Gleann at 4 weeks--at "breeders" We had been talking for a couple of years of eventually adopting a semi-working dog to protect the chickens and just hang out around the property. Last year ,when some of our chickens got taken by a fox and a weasel, this became a bigger priority. We had thought it would be nice if we got something we MIGHT be able to turn into a herding dog, provided we could learn to train it. So we focused on the idea of something along the lines of a Border Collie or some cross thereof.

Well, in May of 2004 we were told that a BC and an Australian Shepherd had gotten together without their owners' intent and were offered a puppy if there were enough. A few weeks after that we got called over to check out the then 2-3 week old pups and pick one out from three that were left (there were five all together). Sadly for us they had docked the tails to make them more like Australian Shepherds already, we would NEVER have chosen this to be done. The other two were female and red merle, the one male was pure black like the BC mother. We choose him for at 5 weeks old--we didn't want his tail docked! but we still love him several reasons...we like black dogs here, we figured that Irony would be more accepting of another male coming into the pack than yet another female (although she accepted Scolaighe well enough), this was a chance to get anther male while we have Bran as the pup will be too small to kill him and will be used to him by the time he's big enough, and males are, after all, cheaper to get fixed. After all, at that age it's a little hard to judge on personality.

We feel a bit weird about getting a puppy, being hard-core dog adopters and spay/neuter advocates. We were disturbed that these people hadn't fixed their animals, but as this was an accidental litter we THOUGHT they would learn better and maybe consider it. Sadly, we were wrong. They seem not to have gotten the message and seem to not really care what might happen to the puppies. We do still feel that we are giving Gleann a better home than he might have had. There is a pang of guilt that him being born means another isn't coming to live with us, but in the future we will take better care about who we get our dogs from.

at 5 weeks So we have now Gleann ("valley," see, we were going to name him Beinn or "mountain" because we live on one but decided two dogs with names starting with "b" and ending with "n" might be confusing for them...so we went with where he came from...we wanted something really simple for the folks, mostly it'll be pronounced "Glenn" I suppose).

It's been a few days at this writing, July 11, and things are settling. Scolaighe was the only one of the hounds that showed any prey interest and that's calmed down, although we won't let him loose in the house unsupervised until he's much bigger. Irony has been ill, so we were afraid this might stress her, but she seems to be dealing with him here very well, unless he gets near enough to bite so we work to prevent that. Bran wants to play, but again, that must wait until Gleann is closer to his size. We're still in the first teething stage, a bit more than 8 weeks now. That is fun. He's shown some herding interest. He's showing himself more willful than the "puppy testing" showed before. But I think he's going to make a nice addition to the pack.

5 weeks, with sisters

Yes they're cute now, but will all their homes handle their needs through their lives?

Spay/neuter button from Dog Hause's Don't Litter site
Background modified from a graphic from the World of Celtic Art
Clipart from Clipart Castle