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!
I have some sad news. Our red merle Aussie, Bo, passed away unexpectedly last Saturday, May 5th. I feel bad that I have waited this long to post about him!
Jim was so upset, he had really bonded with him after Duke died almost 3 years ago. I have really been slacking on photo taking lately so I don't even have any recent photos of him. =(
He was a really good farm dog. He kept the racoons and other critters out of the barn and was a good watch dog. He was also really, REALLY fast and loved chasing his buoy toy (we had an old boat that we sold and it got left behind so it became a dog toy). He LOVED to climb and he would climb up the straw and hay bales in the barn, all the way up to the top of the stalls they are stored in (maybe someday we will have a hay loft...).
He was Jim's buddy and a good listener. He had this super intense stare and would just look at you with penetrating eyes. We are so sad to lose him and all his unique quirks. He would have been 3 in July so he was still just a baby.
We don't have any idea how he died. Jim played with him that morning, we went to run some errands for a few hours, and when we got back he had passed. So very strange.
Rest in peace silly Bo Dog, and have fun playing with Duke over the Rainbow Bridge. May we one day see you again!
I haven't posted any pics of Luke for a while so here are a couple. He is such a sweetie, growing so quick. I can't believe he is already 9 months old!
We took a nice walk around our corn field and down by the creek. Luke had a blast sniffing every little thing. I am sure there were a lot of coyote and deer scents.
Happily bounding back to me, what a good pup! (of course, the excitement could have been more focused on getting the treat in my hand....lol)
Happy boy done with our walk.
Next on the agenda, taking Luke AND Bo out together....they haven't gone on a walk together yet so it will be interesting to see how they do! So stay tuned.... =)
Today would have been Duke's 7th birthday. We still miss our pup SO very much! Not a day goes by that we don't think about him. This pic was taken a year ago today. Check out my other blog, Cross Creek Farm for another pic of Duke.
Welcoming....Luke! I went and picked him up this morning. An hour through the snow one way to meet the breeder (though NOT over 15 inches like some of the east coast, I think we only got 2 or 3) and then he got to come to my dad's for our big family Christmas get together. So he got some socialization!
Here is my sweet baby dog for you all to see =) He's such a cute little chubby furball!! (please excuse my messy house in the pics, its been a long last couple days...weeks.....months even....lol. Once again I have been neglecting my bloggy duties, I have still been a bit down lately. That and laziness are my only excuses....well, there is ONE more, but I can't tell you that until, ohhh, Tuesday night (if I remember) ;-)
Well, we decided on a puppy! We chose puppy #3. Here are his pics again:
It was so hard to choose! I really loved puppy #1, the blue merle bi with blue eyes (see previous post). He was just gorgeous! But Duke had brown eyes and copper points and in the end I had to go with this sweet little guy who reminded me the most of Duke. I hope he ends up being a nice boy! He is only 4 weeks old so its a bit early to tell his temperament, but I am sure he will be fine (fingers crossed!). Now to think of a name! I am not sure if I like Luke or not (as in Luke Duke, see this previous post), any ideas? I like to keep to the tradition of a one syllable name (for herding dogs - a good short, easy to say name). And I want to keep it related to "Duke" somehow, whether it is the Dukes of Hazard or John Wayne (who Duke was named after). So let me know if you have anything in mind!
If you are new this week, all you have to do is post a photo of whatever you want (within reason of course, keep it clean people! ;-) ) and it has to have some element of "peekaboo," "hiding" or "camouflage" in it. Think of one of those hidden pictures where you have to find the hidden images. Or a green frog blending into the green leaf he is sitting on. There are tons of options! Have fun with it!
If you would like to join in, please make sure to link back to my blog and use my button if you like. If I decide your image(s) is/are inappropriate, I have the right to delete your link. Other than that, have fun and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! Oh, and I plan on having weekly themes in the future, but if you don't have a photo that falls into the category, you can still participate. And I don't mind if you add this into another Friday blog carnival. As long as you remember to link to me, that is great! Ok, that's all for now, lets see those photos!
Here is a button for you to use if you would like to participate. Thanks!
It has been 3 months since we lost our sweet Aussie Duke. I didn't even realize it as I planted some daylilies around his grave today. Its just like I knew I should do it today. Then little Jimmy helped me pick up a bunch of small rocks to make a border around the grave area which I am making into a small flower bed (I will have to post a pic later as it didn't even occur to me to take one until it was too dark). It is in the middle of a pasture so we are going to have to fence it, but I am making sure to use "horse safe" plants. We are also going to add a bench and plant a memorial tree. It looks over the creek so it will be a nice relaxing sitting area. Oh Duke, we miss you so much!
On a brighter note, sweet little Bo is growing so fast and is so rambunctious! He is learning so well and doing great with his clicker training. He can already sit, lay down, shake, get in his "bed" (crate), stay for a short bit, and he almost has roll over - which is a big deal because Duke would NEVER roll over, not even to get his belly scratched! Bo on the other hand just loves to have his belly rubbed, he is such a roly poly little guy.
Ooo, and there are plans for a little furry playmate for him in the near future (a Christmas present perhaps??) I will keep ya posted ;-)
I hope you all are doing well, I am sorry I have been a horrible blogging friend lately. I am working on making my rounds to visit everyone, I miss you all & hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!
All week, Jimmy has been trying to "hide" in Bo's crate. I have to make sure I keep it latched now, it is really hard to get him out of it! This is the first time he got in, luckily the other times have been without Bo in there with him. Jimmy just rushes right in and slams the door shut. I really think he tries to keep Bo out on purpose, probably to keep him from jumping on him =)
If you are new this week, all you have to do is post a photo of whatever you want (within reason of course, keep it clean people! ;-) ) and it has to have some element of "peekaboo," "hiding" or "camouflage" in it. Think of one of those hidden pictures where you have to find the hidden images. Or a green frog blending into the green leaf he is sitting on. There are tons of options! Have fun with it!
If you would like to join in, please make sure to link back to my blog and use my button if you like. If I decide your image(s) is/are inappropriate, I have the right to delete your link. Other than that, have fun and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! Oh, and I plan on having weekly themes in the future, but if you don't have a photo that falls into the category, you can still participate. And I don't mind if you add this into another Friday blog carnival. As long as you remember to link to me, that is great! Ok, that's all for now, lets see those photos!
Here is a button for you to use if you would like to participate. Thanks!
Let me start off by saying that I am soooo Thankful for our new puppy!! He is pretty much awesome. And he is learning very quickly. I have started clicker training him. I clicker trained Duke and he did very well. It is such a great training method and it really gets the dog's attention. Here is some info about it. I had posted a video of Duke closing the door and my friend Ter asked how I taught him, so I thought once we got a new pup I would post about it.
The way I trained Duke was with clicker training. Check out clickertraining.com, it is a great site full of resources. You get this little clicker thing and you are supposed to click it when your pet does something you want him/her to do. You don't even have to use your voice because if you click when they sit for example, and you keep doing it every time they sit (well, when you are having training time), they learn to associate the click with what they are doing at that moment. Then you immediately give them a little treat. We used little pieces of cheese or these little tiny dog treats. It is a really great tool. I started out with the Clicker Training for Dogs kit with the book, click-a-trick cards, clicker and treat sample. I bought another book later on, Clicking with Your Dog, and it is a great book. Very thorough and it is full of different tricks and sometimes a couple different methods of clicker training each one. Here are a couple links to items I use (I tried to link to the specific clickertraining.com items, but it only shows a general link):
The way I taught Duke to close the door was to get him to put his nose on the door on the side that you push to close it. As soon as his nose touched the door, I clicked & treated him. We did that over and over again until he got it down pat. Then we worked on getting him to push the door a bit with his nose and as soon as he did I clicked and treated him. And we did that over and over. We just kept at it a little at a time until he finally pushed the door all the way closed. At some point I stopped clicking and treating until the door was getting closed all the way. He actually learned very quickly so it didn't take as long as I make it sound. It just depends on how quickly it sinks in. I also taught him to open the door, that is what that rope was for on my doorknob. He just had to learn to pull it (when training I made sure it stuck through the door so the door didn't latch and he could pull it) to open the door far enough to get his nose & head in and open it the same way he was closing it. The video is a bit after he learned to do it all. He figured out his own way to do it, as you could see he pushed the rope with his nose so the door would latch and then used his rear to close the door all the way, it was so cute! And he was always using his paws like hands, that was cute too, but scratched my door up!
Clicker training is really fun, really helps with the communication between dog and owner and its a great way to strengthen your bond with your dog. I hope this info is useful to someone and thanks so much for stopping by for Thankful Thursday!
Meet our new red merle Aussie pup, Bo. As in Bo Duke . Jim came up with that, I thought it was cute and works well, now we just need to find our blue merle puppy so we can have Bo & Luke Duke... ;-) He was a very tired boy and fell right asleep next to Jim and laid there for a good while, even after Jim finally got up. And right now he is sleeping right under my chair as I type this. He is a cutie.
I have to admit I never wanted a red merle, I was actually wanting a red tri (solid brown with copper and white accents) since we have been having trouble finding any blue merles around here (I found one that I LOVE but thats another story...). But we went to see these puppies and were trying to choose between a red-bi (no copper points) and this guy and Jim really seemed to like him a lot so we brought him home. Now that we have him I really like him and I have been looking at pics of red merles on google and they are pretty. I just have a thing for blue merles though, they are still my favorite =D Soo....Bo will one day have a puppy brother to play with (Barb, if you happen to read this, I will email you soon ;-) )! The more the merrier I say ;(ok, but seriously, 2 is the limit!!) Now, I am off to bed, I just wanted to let everyone know the joyous news and to document the newest addition to our family. Hmmm...maybe I will celebrate with my very first giveaway....you better be sure to check back in the next couple days to see what it will be!!
Well, due to the passing of Duke this week, I have decided to change the name of Peekaboo Friday to Find Me Friday, in honor of our sweet pup. We used to play "Find Me" (our version of hide and seek) all the time and it was one of Duke's favorite games. So I think Find Me Friday is a more fitting name since Duke was the inspiration for this idea in the first place. Here are a couple of pics with Duke in them. And of course I am reposting the two pics of Duke in the creek. =)
If you are new this week, all you have to do is post a photo of whatever you want (within reason of course, keep it clean people! ;-) ) and it has to have some element of "peekaboo," "hiding" or "camouflage" in it. Think of one of those hidden pictures where you have to find the hidden images. Or a green frog blending into the green leaf he is sitting on. There are tons of options! Have fun with it!
If you would like to join in, please make sure to link back to my blog and use my button if you like. If I decide your image is inappropriate, I have the right to delete your link. Other than that, have fun and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! Oh, and I plan on having weekly themes in the future, but if you don't have a photo that falls into the category, you can still participate. And I don't mind if you add this into another Friday blog carnival. As long as you remember to link to me, that is great! Ok, that's all for now, lets see those photos!
Here is a new button for you to use if you would like to participate. Thanks!
This is the hardest post I have ever had to write, yes, even harder than the one about my mom passing. It sounds odd, but I was at least prepared (for years really) for my mom's passing. This was just so unexpected. Jim and I are absolutely heart broken. At about 10:30 this morning, our sweet, loving, beautiful Australian Shepherd, Duke, registered name Slick Silver Duke, got hit by a car right in front of our house. I was out in the rain attempting to move the car seat from my car to our truck. I don't know why I didn't let Duke in the car with me as I was unbuckling the seat, or why I didn't just leave him in the house for a few minutes. I ALWAYS know where he is and NEVER let him anywhere near the road! All I know is that I let my guard down, turned my back for what seemed like 2 seconds, then I heard him barking as a car was slowly driving by. It was this old man that ALWAYS drives slowly. The speed limit on our road is 55 mph, but he always drives really slow. Duke usually never paid attention to the cars driving by but he did to this one because I am sure he thought he was coming to "visit" so Duke must have gone to "greet" him. I didn't see what happened, but I did see immediately after he got hit, actually it took me a minute to realize he HAD been hit. He was jumping around, barking deeper than normal and I thought he was just excited about the car, but I was too late. He had already gotten too close. He ran up to me and then just collapsed by the sidewalk.
I immediately called Jim at work and he was on his way home. Then I called the vet and told them they were coming. Jim got home, put Duke in the truck and took off as I waited for my friend Angie to come and get Jimmy so I could then follow Jim. After Angie left with the baby I took off to the vet, which is about 20 minutes away. I was about halfway there when Jim called and said Duke was gone. He was about the leave the vet to bring him home to bury him so I went on home myself. I got home, Angie brought Jimmy back from their errands, and finally Jim returned with our sweet, forever sleeping pup. We cried (I probably shouldn't say that Jim cried, but he did, he will be so embarrassed if he reads this, Love you honey!) for a long time.
You see, we picked up Duke together when he was a puppy, brought him home to my house and he was like our kid. When I had to move out of my dad's into an apartment not allowing dogs, Duke went to live on Jim's grandpa's farm where Jim was living after college. They did everything together, he was pretty much Jim's dog after that. Once we got married and moved into our house, we were a family and I got my doggie back but he and Jim still had this awesome unbreakable bond. Jim always looked forward to cuddling with Duke when we went to bed. Sometimes Duke would even be under the covers with his little head sticking out at the top, too cute! I admit I was a bit jealous, but it was very sweet (again, he will prolly be embarrassed I am telling you this, he is quite the manly man!).
Duke was an amazing Aussie, he was so smart! He could turn the light off, shut the door, bring you stuff, put laundry in the dryer, throw trash away, he never chewed anything that wasn't his, he never dug up the yard or my flower beds, he would lay down and go to sleep when you told him it was bedtime, if he was licking himself he would stop if you told him to, he knew all kinds of tricks, he loved to catch the frisbee and fetch the ball and the big rubber horse ball, he loved chasing the 4-wheeler and playing in the creek, he stood still when it was time for his heartworm & flea medicine, he jumped in the bathtub when it was time for a bath, he stood still when hosed off, he shook his fur to dry off on command, he was the BEST watchdog and he loved all the farm animals. He was great with the cats and they all loved him. He was wonderful with Jimmy, letting him pull on him, brush him, pet him and even sit on him occasionally.
We loved our dog so very much and wish so so much that we had finally put up the fence across the front yard so we didn't have to worry about this very thing. We just hadn't gotten to it yet. The whole rest of the yard is fenced so it would not have taken much to do the front and install a gate at the driveway. I am so sorry I let my guard down this one time and let my sweet bubba doo (this pet name came from "puppy dog" I know, we are weird, but we loved our boy!) get hit. It only takes one time. I wish with all my heart he had just gotten hurt and we had time to "learn our lesson" and put the fence up. Please, if you have something you have been putting off that could save your sweet pet's (or child's even) life, please put it off no longer! I read a very sad story about a horse that had to be put down at Laughing Orca Ranch, the neighbor had a very short fence the horses could pretty much just step right over and they got out, one got hurt and had to be put down. You would think that after reading that and crying over that horse, I would have insisted that Jim put our fence up NOW, but I didn't. Ohhh how I wish I had! Our Duke would be right here with us, wandering around, panting, wanting to play ball, just wanting to be loved on. We miss you so much bubbas! That'll do bubs, that'll do!
Here is a video I took of Duke when he first learned how to close a door. I think this is from 2005, maybe early 2006. Please excuse my dirty room lol =)
In Loving Memory of Slick Silver Duke. January 27th 2003 - July 22, 2009. These 2 photos were taken the day before he got hit, I wanted a couple good pics of him so I could draw him. Now I will be doing a painting of our sweet boy.
Today is my little doggie's birthday - he turned 6! Wow, it seems like just yesterday that he was running towards me and tumbling over his clumsy puppy feet, a crazy little ball of fur. Here are a couple pics of Slick Silver Duke. One is from today and the other is from October. Oh, in case you were wondering, he is a Blue Merle Australian Shepherd.
Spring has Sprung!
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Lots of new happenings on the farm this week. Our new ducklings are on
their way today! They should arrive by Wednesday. I ordered Indian runner
ducks, blu...
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