is a trait common to the American Eskimo Dog.

Shetland Sheepdog: Just like the Shetland Sheepdog, AloeVera wants to please and she wants to herd everything she can find – other dogs, children, even her old brother back to us if he goes wandering off. People stand with their mouths wide open when they watch her doing her circles at full speed. On the downside, like a true Sheltie, she’s vocal and excitable, and so, at 14 months old, she still needs to go to dog school.

Pomeranian: We were shocked. Find it hard to believe, but she thrives on frequent attention, so it must be there.  

FOOTNOTE:

Below is a picture of Stacey, AloeVera’s mom. The ladies from ROAR for PAWS have kept in touch with the owners of Stacey and they say that she’s healthy (and fat). AloeVera was one of four puppies handed over to ROAR for PAWS when they were out on the farms in the Agter Paarl area doing a census for a sterilisation drive for dogs in the area. Rescue puppies really are surprise packages. Vera has her mum’s face, but the rest of Vera is not her mum at all (especially her size). Of course, all is forgiven for believing Vera would be a small dog; looking at her mum, I would’ve thought the same.

Dominque of MuttMix adds…

It’s true that you cannot really guess what a rescue pup will end up looking like – a litter of puppies can each “cherry pick” from the pool of available breeds in the mother’s womb, taking one or two from mom/dad, completely skipping some and, in AloeVera’s case, taking as many as they handle! This is why a litter of mixed breed pups can come out looking completely different – put simply, they are!

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