Remembering...and Renewing

If you have been around my blog much at all, I am sure you know about our Aussies. Well, three years ago today, we lost our best furry friend, our beautiful Australian Shepherd, Duke. We were so devastated, he was a member of our family. Our home felt so empty and quiet without him and we immediately started looking for another Australian Shepherd, as we knew they were "our" breed and we would always have an Aussie. We knew Duke would never be replaced, but we needed to fill that void in our lives.

Well, we ended up with 2 new pups! Bo and Luke. Bo came first and was a bit crazy and a really great farm dog. He protected the barn and the barn cats and was so much fun. He climbed high up the stacked hay bales and was the fastest Aussie I have ever seen. He would have made a fantastic agility pup! Luke came to us a couple months after Bo, and he is a lot more laid back and more of a family dog, a bit more like Duke. A bit calmer than Duke too, I should say. Bo and Luke loved playing together and just had a ball. Then, sadly, in May of this year, we lost Bo. He just passed away out of nowhere. His third birthday would have been this week, July 26th.

This time, we decided we would not just jump in right away and get another Aussie. We would wait for the right one to come to us. Well, at the end of May, I heard that there had been a litter of puppies born just 3 days earlier. And they were the puppies of one of Duke's sisters! Well, I of course wanted one, but Jim couldn't be convinced. So I put it off and just prayed for a pup each time I received new photos of the litter. To make a long story short, things ended up working out and we brought home our new little bundle just in time for the anniversary of Duke's passing! And on top of that, guess when the new pup's birthday is? John Wayne's birthday, May 26th. Why is that significant? Well, our sweet Duke was named after John Wayne, "The Duke"! =) And, it was exactly 2 months before Bo's birthday. I know, I think about things WAAAY too much lol! But I thought that was pretty cool! I didn't even know when John Wayne's birthday was until I stumbled upon it, I was looking up significant events of that date, trying to come up with possible names for the puppy. Who is still not officially named by the way, but I think we are going with Blue Steel (the John Wayne movie of course!) in part of his name....we wanted to call him Blue, but that sounds too similar to Luke, and we don't want to confuse our pups! So we will see, I kind of like "Jake" so that could be what we call him. ;-)

Alright, so I suppose you want to see this special new pup? Well, ok! Here he is!

Chewing on his little hedgy toy:

And sitting pretty in my flower bed:

Is that not just the cutest little Aussie pup?? Yeah, he is! He follows in the paw prints of 2 awesome Aussies, but I don't think he will have a problem living up to them. I just love this breed, they are so unique and special, each and every little quirk! They are each so very smart and have their own personalities. I can't wait to see what this fellow has in store for us! I pray he and Luke will enjoy many happy years with our family!