And more new critters

Meet Lucky, the latest of the bottle calves who brings our total up to three. He seems to be recovering quickly from his rough start and we've finally turned him in with the other two. Sprinkles still isn't sure how much she likes all the company but Boo and Lucky seem very glad to have buddies. Sprinkles lack of enthusiasm for her new friends probably stems from the use of her ears as bovine pacifiers when bottles are slow. Roberts started working on bucket training them and has had way more luck them me. I ended up with milk spilt mostly all over me, more slobber than usual and hungry babies. Sigh.

I've always been very partial to ranch dogs...border collies, heelers, Australian Shepperd's, etc. and never really paid much attention to other breeds. So I was a bit surprised when Robert brought Cash home as our replacement for Dixie. He's a black lab/weimaraner cross, so he has a lot of energy, but is pretty darn sweet. He's really good with Carter (the main reason we ended up keeping him) and so far has shown no interest in chasing any of the other critters (a plus!), no mean tendencies, very little barking, doesn't jump up on you, listens pretty well, all in all a good dog. Carter really likes him...but she just seems to like having lots of animals around in general. He's very active, which makes me a bit nervous. Right now, we're outside a lot and will be all summer, but things can get a lot slower in the winter which is what made Dixie so crazy outside by herself. And unless Cash learns in a big hurry not to mark my furniture, he's going to stay an outside dog. His chances of becoming an indoor dog are really pretty slim regardless. I really don't like big dogs in the house as it's really hard to keep your house from smelling like a big dog lives there. He's also not fixed...and although he hasn't acted like he likes to fight or anything, my sister may not be quite so crazy about us visiting any time soon. Her little Cisco dog is naturally just coming into heat, something Cash picked right up on when we were over digging up trees. Rance seems to think that puppies would be just the thing, but I'm less excited. Cisco is pretty small compared to Cash, and having taken two dogs to the vet for emergency c-sections thanks to the puppies being too big for the momma, I don't like the odds. Not to mention how dang expensive it was! It's almost as expensive for a vet to deliver puppies as having a baby in the hospital. Not quite...but pretty close. Anyway, I imagine we will go back to blue heelers again when most of the kids around here are older. I've very partial to them, especially after my Quincy, but they are simply too hard to have around when there are a lot of little kids.