We’d been talking about getting an Australian shepherd puppy for months before Ruthie took a turn for the worse.
Now that she’s no longer with us, the discussions have turned more serious.
I love Aussies. Pete has turned out to be the smartest, most affectionate dog I’ve ever had and I’ve had a desire for a long time to breed and raise Aussies.
We had Pete neutered when he was six months old, so breeding him is not an option. Besides, he has no papers and his dad was a miniature Aussie.
We talked about getting a male and a female from separate litters for breeding purposes. Then Maria suggested we just get a female and pay a stud feed when we want puppies. At the moment, that sounds more reasonable.
Maria wants a puppy yesterday. I want to wait a bit, until December at the earliest.
In the meantime, we’re enjoying the quiet and realizing how noisy Ruthie was. She developed the annoying habit of deciding there was some nefarious threat in the back yard and exploding into furious barking while we were trying to watch TV. Considering that she was mostly deaf and blind, the threat had to be imaginary. She would jump up from her place on the living room rug and bolt out the back door, onto the screened porch and then out the dog door to the yard, where she would run around barking in all directions. Then she would trot back to the living room and plop down, only to repeat the outburst 10-15 minutes later.
Pete has no use for such hysterics and is happy to lie on the couch with us and be petted.
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