Meet Odessa!

[Martinjmpr]

So I didn't post this before, but back in April we lost our wonderful little red heeler, "Shaila." She was an awesome dog, well trained and so much fun to be around. But she had really bad arthritis in both her hips and knee injuries that made it painful for her to walk and it eventually got to the point where she could no longer use her hind legs so we had to have her put down. It was heartbreaking but I think we gave her the best life she could have hoped for.



After Shaila, the wife and I both decided that we weren't ready for another dog and weren't sure we'd ever be, it was just that hard on us.

Well, as time went on, and especially when we were surrounded by other people's dogs, we really started to long for a new dog of our own.

And so, here she is: "Odessa" (or just "Dessa" for short.) According to the rescue we got her from she is a heeler/Plott Hound mix (I had to look that one up.)

She's only about 10lbs right now but we think she'll be a little bit bigger than Shaila was after she's full grown - we're estimating 40 - 50 lbs.

As you can see she's just as cute as can be and has been having a good time running around our house. Training has begun and I know it's going to be a process, but my wife only works part-time and I work from home 2 days a week so we think we'll be around enough to reinforce her training.

Just thought I'd share our good news! We still miss Shaila a lot but we think having a new puppy will help heal our broken hearts.

Here she is, both awake and asleep (her two modes: 100 mph or out cold):