Sherry Says ...

One Blue Eye ... What?

Last May, we lost our dear Frankie.  She was an Australian Shepherd mix dog that had been a faithful member of our family for 16 years.  (See my post dated May 18 – RIP Frankie.) 

Naturally, Tyler started asking immediately when we would get a new puppy.  The thought of “replacing” Frankie was something I didn’t even want to consider.  But, I knew that the day would come.  I just didn’t know when.

Frankie was special in more ways than one.  But, one of her physical attributes that made her stand out was that she had one blue eye.  So, Pat wisely told Tyler that Mom wouldn’t want another dog unless we could find a female with one blue eye. We knew that would hold him off for a while.

Tyler continued to ask Pat all summer to start looking for a puppy with one blue eye.  A couple of months ago, Tyler started asking me when we were going to start looking for a puppy with one blue eye.  As the frequency of his question increased, I realized that the day was rapidly approaching when I would have to “give in” and say “ok” to getting a new puppy. 

We knew that we wanted to find another Australian Shepherd mix.  I started looking online and discovered that they were really hard to find.  The ones I did find, were extremely pricey and had to be shipped from another state – sight unseen.  I told our vet, Dr. Gary, to let us know if he ever became aware of an Australian Shepherd mix that we could adopt.  He told me that they were very hard to come by, and he advised me to just keep checking the SPCA website.

So, I began checking the SPCA website regularly.  There were lots of dogs to adopt – but not many puppies – and no Australian Shepherds.  I was getting discouraged.  But, yesterday, I checked the site and low and behold, a whole litter of Australian Shepherd mix puppies had just arrived.  There were 8 of them – 7 of them were female!  They were so new to the SPCA that they didn’t have any pictures of them for us to see. 

Still not sure if I was ready to add a new member to our family, I asked Pat if he wanted to go check them out – kind of like dipping my toe in the water.  When we arrived at the SPCA, we learned they had a policy of not letting you see more than 3 puppies in a visit.  It is their way of assuring germ control.  Without any pictures to go by, we were rather at a loss.  Six of the females were in the 10 lb. range.  But, the runt of the litter was a little over 5 lb.  So, we asked to see her.  The person that was helping us said, “well, you need to know that she has one blue eye.”  WHAT???  The manner in which she said that was as if it was a negative thing!  Pat and I just looked at each other and laughed.

So, they took us into this glass room and sat us down.  When they brought this one blue-eyed Australian Shepherd mix puppy into the room, she brought tears to my eyes.  It was love at first sight!  There really was no doubt that she would be going home with us that day.  

Meet our new family member - Sadie

Tyler was still in school when we brought Sadie home.  

We couldn’t wait to see his reaction.

  

Sadie likes to cuddle!