Reb Ribbon and All

In August of last year we lost our dog Ollie. We were extremely sad. He had been a great dog. We had him for five years, since he was six weeks old. We have been travelling a lot so we didn't get another dog right away. Besides, we couldn't just replace our Ollie. In the following months, we still missed Ollie. Every time we had bones left from beef stew, we remember how much Ollie would have loved to chew on it, but mostly go bury it.

By December we were ready for a new dog and Sam had a breed in mind. He wanted a Great Pyrenees. I wanted a Great Dane and the kids wanted another Jack Russell like Ollie. After reading about several kinds of breeds and thinking about our needs we (Sam and I) chose a Great Pyrenees. The kids thought we were still thinking about it. After searching around we found a farmer who had a litter of Christmas puppies for a very reasonable price. Sam and I snuck away to check out the puppies. The first thing I saw when we pulled up was their great big daddy guarding the cattle and the mother, Sugar, guarding the sheep. They were beautiful animals and very social, yet sober. The puppies all came stumbling out, they were barely six weeks and still a little unstable. I was so excited. We wanted a dog that had been socialized some, we wanted to be able to see the parents and we wanted to raise it from a puppy.
Great Pyrenees are working dogs. They were breed to be flock guardian dogs and they do a very good job. We know that safety is of the Lord, but it is nice knowing we will have a family dog that likes to protect her family if need be and is social as long as she knows there is no threat. The ad in the paper said something about "fluffy ball of white fur". And that is just what she was; cute and fluffy, and a little shy at first.
Sam and I picked her up on Christmas Eve and she cried all the way to my brother’s house, where she stayed the rest of the evening. She was happy as long as my little niece held her. Sam and I picked her up after the kids were in bed. We gave her a bath, which really stressed her out and put her in her kennel in a nearby building. Sam got up at 3:00 am to check on her and she was crying. He ended up sleeping on the floor next to her to keep her from alerting the kids. In the morning we got them over to my mom and dad’s house as quickly as possible. As soon as we had unwrapped gifts, Sam announced he had forgotten my gift and jumped in the van to go get it. It is a short mile down the road. The children commenced to playing with their new toys and looking at their new books and things.

Then in comes Sam with the yet to be named, very young, very stressed out, but extremely cute puppy complete with red ribbon. The kids were very surprised and very excited.

Heidi started out quite shy; in fact she spent most of Christmas day sleep under something. She was still unstable on her feet at this point and it was so tempting to just carry her around. It didn't take her long to start to come out of her shell. She is adjusting to our family very well and is even doing well with all the travel and new places.