They either chased the livestock. (And we can't have them chasing cattle. Even if it was a Australian Cattle dog that's supposed to chase cattle... We didn't want ours chased.)
Or chased the traffic. (And we can't have them chasing traffic. Our road is quite popular for motorcyclist because it's a paved country road and not nearly as busy as the highway. Our greatest fear was that a dog (or chicken - but that's been taken care of, too) would cause a motorcycle accident.)
Or died. (The one that died was a terrible situation: Someone dropped a very sick dog off at our place. It was evident that he was dropped off because he could barely walk,even to drink or eat a couple feet away. There was no way he could have wandered far enough from anywhere to get here on his own. He found our sandbox and laid in it, so the kids called him Sandy. They were quite taken with Sandy. But he died a couple days later and the kids were heartbroken. What kind of person does that kind of thing to their dog?! Or a family?!)
So we just kind of gave up on getting a dog, even though we kinda sorta wanted our kids to have one.
But it's amazing how things work out! One day, our pastor put a picture on Facebook of a sweet little guy, a Bloodhound, that needed a new owner. He was from a litter of pups that would have normally been sold, but due to a couple of imperfections, he was off the market. Well, that got the thinking juices aflowing.... Maybe, just maybe, a Bloodhound would be our kind of dog? He wouldn't chase traffic. He wouldn't chase cattle. And (we hoped, anyway) he wasn't dying.
We discussed it a couple days, making sure it was a commitment we wanted to make. We thought about all the reasons listed above. We thought about the vet care. We thought about the poop in the yard. We thought about the cats. We thought about the baying. We thought about what to do when winter comes and it gets cold. We thought about the laundry on the line and the potted plants on the porch....
Finally, we came to the conclusion that we thought we could handle it. SO, via good ol' Facebook, a couple messages were sent and we got our Rosco delivered to our door just a couple days later.
Suffice it to say, the kids and the dog are in love! They adore each other! Josh and I are just hoping and praying that everything continues to work out as well as it has for the past week.
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| Meet Rosco. You may have figured out how we got his name. There was a Bloodhound named Flash that belonged to Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on Dukes of Hazard. The name Flash was too obvious, so we named him Rosco. Sometimes Josh will call the dog by his whole namesake. The kids have picked up this habit and every once in a while will call out for Rosco Pico Train to come. :-) They'll figure it out one day, I'm sure. |
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| The dog STUNK when he got here. Even though he's an outside puppy dog, he still needed some freshening up! The kids thought it was a hoot, giving their dog a bath! |
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| We spent some time getting our doghouse out, positioned just so, and then bedded it. I guess Rosco was exhausted from the trip to his new home and meeting his new buds because it was just a few minutes before he found his house and he fell asleep. We even trimmed some of the trees in the yard with the chain saw and used the tractor to clean up the mess and clean the gutters on the house.... and he slept through it all! |
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| This is what we wanted! Every little farm boy needs a buddy. Caleb has two: his dog Rosco and his calf Legacy. |
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| He's a good ol' boy. When we're outside, he runs around with us. For the first week, if we weren't outside, we tied him up so he'd get use to knowing this as his home. So far today, he's been off all day and not a problem more than a few sand box toys being torn apart! Hip hip hooray! Oh, and by the way... One potted plant has had it's leaves shredded. And he tried to take the laundry off the line the first time, but just one sharp tap on the nose later and he hasn't tried it again. He really is a good pup.... so far! |
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