A Big Day for A Bigger Puppy

Today was a rather big day for our little girl. First, she was in puppy training class where she learned absolutely nothing new that my Mom and I have been working on her on. However, I think my Dad might have learned a thing or two while in class.

Our Puppy and her new Red Snake Toy

Then she got to play with a brand new snake toy that my Mom bought for her while at the store. The reason we got this snake toy for her was because my friend Jodi had showed us a toy that had several squeakers in it and so we thought our dog would enjoy that one as well. At first she was scared to really bite down on her toy, her jaw gently and firmly holding her red snake as she carried it around the house. We had to start rough housing with her just to get her to start biting at the different squeakers. After a while, she was so into attacking the snake that we could almost get her flipping (literally, jumping into the air and flipping) to get at the toy. Still, the squeakers are sort of hard for her to bite down on and she loves that toy. Every now and then we can see her licking it like she cares about the snake, weird.

And then the real fun started as my Father started chopping down the final parts of our cherry tree. I took a video of him taking down that final part in his special outfit that reminds my Mom and me of "Bob the Builder" from one of the kid cartoon networks. 

Chopping down the Cherry Tree

Afterwards, we let the dog outside to inspect that yard work that had been performed. She was not pleased at all with what my Dad had done, and verbally told us that the changes were unasked for and not part of her landscaping idea. So of course I took a video of that as well, our whole family laughing as we watched her inspect and reinspect the now fallen tree. My Dad pointed out during this that it was interesting that if she remodeled the backyard then what happened was fine, but if any of us remodeled her play area we were overstepping our bounds. Later, my Mother and I would discuss how she did seem quite upset when we last moved around stones and cut branches off of some of the other bushes in the yard, simple procedures and what not. Still, she's a funny puppy!

Puppy Reaction to Chopped Down Cherry Tree

Poopy Puppy Provocation

Our poor little puppy-dog has unfortunately a bad case of the runs, where ever thirty minutes she has needed to go outside and try to have a bowel movement of some sort. Unfortunately, for our family that means watching her extra closely since she has still not fully grasped the concept of being house broken. And even if she was trained to not go inside our home, I do not think that this special circumstance would stop her from doing number two inside since this seems to be happening so frequently. But that is not the bad part, for we can all deal with watching her closely and taking her outside when need-be.

That Puppy Loves Me!

What turned out unfortunate was the job that one of us had to fill of listening for her whimpers in the middle of the night telling us she needed to go outside. And worse yet, I ended up being selected (and not self-elected) for the position. So I spent most of the night in a bedroom close-by with my door open and my ears turned on. That also meant I had to sleep lightly and be ready to get-up and be outside in the freezing mountain air early in the morning. I slept in my clothes and I was extremely uncomfortable. I also slept in a light sleep state for most of the night; which although has helped me feel rather rested for today, sleeping like that did not help me feel fully rested. To say the least, I am tired.

I finally got-up and out of bed (without having to get up to her whimpering in the middle of the night, thankfully) and took the pup outside at six in the morning. It was freezing outside and she quickly led the way down the hill to the spot in our backyard where she wanted to do her business. Then she found another spot and did the other type of business. She wanted to start exploring the yard some more, but I was too cold so I brought her back inside. After that, I threw her toy raccoon around for a while and watched her fetch the fuzzy squeaky toy.

For the next hour and a half, I was outside with her every thirty minutes until finally my Father came and took her on a walk. I do not feel bad for him, he went to sleep earlier than I did and got up later than I did and he had a nice, warm sweatshirt on to take her on the walk that pup deserves.

Puppy's First Hike

Yesterday was a special first day for our young puppy, because we took her out on her first ever hike! For the first one my mother decided the best place to go would be back to Mount Falcon Park in Conifer, Colorado. I have to admit that the park trails are fairly flat and to get to the end of the first trail is maybe a ten minute walk (or twenty, hard to tell when one is hiking).

The Puppy sitting on a Rock

My father decided to make the trip a little bit more difficult by forgetting to bring the dog cover for his car's backseat. I ended up carrying the puppy on my lap the whole trip, it was a wreckage waiting to happen. She wanted to look out one window, then look out another window, then look out the front window, then get comfortable, and then repeat; but all of those were unattainable because she could not move from my lap. I struggled with her the entire ride up and I have to say I was not a happy camper.

When we arrived, we got her out of the car, I brushed off the mountain of dog fur that had accumulated from her fighting to stay on my lap the whole way up, and then the four of us started hiking down the trail (literally down, because we were at the top). The puppy was as happy as could be, running this way and that, sniffing at this and that, and trying to run up to every single person that we passed. Yet for the people the hike was slightly less enjoyable. We spent most of our time trying to control her and stopping her from eating things she should not be putting in her mouth. Still, all of us managed to have a great time out on the trail. 

When we got to the castle ruins (the Walker family house ruins, but everyone calls it the castle ruins), I took several pictures of our pup sitting on rocks and in the sunset. She seemed less happy to pose than to walk down the dirt path, but I did not care. I wanted a photograph to commemorate and remember this first of many adventures she is going to take! Afterwards we all started back, and she was just as happy as before. 

Back at the car we put down her water bowel and filled it, she drank up, and then it was another horrific car ride of her on my lap all the way back to the house...

And the Puppy Returns

For the last couple of weeks I have been sitting at home in the quite refuge of my parents home. I would wake-up in the morning, feed the cats and the bird, and then go about my day of doing nothing. What I accomplished in that time is pretty obvious; a whole television show, a bunch of backgrounds for my smartphone, and I started playing a brand new game. In other words, I did absolutely nothing constructive (unless you count the smartphone backgrounds as constructive).

She's Back!

She's Been Back...

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But that time is over, because today was the hectic and crazy puppy  first full day back in Colorado. The first thing we let her do was go outside and run around like a nut. The first thing she did when we let her outside, she ran around like a nut! Prediction accomplished, which I do mean because we watched her run from one side of the yard to the other, then back again, then roll around in the grass, and so on and so forth as she frolicked freely. Then I started tossing toys for her to fetch and just all around loving my puppy dog. During that time I managed to snap the photo featured to the left, which I just could not help but add in a bit of an edit after hearing some horror stories from my parent's trip to Illinois.

Sure enough, she never tired out all day, which has left be quite exhausted actually from chasing her about. Still, I have been managing to get some free time in my spare time and play my games or do whatever. But I have to say, I really do love having a puppy home again.

Her First Minutes Home

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I remember this clearly, because my Mom said out loud, "I wonder if she will remember you." I got down and called to the darling and she not only came running, she jumped up and into my arms and tackled me to the ground. No lie, this bigger than I last saw her puppy just tackled me straight to the ground. Then she immediately sat in my lap and continued to give me kisses for a whole five minutes. Again, not lying, my mom was literally astonished to watch as the dog went crazy-happy when she saw me. I was actually trying to push her off of me, she seemed unable to get enough of me. A few minutes later and she was following me everywhere I walked in the yard. It was very cute. So I threw the toys for her.

Since my parents arrived at their home late at night, the sun had already set and we were playing and loving in the lamp-light. I was rather tired myself (and I had not been driving all day), so I told my mom and Dad that I was going to bed with them. So that was it.

Sorry to post this out of chronological order, but it just felt right.

The Puppy or the Idiot

For over a month now I have been working hard to try and train our new puppy, and for over a month now my progress has been minimal at best. I have never trained a puppy from scratch before, so I really have no basis to compare anything that I do with, but I have this strange feeling that I am being sabotaged the entire way. No, not by my Mom, for she actually supports me when I come to a decision on what we should train her to do. Instead, it is by our household idiot, my Dad.

I am trying to come up with a nice way to put this, but I honestly feel like he is sabotaging all my hard work every time he talks to her and pets her and feeds her. Seriously, it has been about a month and a half and the dog still does not know to come when called, does not know to not go to the bathroom in the house, and does not know some of the simplest commands. And all of this is because my Dad will not get on board and stop pampering her. Fact is he keeps acting like this is a child that he can buy the love out of, giving her treats when she is being bad or playing games we have told him that are off limits. So she does not learn because she is getting a mixed message and all that is really happening is the dog thinks I am a mean person. To say the least, that really pisses me off when I am trying to train this dog to be something amazing and not just another mutt.

It comes down to this, we have told my Dad to get with the program and to stop doing all the dumb things he does that are not helping her learn. For instance, while trying to train her that it was good that she went to the bathroom outside he forgot to bring out some treats. So after the task was done and several minutes later when she was back inside, he gave her a treat and rewarded her. "Are you freaking stupid?" were the first words out of my mouth when I saw him do this. She is a dog, not a human, and she thinks you are rewarding her for no reason because she did not recently do the task that you wanted her to do. Good job, but all you have done is undermined the value of each treat because she thinks they are something she deserves and does not have to earn.

Here is another classical example of him being a total idiot when it comes to training, I told him we need to start crate training her and that means on a daily basis she goes to the bathroom outside, drinks water, and then we throw her in the crate for a few hours. He says back to me when I tell him the plan, "But I don't understand, she is in the crate all night." Okay, yes we put her in the crate at night so she does not go crazy on all the furniture while we are trying to sleep, but then she falls asleep and does not learn that she needs to go to the bathroom outside and that the crate is her home. When you crate train a dog during the day it does something more than when you throw them in the crate at night. The day training teaches them that her home (crate) is a place not to go to the bathroom and the same goes with your home. It also teaches them where going to the bathroom is okay to go while giving you a break from having to watch the puppy every minute of every hour of the day. Again, you freaking idiot, just get with the program and start doing it instead of undermining my authority and making me seem like a mean owner.

The Problem Puppy

And just for reference, our new puppy is half australian shepherd and half border collie mix, both of which are known to be extremely smart, natural herding dogs. They are also both known to test their boundaries time and time again to see what they can get away with, and if you have one idiot out of line that does not keep them in shape, they think that whatever they do is okay. I like to call this effect the velociraptor mentality, which is a reference to Jurassic Park when they discuss how the velociraptors will check the fence for weak spots to escape through. Anyway, in other words, these dogs are really smart, really difficult to train, and impossible to deal with when someone will not follow the set rules.

So now I have an option, I can either train the dog or train my Dad. I do not have time for both, especially since the only other person who seems to want to take time to watch the puppy is my Dad and he is the incompetent fool that is causing more problems than helping mend by watching the puppy. I wish there was a book called common sense, because then I could at least beat my Dad with it to see if the sense goes in. Seriously, this is your pet and not your friend, so stop acting like you are going to hurt her feelings and start acting like you are the master. Maybe then we will get a puppy that comes on command.

Some Apples to Other Apples

In the past few weeks my whole family has been putting efforts forward to train our new puppy, really working on it to stop several of the bad misbehaviors that she has. And what we have learned is that she is a very intelligent animal, where at the very small age of three months she has already started picking up on several things. For instance, she will let us brush her now without biting at the brush, she has become better with the leash and will walk longer distances before putting up some resistance and fighting, and she has completely stopped biting all of us. Again, this is still a really young canine, so it is surprising how quickly she is picking up all of these things!

But there is one habit we cannot seem to break her of no matter how many different ways we try and no matter what amount of effort we put into it. You see, little Indigo has a fond love of the taste of fruits and will stop at nothing to eat any fruit she can get her paws on. At first it was strawberries that were obviously bad and other assortments of fruits we would toss into the garden to mulch. We stopped throwing those in there to stop her from eating them (plus we read online that strawberries are one of the worst things for a dog to eat). Then she started picking up cherries off the ground from the remains of our old cherry tree, which there would be no way for us to pick up all of the cherries. Fortunately, the cherry season ended and the birds pretty much pick the cherries clean, leaving Indigo with just the pits to indulge in and that was not the part she likes. So that stopped.

And then she moved on to the apple tree, which is currently still in full bloom with tons of apples as they turn from green to red. For reference, we know that there are more than five-hundred apples on the tree, a fact we discovered after picking up over three-hundred off the ground in a couple of days and still seeing tons more on the tree. Well, our little puppy learned very quickly that she likes apples and would run over to the tree and start searching the ground for the fruits. Usually we would see her run back from the area after successfully picking out one of the smashed apples off the ground and then she would start to munch on it. At first all we did was take away the fruit and throw it out, but she became smarter than that and started playing keep-away (a game which we cannot encourage, so we stopped chasing her). So the next best thing we could do was pick up all the smashed, rotten, and disgusting apples off the ground. To put these into retrospect, these are not the apples you buy at the store that look ripe and delicious. Instead, these are the underdeveloped remains of apples that the squirrels have picked off, taken a bite or two, and then tossed to the ground. They are covered in dirt and grime, bugs roaming all over their outer coating as they turn the sweet fruits into food, and something that most other animals would sniff at before walking away. And like I said, we have picked up hundreds of these to stop her from eating them. Side note, her favorites were the ones that were already smashed open and usually the ugliest, unhealthiest ones of the lot.

As soon as she became aware of the task that we were doing, the tossing of her delicious apple snacks, she also became smart enough to know she could just grab a few while we were picking them up and go munch on them quickly. So we would see her come over, grab one while we were taking dozens of them away, and then go to the center of our yard to eat them. But her learning did not stop there. Instead, as she started to realize that there were less and less apples each day for her to eat, she started grabbing what she could and then hiding them around the yard. She was stock-piling the apples from us, keeping a secret stash for later. We never found that secret stash, but we did continue to pick them up and off the ground.

Well, being the clever dog that she is, she has moved onto the next level of apple eating. Now not caring about the ones on the ground, she instead ventures right over to the tree and will get up on her hind legs and pluck one right off of the branches. And she seems to have a very peculiar taste too, always heading for exactly one instead of heading for the easiest pick. Sometimes, that means she will even have to jump up and grab one off of the tree. In honesty, watching her is quite impressive as she takes them down. Still, the main point is that if we do not want her eating the apples now, we will have to pluck every apple off of every branch up to approximately four feet or more. That is not going to happen. On thing that my Mom noted as we watched her was that at least she is getting better apples now, instead of the ones that have been in the dirt and covered with God knows what.

To Talk About A Puppy

Yesterday I was supposed to meet up with my friend for some coffee at our favorite place, Caribou Coffee. Unfortunately she did not wake up. And so no matter how many times I called or text messaged her, she was not going to be able to make it. Five hours after I first sent her a message she replied and then three hours after that she finally got back to me. The fact was we were not going to get our coffee no matter what.

Now I want to say before I continue that I know my friend can read this and a part of me sort of hopes that she does. Maybe then she'll understand why what she said upset me, bugged me so much that after a night of sleeping on it I still did not feel at ease about it. I know that I should try and let things roll off my shoulder, I know I should probably take words for the dime they are worth, and I have had some time to think this all over. Hopefully this will sort of bring up the issue a bit better or more clearly.

A Little Monster After Nine

Indigo Barking at the Potatoes

The longer we have our puppy, the more stuff it is that we seem to learn about her behavior and her personality. Like we know she is going to be an excellent family dog, because she gets upset when one of us leaves the room and super excited when that person returns again. She loves licking and kissing, she loves lying on our feet, and she loves being around us. So her being a loving family dog is not the issue.

Instead, we are learning interesting little personality traits about the puppy that we never expected. Like for such an adventurous dog, and I mean adventurous, she is afraid of a bag of potatoes that we left in the middle of the kitchen floor. Seriously, my Mom and I watched as the puppy would circle back and forth, watching the bag with a keen eye and as if at any moment it might get up and attack her. All of this from the same dog that is not scared of thunder, lightning, rain, the dark, cats, other dogs, or just about anything else that normal dogs are scared of.

Here's another strange one that she is scared of (in comparison), the broom. I was sweeping the backyard porch with the broom, getting all the dirt off of there that she had brought up, when suddenly I see she is standing at the very edge of the porch watching. She gets interested and steps up on the porch, but I don't stop sweeping because it was obvious which direction I was going. Well, she would jump about a foot in front of the broom and then ten feet back as I swept it across the wood. Indigo would bark a few times at the broom, then try to get close again. And sometimes she would even scurry off far away in fright that it was coming after her. Truly a funny sight to watch.

Nap Time Angel

But even beyond just the weird things that the dog is scared of, we are also learning how she starts acting when she gets energetic. Now, my Mom will say that she is getting cranky right before a nap, but I think it is just the dog's way of saying I am bursting with energy and ready to run around. Anyway, we were eating dinner and the dog was being a menace, grabbing things with her teeth and chewing things up. We ended up putting her outside since we all had to eat dinner and could not afford to keep pulling her off of things. Once outside, the pup started running around the yard and keeping herself busy. She drags a stick from one side to the other, munches on it a bit, and then is off again. And for all the love I have in the world for her, I do not have the type of energy she has.

Still, after prancing around the yard and tearing things off of trees and really running around untamed, she finally calms down. Getting up on the porch, she plops right down in her toboggan and goes to sleep. So by the time we got outside to watch here, finished with our own meals and quite satisfied, she is just laying dead in the toboggan. That's when my Mom picked her up and was able to hold her like a little angel in her lap.

And then she wakes up and has all the energy in the world again, which brings me to the main point of my post and the reason for it's inevitable title. At around nine at night (sometimes a little bit later), she starts getting rough again and nippy. This is where my Dad came in and started calling her the devil dog. I do not think that this is a devil dog, but more a puppy that has bursts of energy and just needs to use them. But it does feel like the devil has possessed her the way that this personality of being nippy and starts biting comes out every day around the same time.

After This: A Loving Dog at Eleven

Even right now as I am writing this blog, she is getting extremely violent with the milk jug again. From the sound of her growls and yips, you would think that she was in an epic struggle here to kill the piece of plastic. And it is strange that she gets this way with the plastic, but at least it is not human flesh. She does seem to identify the difference, which we know because she never attacks the milk jug or other pieces of plastic until we place them on the ground and let go.

Finally, after rough housing and (usually) being thrown back outside to go run around like a nut, she calms down and plops asleep again. At least we have a lot of pictures to remember her as a puppy like this!

Thankful for Vinegar

I think I can explain this post in under twelve seconds by starting out with puppies are like atomic bombs, by which I mean that they are packed with copious amounts of destructive energy. In order to contain and control all of these energy you have to either play with them until they tucker out, give them toys to chew on and play with themselves, or figure out some other way. Scientifically speaking, we would classify all of these options as the dissipation of the energy to lead to a less violent force.

Well in our house we have three grown adults that have almost every day available to take care of our new puppy, and all three of us are exhausted now. Literally, this dog has more energy than we can handle and we all need about a week vacation from trying to raise her. Now do not take that the wrong way, we all love this puppy and we want her to be a part of our family, but it is just a level of work that would kill anyone if they tried it on their own.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, something that we all have started to say we are thankful for that you would never expect, the empty vinegar bottle! Basically, what we have learned about our dog is that she hates plastic with a vengeance and will stop at nothing to attack and kill plastic items. So one day, my Dad placed a clearned-out and empty vinegar bottle on the floor to be taken out to the recycling bin later. Our little puppy-girl suddenly came out of no where and looked it over, sniffing it before jumping back and barking. I am not going to say our dog never barks, but she has to be upset with something to bark at it. So as he watched (and my Mom and I tried to sleep), she suddenly sprang up and attacked the vinegar bottle, trying desperately to kill it.

I say thank you, because this is a great way to keep her entertained that we never knew about before and start dissipating some of that energy I spoke of. And in all honesty, we all find it very entertaining that she attacks the bottle as such and we are not exactly sure why she hates empty plastic containers. Either way, it has been a great way to get rid of some of that puppy dog crazy and we have since continued to place the bottle down and watch her attack it at random.

The Puppy Takes on the Vinegar Bottle's Ally, the Milk Jug!

But that is not all she attacks. As shown in the video I took above, she will also attack empty plastic milk bottles in an effort to dominate them. Another item she has no problem attacking in the same manner are the tomato plastic holders that you get when you buy a tomato plant for your garden. Now I am sure that this is not teaching her things she should learn, but she does not attack anyone in the family like this, she does not bark at other dogs or at us, and she does not seem to be learning any bad habit from this exercise. So we have actually sort of been enforcing it since we would never put a vinegar bottle or a milk jug down that was still filled with their respective contents. I just hope she keeps staying as intently interested in it as she has been.

Another Day of Play

I'm not going to add a whole lot of text today, but after a night full of sleeping and a morning full of sleeping as well, the puppy finally woke-up and started playing. I took a few short videos of the cute pup bite, running, chasing, and even sliding! Hope you enjoy!

Barking at the Bone:

Playing Outside

Last, this one is my personal favorite! We've been taking her to a blue, kiddy slide that has been in our backyard for as long as I remember. Picking her up, we drop her on the slide and she slides down. Today, she seemed to really enjoy it. So here's Puppy Plays on the Slide.

Puppies First Full Day

So I was finally relieved of my position, puppy night watch, yesterday at approximately 6:30AM. I was up a bit longer, working on things I needed to do for myself before I went to sleep, and my Dad was enjoying the sleeping puppy.

A bit before noon hit, I woke from a cold-sweat sleep and went downstairs to find my Mom watching the dog and my Dad out fixing the deck so she could not get under there. The puppy, who had worn herself out again, fell back asleep and my Mom came up and reheated the breakfast burritos I had made a few days ago. And of course, while heating those up she woke from her slumber. So it was back outside to run around and do anything we could to tire her out. I think that is just about the easiest way to deal with a new puppy, just work them out until they are tired and fall asleep again. Luckily, we've been learning some tricks of the trade to getting this pup tired. Our secrets are the following, though they may not work for you.

The Pup is an Explorer!

• Explore - We let the girl run around the yard, sniffing and smelling (and sometimes even eating, though I do not recommend that) everything and anything in the yard. This works really well during the day, but it was not really an option last night since we have foxes and owls in our neighborhood.
• Explore Some More - If my family and I sit down, she might come over to us and give lots of doggie kisses. Yet what is about twenty times more likely to happen is she'll start jumping around the grass, attacking leaves and just plain being a cute little puppy!
• Play Soccer - She's really started attacking that blue soccer ball some more today, running after it so that she can chew the outside up. Sometimes this really interests her, sometimes she'll ignore it, but we still try because it is less energy to kick a soccer ball then to actually jump and play with her.
• Jump and Play - This is a cattle dog, bred and raised to chase and herd animals. So one of her favorite past times is to try to herd us! She actually loves chasing us back and forth across the yard, working to keep us from passing her as she goes left and right.

Sleeping by the Water Bowl

Now, after getting her back inside, the little pup was tuckered out and passed out like she usually does next to the door. I let her sleep there for a little bit, to which she slowly crawled around the water bowl, but finally I picked her up and moved her over near the couch. Our goal is to train her to come near our feet when she wants to lay down or sleep, though I'm personally just trying to steal her for myself.

Anyway, she plays inside, she plays outside, she sleeps, and then we repeat the process all over again. It is a lot of fun, a little tiring, but that is pretty much what she wanted to do all day!

With that said, here's some videos from the day, hope you enjoy them!

Brand New Puppy

Yesterday I woke-up, drank some coffee because it gets my mind going, and then started working on my résumé and a few cover letters to apply for some careers at some amazing firms. Never did I expect what was going to happen, for I just kept sipping my coffee, acting like I was listening to my Mom's stories, and writing cover letters.

Then I got a text from Jodi, she is going to be in Littleton because she has a doctors appointment up here. 'That's cool,' I thought to myself while replying that she should come over for some coffee. She finally gets her a few hours later. We sit down after some small talk and the coffee finishes brewing, and then she finally gets her computer out. At that moment, my Mom decides it is time to go puppy and kitty hunting again, so she starts searching all sorts of websites. Within a matter of seconds, I'm doing the same thing and not too long after so is Jodi. So we're all looking at kittens and puppies, all of us distracted, and we keep finding these real catches. I applied at two places for adoption, one having white American Shepherds and one with a white Husky mix. After I hit submit, suddenly Jodi says she's found something incredible.

My mom comes up and looks first at what Jodi's found, there's excitement, so then I take a look at this beautiful puppies all up on this website. They are gorgeous and all of them just a little under two months old. Next thing I know, my Dad is home and he's not exactly excited about a new puppy. It does not really matter, because in no time the rest of us are in the car driving about an hour out to a small ranch home east of Aurora (that's right, just east of where the shooting happened). We get there and are instantly greeted by the woman that owns the place. [I'll Update Once I get a Link]

This is the Puppy we Took Home!

All The Puppies
So we get there and we are immediately greeted by nine of the eleven puppies that were in this litter. All of them are playful, all of them loving, and we have to pick out just one to take home. Now, from the get go my Mom really wanted an Aussie pup that was a blue merle, blue-eyed little girl with a tail. To explain, not all the dogs were blue merles, not all of them had blue-eyes, and most of them were stub-tailed (which is natural with shepherds at border collie work dogs), and even more of then were boys. There was exactly one in the litter, and my Mom found it and stole it and played with that girl for the first half an hour. I think it was at that point that my Mom knew she wanted that dog and we would be taking her home!

Just for clarification, she's a blue merle, blue-eyed, full tailed Australian Shepherd and Border Collie mix girl. In other words, a beautiful dog!


After that, it was a matter of figuring out if we wanted another puppy or not. And the breeder could see that we were truly the type of dog owners you want to sell dogs to, because we played with them like they were already our own! So she sat out there with us, egging us to get another one at a discounted price (she was going to take fifty dollars off for getting a pair), and we spent forever looking at all the dogs. One dog was black and white with brown-eyes, Blackster as the breeders kids called him, and he loved sitting in my lap. I just wanted to note Blackster because he loved me and would shove other dogs out of my lap for just my attention. He wasn't really in the running, but I thought that was funny. Anyway, Another one was a red merle with blue-eyes, beautiful baby-boy-blues that stood out from his tan and white coat. And finally, there was what my Mom would later describe as the perfect bookend puppy to go along with the first girl. He was another blue-merle and blue-eyed pup with a stubbed-tail, but he really did match his sister.

The Two Males Sniffing	They Looked-Up at Me	Crawling Across the Wooden Log

The rest of the puppies and the mommy Australian Shepherd were taken away, leaving us with the girl and the two boys. We played a bit inside, letting them eat a little bit while we got out of some wind, and then all of us went back outside for a second round in the grassy backyard.

The Red Merle was Brave enough to Sniff at the Goats

So we sat around, playing with the three remaining puppies when suddenly the little girl got tired and she just closed eyes and fell asleep in my Mom's hands. My Mom hands her to me after a few minutes, I barely got time to hold her because she was going crazy back to her mother when we had all the puppies out, and she picked up another one. It too fell asleep in her hands, so she handed that one to Jodi and picked up the final one. That last puppy also fell dead-asleep in her hands. I don't know what my Mom did, but all the puppies were suddenly sleeping. We let them rest, petting them and just enjoying them while we spoke with the breeder. There's even a picture of me holding all three sleeping pups in my lap, such cute dogs!

The Blue Merle Stood Back, Watching

After a quick wake-up by walking them around and getting them going, we took them out of the backyard to keep them off the soft, comfortable grass. They started running all around the rocky front, which is where these pictures were taken. Now, the goats were in a fenced off pen pretty close by and they came right over. Naturally, our little explorer boy puppies went over and wanted to see what was happening, each going up to the fence before jumping back. The little girl did not seem too interested, staying around one of our feet and just watching. I took a bunch of picture of the two boy puppies at this point, watching them play with the goats and each-other as they started exploring the unknown that was close to home. It was very cute, and we loved both of those dogs.

In the end, and although we really wanted to take more than one, we only took home the little girl puppy. She cried and cried in the car, we kept her in our laps as she came home with us, and we had to stop to get food. At this point the sun had basically set and none of us had chowed down like those puppies had, so we stopped quickly at a gas station McDonalds. I held onto the little girl while my Mom and Jodi ran in to wash-up and get some food. The whole time we were in the car, she was whining and crying and begging me to let her go back, it was truly heart breaking. But I know that in the coming days she'll grow really attached to us, it's just going to be hard getting that far.

In Her New Home
So we get her home and the first thing we do is get her into the backyard. After such a long car ride (which thankfully she fell asleep once we hit the highway), we knew she'd need the bathroom. We also brought her some water and food to chow down on (the same food the breeder had been giving the dogs, which is important if you do not want upset tummies). And then it was back to playing and exploring.

About an hour or so after she had first arrived, explored the porch and a small area of grass out back, she was back to crying as she solved that her mom and her brothers and sisters were not there with her. Again, heartbreaking to see such a small pup cry and walk all over as she sniffs and tries to find her family. Still, we played with her some more, really working out all of the energy she had.

Finally Asleep (Partially on the Dog Bed)

Bringing her inside, which while we were playing with her my Dad had been vacuuming and preparing for the new puppy (we did not want our last dog to really be anywhere, so he really cleaned-up the place). She started walking around, looking around, exploring, and even crying a little bit. Then she got tired and we put her down in the dog bed that we already had. She did not like that at first (because it is kind of lumpy and it is not very easy to make comfortable. So she scratched at it and tried everything, but all to no avail since the dog bed just would not budge. Oh well, she seems to really enjoy sleeping on the carpet when the bed does not work out.

So then my Mom and I started working on the next important thing, naming her. Now, we both agreed that we needed to agree, and nothing would be final until everyone else in the family (including my little brother) had a say. I'm not exactly sure why, because this is clearly my animal of the family pets. Seriously, I'll be the one taking her for walks and I'm already the one staying up late with her on her first night home. At any rate, my Mom and I started really reading through lists of names and just searching for the proper one. So far, after about 200 names, we've got nothing we really think fits. Oh well, I see another blog about the dog's name coming up next. Then my Mom decided to call it a night.

About half an hour after my Mom goes to bed, the puppy is back up and prowling around. This time she's up for a solid two hours, which is stressful because I really did not know what to do with a puppy except play with her. So I took her out back and jumped around with her or watched her carefully as she started exploring. Then I would take her back in and she would cry a bit before eating some food and drinking more water (not to mention peeing a few times on the carpet... I cleaned that up after getting her outside and watching her play and then getting her back in). It was all fine, I just did not know what to do because she has so much more energy for two hours than I have. However, I finally found something she loved and I could keep her playing without too much effort.

A Soccer Ball!

Anyway, that's all for right now, but I'm sure I'll have more puppy posts coming tomorrow!