We Have New Additions!

The last few days have brought new additions to the farm, all four legged of course.  But our first new addition is not an alpaca.

Meet Blue our Miniature Australian Shepherd puppy!

Our New Puppy Blue

Blue is just over 8 weeks old and was born April 18th.  Coincidentally our dear Toby who passed away recently was also born in April and so we are hoping that is a good omen.

Following Toby’s death the house seemed very empty without his happy, fun personality.  We decided to start looking for another housedog and were hoping to adopt another Pomeranian, but that was not to be.  We did find one Pomeranian available for adoption in another part of the state but the rescue organization ended up adopting him out to someone in their area. Responsible rescue groups require a home visit, which would not have been a problem except the only other Pomeranians available for adoption were in other states and the rescue organizations did not want to spend their limited funds on out of state home visits.  Understandable, but disappointing all the same.

We did check local rescue groups but did not find a dog that seemed right for us, nothing clicked between us and the small dogs available for rescue.

Our friend Val Smith of Double Diamond Alpacas has a Miniature Australian Shepherd “Charlie” (actually he belongs to her daughter Allie) and we had been quite taken with Charlie when we met him.  He is a very sweet dog and seemed to have that happy personality we were looking for.

We discovered that there was a litter of Miniature Australian Shepherd puppies for sale about 2 hours from us and so last Sunday took the drive to take a look at the litter.  If truth be known Ric would have been quite happy to take the mother dog Morgan.  Ric and Morgan hit it off immediately, but Morgan was not for sale.  It is always good to see the parents of a litter of pups and we were impressed with how smart and fun Morgan was.  After much deliberation we picked out Blue, it was so hard just to pick one cute ball of fur!  If we had not had Missy and Tripster at home we might well have taken two pups, but we thought it best that we pick out just one.

For an 8 week old puppy Blue is pretty impressive, she has already started to tell us when she needs to go outside for a potty break (we just have to be attentive to her signals) and when she is in a playful mood she will play fetch with the tiny ball we have brought her.  At night Blue sleeps in her crate and with the exception of the second night when she did whine a little she is quiet during the night.  Blue is a fun pup to have around and has easily adapted to our routine. Blue loves to trot at my heels when we are outside, she has not tried to nip my heels or herd me (Australian Shepherds can be prone to doing that and need to be discouraged from trying to herd humans) and she just loves to be with us.  In the evenings she is content to play a little and sit with us or lie in her crate snuggled up in a blanket we brought her.

Blue will not get to be very big, no more than 14 inches at the shoulder.   As of right now she is only 8 inches tall at the shoulder and can’t weigh more than a couple of pounds!

And the reason for the name “Blue”?  Well it is mainly because the children of the breeder had already given her that name.  With her Blue Merle coat and her bright blue eyes the name seemed appropriate and she answers to it!  Her registered name will most likely be a little longer, but not much as the National Stock Dog Registry where she will be registered request that you keep the name short and not include reference to the sire or dam’s name (how different from alpaca names!).

Life with Blue will be much different than life with Toby, we cannot replace Toby but we can enjoy the fun and love that Blue promises to bring us and look forward to her being a big part of our lives for many many years.

Rosemary