In the Beginning...

It is now spring of 1996. Penny has been with us for a year now. Though she is a happy puppy we decided that maybe Penny would be happier with a playmate in the house. Thus began the search for our second puppy. We read through all the literature we had about getting a second dog and decided that we should get a male as there would likely be less conflict between a male and female in one household. Our other concern was that Penny turned out to be one big puppy, even at just one year of age. We questioned whether we could house and train two big doggies. So the search was narrowed down to a medium sized doggie. Would we be able to find another cute little puppy at the SPCA? Would it be like our first experience?

As it turned out, one of my co-workers was into training and breeding Shetland Sheepdogs. She had been working very closely with a local established breeder and I knew I could trust her in that these dogs would not be mistreated or come from puppy mills. So we're all set I thought to myself. Not quite. She did not have any puppies ready. By this time, I was sold on having for Penny a little Sheltie playmate. So the waiting game begain....

We finally got the news that my co-worker was expecting a litter. On July 15 seven precious little Shelties entered the world. I couldn't wait to go pick out our new puppy. I saw pictures of the tiniest little things I ever saw in my life! They fit in the palm of her hands. But we still had to wait two months before we could adopt our new puppy.

When the puppies got older, we were invited to go over to see them. Mom was resting behind a sofa while seven little puppies were running around in circles, chasing one another. I don't think I ever saw so many cute little fur balls in my life! They were all adorable. My co-worker had determined that 3 were show quality, 3 were pet and there was 1 female runt that she would be keeping. That narrowed our choice down to three as we were not interested in a show dog. As it turned out, they were all males, exactly what we were looking for.

The big day soon came upon us. My co-worker told me that she would be advertising the puppies, but that I could have first pick. We went back to view the puppies. This time, she isolated the three for us. We spent some time playing with them and checking out their personalities. One was bigger than the others and quite rambunctious, barrelling around the room. One was a bit timid. Then there was the middle of the road one (hence his official CKC registration name of 'Middle of the Road Little One'). We were a little concerned about getting the bigger one full of energy. He looked like he would be a handful. The timid one we worried would be too timid for Penny. But the last one was perfect! He seemed to have just the right combination of energy we were looking for. We bundled up our little joy and let his momma sniff him one last time before we took him home with us.

Unlike our little puppy girl, our new little puppy boy was always quick to voice his displeasure with being left alone. We had decided to keep our little fur ball in the kitchen at night to make sure he didn't leave us any "little presents" in the rest of the house. Well, that idea soon went out the door. By this time, our little puppy girl was sleeping upstairs with us in our bedroom which meant that our new little one would be all by his lonesome in the kitchen. He howled and howled and howled until we got the message that we would have to let him upstairs with us at night. But our little boy was at least well behaved when he was with us and didn't leave any messes in the house. He was the quickest house-trained puppy I had ever seen.

--- to be continued


Puppy Mishaps and Mischiefs

Rusty has always been a bit wary of new things. I remember the first time we brought him home and took him outside. He would not walk on the grass. He just walked on the patio. So I picked him up and plopped him onto the grass and he didn't move. I don't think he knew what to think of the green turfy material under his little paws. I tried to coax him to move around, but he just sat there, not moving. He eventually got used to the grass.

Another thing Rusty didn't do were stairs. He would just look down the stairs, but wouldn't go down them. I would go down and try and get him to come to me, but he just stood there. So I picked him up and brought him down the stairs. I then went back up the stairs, hoping he would follow. But he would just look up the stairs at me. To be fair, I think the stairs may have been too tall for his little puppy legs.

Being our second doggy, we figured that we would teach Rusty to bark on command. Shelties are herding dogs, so Rusty barked a lot, but we wanted to teach him to 'speak' and to be 'quiet'. We couldn't figure out how to get him to speak, and realized that he usually barked when someone rang the doorbell. So we trained him by ringing the doorbell. Bad idea. This just caused him to bark more whenever anyone was at the door. We never really did get him to learn the command 'quiet' though he knows 'speak' very well, and we don't even have to give him the command!

--- to be continued


Puppy Walks and Adventures

Rusty had a strange quirk about not doing his business on a leash. We've always let him out in our back yard and I guess he just got used to doing it while running around. Well, it took years before he finally decided to do it while on a leash. I remember calling his daddy at work from my cell to tell him the good news!

--- to be continued