No Name Puppy

Many of you who have been fans of our Real Farm Foods Facebook page know that we lost our Blue Heeler, Brutus, this last summer.  In fact, one of the few blogs I've blogged had photos of Brutus and Lurch, our Great Pyrenees, whom we also lost this last year, to other reasons.  Two terrible days on the ranch.



Lurch & Brutus

Brutus was a good dog, full of vigor and age.  He was, in fact, the same age as Taylor, 15 when he died.  That's a ripe old age for a dog.  When we lost Brutus, due to old age and the natural scheme of life, we were left dogless at the house.  We knew we'd need and want another good dog around at some time, but not too soon.

Brutus

Around the end of September, Taylor and I started looking for leads on good young farm dogs.  With all the critters running around the ranch, we have to be pretty particular on the type of dog we have around here.  Preferably not one that's a bird dog by nature.  The chickens, after all, are part of our business!  But, we had a conference scheduled to be at the first whole week of December.  Taylor would even be attending with us, which meant none of us would be home to tend and care for a new dog.  So, Cowboy Cody informed us that we would need to wait until after the first week of December to bring a new dog home.
This is what Cowboy Cody brought home the last week of November.

Puppy

Adorable, right?  A 6-week old Red Heeler puppy.  Perfect.  Really.  She would be the perfect dog for us.  But, just a few days before we would be out of town for a full week?  Thankfully, Taylor's best friend, Abby, talked her folks into letting the adorable little varmit stay with them for the week.  They spoiled her rotten.

Well, although this cute, little adorable, yippy ball of fur is still unnamed (heaven forbid we call her Puppy forever), she's growing well and learning the ropes of being a ranch dog.  But we could really use a name for this dog.

That said, this is still the view we see most from her... 

She's found out which of the cats will be her friend and which won't.  This is Dork, aptly named, with Puppy.  Dork's a special needs cat.  Ridiculous, really. 

Dork & Puppy

When he walks, he reminds me of the cats walking down the path on the Disney movie, Aristocats.

Puppy has a well, puppy, that she loves to romp and play and sleep with.  Here, I caught her sleeping with puppy with the plastic tag in her mouth.  Didn't take long for her to chew the tag off of puppy.  We really need a name for this dog.  :)

She loves visiting my Jersey milk cows in the early morning.  Her favorite is Anna, because she always lowers her head to let Puppy lick her nose and pull on her ears.  No pictures of that, but I do have video if I ever get the hang of posting video on the web...  Being a puppy, she loves to play and thinks everyone and everything is here for her sheer enjoyment.  Even the milk cows' calves...

Wilbur, one of our big non-special needs cats that likes to spend as much time in the house as out, tolerates Puppy quite well.  Maybe torments is a better word.  They chase each other around, pulling each others' tails and more.  One of Puppy's favorite things to do is to pull the food bowl away from Wilbur.  That always gets a game of cat and mouse dog going.  Then Wilbur does things like taking over Puppy's bed...

Wilbur in Puppy's bed

She's really been a good addition to the family so far, but she seems to be becoming a lap dog.  Cowboy Cody tells me she'll be a 50-pound lap dog one of these days.  But hey, we all like to cuddle, right?  And, she's good entertainment, too.  Chasing the cats, bringing her empty water bowl to us after she spills it all over the kitchen floor, bringing treasures like frozen cow patties inside, what could be more fun?

We're hard pressed for fun sometimes.  We don't have television, so tonight we watched Puppy chasing the glow from a flashlight around the living room.  We really need a name for this dog!