Meet Nellie!

We've had Nellie for about a month, but she's already become part of our family. She's a 15 month old Labradoodle, a cross between a lab and a poodle. TJ has been wanting a dog for a while, but I was nervous about the responsibility.

I think TJ forgot about Alli, the Rottweiler, we owned for about a couple weeks shortly after we got married. We now have a daughter with that name. Is that weird? When we tried to introduce Alli the dog to Boswell the cat, Boswell chomped down on my arm, causing an infection that required medication. We kept Alli in our room while we went to work. I came home over lunch every day to let her out, and every day she had pooped right in the middle of our bed. Not cool, Alli. We quickly found her a nice home without cats.

I grew up on an acreage with outside dogs. We didn't have good luck. Sergeant, the Collie, was a big ball of cockle burs from exploring the countryside. He also liked to hold kids' arms in his mouth. It didn't hurt, but we got tired of having slobbery arms every time we went outside. One day Sergeant bit one of my mom's piano students hard enough to draw blood. That was the last day we saw him.

Then there was Jesse, our sickly, clumsy German Shepherd. She once survived getting hit by a car. It hit her right in the tail. She had to have part of it amputated and then wore a rubber blue cast on it her tail stump for a while. Another time, Jesse got lost in a dust storm. A few days later, my dad saw her playing in a yard about 10 miles from where we live. He knew it was her because of the blue cast on her tail. We found out teh family had adopted Jesse from the Animal Rescue League. Dad drove us by the house so we could all see her (from the car). I don't know if he thought it would help us to know that Jesse was happy with another family, but my sister, brother and I threw a big fit. The next day my dad went to the house and got our dog back.

When I was in high school, my sister and I went to the Animal Rescue League to pick out a new dog. We walked by a pen in the dog area with a big sign that said "Stray." Inside was a HUGE boar! That's a male pig for you city people. We thought it might be fun to bring home a boar, but he wasn't ready for adoption yet. We got a Husky. I don't remember his name because he ran away and never came back. Next was a little black dog named Amos, who also ran away. We were fine when he left becuase he had fleas. Then there was Bucko, a German Shepherd/Doberman, who was surprisingly aggressive. I think he was the one that chewed some of the wood siding off our house.

Up until now we'd never had a "good" dog that didn't have some kind of personality defect. But now we have Nellie, and we lucked out! She is extremely sweet! We love her!