Kathie's New Puppy

Today was Acquire Puppy Day. Kathie's chosen new puppy, a sable English Shepherd (Josey is a sable English Shepherd), attained the ripe old age of eight weeks recently and, so, was ready for its new owner. We drove to central Iowa today to pick him up. Named Redstone by his original owner, this little guy was the first-born of the litter and evidently won the hearts of lots of the prospective new owners who saw him. However, Kathie is the lucky one to have him.

Here is Redstone with his mother, who is named Keeva. Keeva is smaller than Josey, and so we hope Redstone (final name to be determined by Kathie) will not exceed about 45 pounds or so. However, "Red" is a soft, fluffy, chunky young boy, and so it will be interesting to see how fast he grows and how big he ends up being.

I like this shot of Redstone lounging in the grass, while Kathie talked with his original owner about the transfer.

In this one, he looks a little sad at the thought of leaving his comfortable first home, his mother, and his brothers and sisters.

Red took a few moments to say goodbye to Marcia, Keeva's owner and the one who arranged for Red to be brought into the world and who helped give him a delightful first eight weeks of life. I don't know what they said to each other, but I do know that there were a few tears on each side.

While Kathie and Marcia did the paperwork for the transfer, Red spent a little time chewing on Marcia's throw rug for one last time. Then he posed for me for this shot.

Along the way back to our home, we decided to stop briefly at Ledges State Park to stretch our legs and to give Red a chance to walk with us. When we first left his original home, he whimpered for awhile. I know it must have been hard for him to leave his family behind, and he must have wondered where they were. But he found lots of love in Kathie's arms and comfort in being in her lap, so he settled down pretty quickly. Here he is with his proud new owner. He did a good job of walking along with us on leash, although we had to carry him quite a bit. Of course, everyone else walking in the park found him as cute as could be, especially all the little children.

Josey found Red pretty interesting. Red initially found Josey pretty scary and sought shelter in Kathie's friendly presence. Our home has been puppyized for a few weeks of training. Right now, Red is crashed on the kitchen floor, after having a nice supper and a tour of the home and yard. He seems to be settling in nicely.