Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig watchthedeer2.com. NS
Answer
watchthedeer2.com. 5 NS ns-1155.awsdns-16.org.
watchthedeer2.com. 5 NS ns-507.awsdns-63.com.
watchthedeer2.com. 5 NS ns-642.awsdns-16.net.
watchthedeer2.com. 5 NS ns-1749.awsdns-26.co.uk.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0