Kipper!

Pretty much everyone knows this, but for Christmas this year, our big surprise for Anthony was to get him a dog. If you know Anthony, you know he's been begging for a dog since he's known what a dog is. We finally broke down and brought Kipper into our life, right before the new year.

Kipper's story is this:  A man who lives in the Seattle area was down doing business in Chinle, Arizona for a few months. He stayed in a hotel while he was down there and noticed that there were feral dogs roaming the area around the hotel and begging for food. Kipper was in this pack, along with his litter mates (4 puppies, total) and his mom and at least one other older male dog.

At some point, Kipper's pack was attacked by another pack of dogs, killing one of the puppies and injuring one of the adult males. The business man figured that he'd seen enough and decided he'd rescue the dogs, get them medical care, and take them back with him to the Seattle area.

Kipper is presumed to have been born around June 1, 2010. He's no more than eight months old now. We know his mom was a pure bred (or pretty darn close) yellow lab. His dad was most certainly part collie. He has very strong tendencies of retrieving and herding, both of which are fun, interesting, and somewhat challenging. He's a smart dog, but he really wants to herd us around. He will attend obedience school to help bring out the positive attributes of his personality, as well as tone down the stronger breed characteristics that we don't really need (such as nipping to get us to move faster...we're not sheep).