Another unplanned learning adventure - PUPPIES!

When a sweet, but very timid young dog showed up at my folks' place a couple of weeks before Christmas, we didn't know what an amazing adventure would soon follow. This beautiful Australian cattle dog, or blue heeler, showed up in the field, hungry and cold but scared to approach the house. Eventually she was convinced that the people living there were kind.

Dogs are routinely taken out and dumped near rural farmhouses and on lonely country roads around here. It wasn't the first time a stray had stopped a while in the fields, but for whatever reason, it was the first time my parents decided, "This one's special."

But just days after they made their minds up that she could stay, it became very apparent that Blue was pregnant. Within another week and a half, the puppies arrived.