Brandy the surf sensation! Follow her on Instagram @brandy_the_pug
Brandy and her Dad Jonny
DUDES, this girl BRANDY surfs and she is so good at it! We first learned about surfing dogs when Mrs. Sizzle spotted Abbie on Instagram. It was there she learned about these cross training dogs and their superhuman humans that are all about keeping their dogs engaged and happy. I was all over it! We then came to discover the amazing Brandy who defies all pug stereotypes and gets out there to do her thing. And her thing is BIG - not only does she surf but she snowboards too. In fact this dog is up for the HOT DOG category for the CW's World Dog Awards to air on January. In order to understand how a pug started surfing we asked her dad a few q's and this is what we got.
Abbie and Brandy
"Brandy is a Pug so she is very clingy as lots of pugs are. She is also very protective over us (the humans) and her dog sisters. She didn’t really enjoy her first time in the pool but she got use to it. This was mainly because as a puppy she would see us swimming in our pool and jumping in. She would freak out and jump in to see if we were okay. She’d just do circles around us until we came back to the steps. In order to give her a break we put the boogie boards in the pool. Now she would just float on them and protect us from there. She grew so fond of them that she would just walk from the pool edge onto the board. We had the boards tied together so she could jump to another board. This was her way of navigating the pool; she would grab the leash to pull the other board towards her and jump on it.
Couldn't resist tossing my buddy @itsdougthepug into the story! As he says, "Surfer girls are bae". What else would you expect!
About three years ago we moved and no longer had a pool. I took her to the beach in the spring of 2013 to see if she would surf on her boogie board. It was her first time surfing and she caught a few waves! We were super stoked! The board wasn’t too steady so we didn’t continue until the summer 2014 when I decided to take her body boarding. I decided to get her a board of her own to see how she would do by herself again. She was already a natural at balancing and comfortable on the board. The only thing I had to train her to do was stay back on the board because it would pearl and nose dive. To do this I used a 3-4 ft leash for a few surf sessions that kept her in the middle of the board.
I took the leash off before her first competition and got her some traction pads to give her more grip when balancing. Now she doesn’t walk forward anymore and stays near the back of the board. We didn’t even know they had dog surfing competitions at all or that other people were doing it until someone told me on social media. I looked it up and it was true! We were just doing it for fun during the summer! Since then she has been in five dog surfing competitions and placed in all but one of them, breaking Pug stereotypes with every wave.
About Abbie and Brandy: "Brandy and Abbie’s first tandem session was a spur-of-the-moment thing as we were leaving the beach. It turned out really well.The cool thing about Brandy and Abbie surfing tandem is that they know exactly what to do and where to go on the board. We didn’t even have to tell them anything. We planned the second session together and they got much better waves and it was more fun."
Abbie's Dad Mike says this, "
“Brandy is a rising star in a new generation of surfing dogs. She is talented, but still eager to learn. She is constantly asking Abbie for tips and advice, both on and off the water. I was surprised when Abbie agreed to tandem with her, since Abbie has ALWAYS surfed alone. That’s how close these two have gotten."
To vote for Brandy in the The CW's World Dog Awards, click here and then click on the “Hot Dog” category. Her snowboarding video is what you’ll be looking for. Then just click vote.
Voting is unlimited and goes until the day of the live filming on Jan. 9th. Since I can't get enough of these videos I am hoping you might watch this one of Brandy snowboarding too!
