Canine Friends

Puppies wake up. In the middle of the night. To pee. This means that unless your dear sweet wonderful 7 or 10-year-old children wake up to escort the puppy outside, that job will fall to you. Just in case you were wondering.

Spotters became a member of our family on Sunday when we adopted him from an organization called “Friends of Noah” (http://www.friendsofnoah-wi.org/ ). Lois and her husband, Mert (short for Merton I later discovered) had only moved to the area 7 months prior. Lois started Friends of Noah in November and has 30 volunteers and 6 foster homes already. She mostly deals with mixed breed dogs (Spotters, at best guess is Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix). And she is very passionate about what she does. Spotters was one of a large litter of puppies dumped on a veterinarian’s doorstep with their umbilical cords tied together—hours old? She and her husband hand fed all the puppies. Spotters was less than a pound and the runt of the litter. While it took Lois an hour and a half to feed Spotters’ litter-mates, it took her husband the same amount of time to feed Spotters. All of the other pups had been adopted out prior to our seeing Spotters on Petfinder.com. They had kept him a bit longer to work on training and to bulk him up.

Tippy, our 2-year-old Australian Shepherd/Lab mix had gotten into the habit of sitting on a piece of furniture with her head resting on the arm of said furniture, looking forlornly, out into the distance. I believed she was bored or depressed. She gets to go running with Jim, and the kids and I take her on walks. But perhaps this amount of activity is not enough for a breed designed to herd sheep every day. So, I thought getting her a playmate would be a good idea. It was either that or a herd of sheep (that may come, but not just yet).

She still sits on the furniture the same way....