Basque: First Puppy Born in the USA

by

Stephen Berman

The blaireau boy was the "pick of the litter puppy " selected by Professor Monroe. The Cranes greatly admired the professor and gave their friend the opportunity to select any puppy in the litter to become Monroes' first Great Pyrenees.

Basque and Monroe became a familiar tandem at many of the prominent East Coast show venues, and the pair were considered by Mary Crane to be "outstanding ambassadors" for the Great Pyrenees breed.

The professor, as I noticed after reading numerous articles, comments, and letters of his authorship over the years, made frequent mention of the breed's size as well as that of specific specimens and did appear to take particular pride in the size of Basque.

At eighteen months of age Basque was reported by Monroe as being 29" tall, 29" in length from the shoulder blades to the root of his tail, and 11" from the dome of his head to the point of his nose. Basque carried 128 pounds on his 29" frame.

On one occasion Basque, while guarding the professor's property, engaged a large porcupine; in dispatching the quilled intruder Basque suffered the fate of those who engage the quilled ones with a bit too much zest and not enough patience.

Basque quite understandably was not anxious to have his head and bite examined in the show ring for quite some time. And so his show career was interrupted.

However, Basque was to face a far more dangerous adversary than the porcupine whose quills caused him great pain and a serious infection. This adversary was far more dangerous then the occasional lumbering bear Basque "warned off" the professor's property, or any of the other four legged predators that wandered onto the Monroe property: Basque contracted distemper.

In the Fall of 1936, distemper, that dangerous and deadly adversary, affected four of the five beloved dogs of the professor, all of whom Monroe considered as his "brothers". Distemper extracted a fatal toll on two of the foursome.

A distressed Monroe stated Basque "clung to life by a slender thread".

And the professor, he of advanced years and declining health, was so adversely affected by caring for his beloved dogs ravaged by distemper, wrote so eloquently of reaching

Basque, as Anie, as Urdos, as did many other Pyrenees before him, faced the challenge of that deadly invisible predator, distemper.

The first born Great Pyrenees in America would survive the disease although Basque never fully recovered from his illness.

Two years after Monroe wrote of nearing the end of his own physical tether he passed away:

Basque survived the professor by four years.