The New Dog.

Now something totally off topic. Last Friday we got a new family dog; a 14-week old, female Australian Shepard to be exact. This is the cutest, softest and most energetic puppy I have ever seen. The last 3 days have seemed like 6 - and I guess they should when you are up both day and night.

For years the kids wanted a dog - asking at Christmas, birthdays, holidays and any other day that seemed good to ask for a dog. They've slowly worn away at the armor protecting our standard answer response; NO, you already have a cat who thinks it a dog. And over time, the idea has slowly brain washed us - until early this year we finally agreed to get a dog. I will say, the kids coverted my wife first, so it is fair to say I was out-numbered and out-gunned.

So the hunt was on - our original plan was to find a 2-3 year old dog; family raised, trained, house broken and energetic. We quickly realized this dog is difficult to find. You can find some of these requirements, but not all. We even had a 1-day trial run with a 5 year old Beagle. Unfortunately, the kids had more energy than the dog and I wound up carrying him home about 1/2 way though the 3rd walk of the day. A very sweet and well trained dog, but we came to the conclusion he needed a less active family.

The search continued until last week, there it was in the Washington Post classifieds, Australian Shepard Puppies........ the perfect choice. Not our original plan, but Aussies are smart and we can develop all the other attributes over time. And after waiting nearly 2-weeks to have a free day to get the dog, last Friday we picked our new puppy.

I typically think puppies are small, so I might have mis-judged our choice a little when the 14-week old Aussie was nearly too big for the small crate we bought to transport her home. There were several pointers the breeder had for us too, like, register her with AKC, feed her quality dog food and my favorite, when she does something wrong, say 'No Damn-it". So we stopped to exchange the too-small crate we purchased earlier in the day for a larger one, purchased food that was inline with suggestion #2, and head home.

All Friday afternoon, a pack of neighborhood kids ran around with the dog. Friday night was a bark and wimper fest all-night-long, as was nights 2, 3 and 4. We are still working at changing that behavior and getting more sleep at night. The training has started with "Sit" and "Come", which are working about 50%+ of the time. The rain has been turrential for days and it took two nights of taking her out in the rain at 1am to think of newspapers on the garage floor work just as well as grass. Having her give me the "now what" look as we stood in the rain got me thinking.

Now as proud Aussie owners, we are learning everyday to communicate with the dog. The suggestion has even been made to train her for field agility competitions - which might be a good activity for everyone. And I have a new use for the plastic bags around the daily newspaper - it would be really helpful if the Washington Post could start using two bags......