Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig brandshelter.net. NS
Answer
brandshelter.net. 5 NS pdns109.ultradns.com.
brandshelter.net. 5 NS pdns109.ultradns.net.
brandshelter.net. 5 NS pdns109.ultradns.org.
brandshelter.net. 5 NS pdns109.ultradns.biz.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0