We Adopted a New Puppy from the Shelter

Austrailan Shepard Mix Puppies

I think that I have truly lost my mind or bowed to teenage pressure. No, actually this is something that we had been thinking about for quite sometime, bringing a new dog into out home. The only criteria was that I had was that it must be a shelter dog. I would never consider buying a dog from a pet store as you really don't know where those precious ones come from and the prices are outrageous.

Our current dog, the one we have in addition to the new puppy, we bought from a family that breeds dogs. She is a black Cocker Spaniel named Dixie, the love of my life. Dixie will be 7 years old this summer. When we went to look at her we got to meet both of her parent's as well as her grandparent's. They were living out in the country and all of the puppies were in a large baby gated area in the living room of the house. The day we got there everyone was outside playing because the weather was nice. I felt very comfortable with the transaction and Dixie has turned out to be an amazing dog. I did my research in advance and have been very happy.

My previous dog was a Shih Tzu, Patches. She was a little lady and I thought that no one would ever be able to replace her in my heart. We had to put her to sleep because at the age of 14 she developed a brain tumor and began having severe seizures. We tried medication but it didn't work. The vet said that with her age there was probably nothing that would help her. We kept it up for about 3 months but when the seizures started occuring 4+ times a day I finally had to make the difficult decision to put her down, it broke my heart. I sat with her while they gave her the shot and morned for weeks. I vowed never to own another pet. This lasted about 6 months and then we got Dixie.

I had wanted a Cocker Spaniel but had heard about Cocker rage but in doing my research I found that this only occurs in a small percentage of Cocker Spaniels. I also read that you can sometimes tell if a Cocker is prone to it by looking at their eyes, if there is red in or around their eyes Cocker rage might be a problem. I don't know how much truth their is to this but I looked at all the puppies when we went to get Dixie and none of them had red eyes.

Back to the point of this story, our new puppy. I had planned on getting an older dog since they are harder for the shelters to adopt out and ther actually had a Shar Pei mix that I was interested in. But when we got there he was actually mixed with a Great Dane and was huge. They had several Great Pyrennes, too big, a Llasa Apso which I love but he was "food aggressive" and that scared me with my grandaughter. So we decided on the puppy. His name is Mickey, he is an Australian Shepard Wirehaired Terrier Mix so he should not get much more than 50 pounds. Their dispositions are great, they do herd but we can live with that.

The picture above is of his litter mates. I will keep you posted in Mickey's life and that of Dixie as she adjusts to having a new "baby" in the house.