We lost our 8-1/2 year old Australian Shepherd to lymphoma on Feb 15th this year. She was much more than a pet, and maybe more than a companion to us. In a lot of ways she was a partner. She was our third Aussie but we'd never had one like her.

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When I found out she had lymphoma and her days were numbered, I contacted a breeder/kennel I'd been in contact with for years. I've known for a long time, my next dog would be from there. We wanted another as close to Gin(ja) as we could get but with merles, particularly red, being in high demand and us being a bit far down "the list" we were offered this red bi male. We knew we wanted a second dog, opposite sex,  so after some consideration we decided to take him and get the female in a year or so from now. His breeding is second to none for working ASs, and his parents are two of the finest dogs I've ever met. This little rascal is a ball of fire. It's almost impossible to get him still enough for a picture. At 9 weeks he has very good recall (working desperately to keep it), will get in his kennel on command, and is doing well on house training. We are working on; sit, lie down, etc... but he doesn't quite have the attention span to get any consistency out of these low activity commands. For his age, so far, I'm really impressed. Within his first 10 mos,  he'll have a chance to work livestock, I'll also use a frisbee to get him some of the high energy activity he needs. (same as I've done with previous ASs)

So... here is Ranger, his "sister" will be Scout. We will not be breeding them.
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I'm sorry to hear about you losing your pup.  A friend emailed me today to say they just found out their chocolate lab has liver cancer.  

I'm glad you gave that new pup a good home.   It's a cute pup!

There's one way to introduce your dog.

Thank you. I really feel for your friend. I had five weeks to prepare myself for what I knew was coming, but I wasn't prepared for how I felt after. A new pup helps, and I'm old so I've lost dogs before. Gin was a really special one for me.

I am really looking forward to raising/training this little guy, he's a character. Sunday he discovered just how fast he can run. Before that he'd kind of been loping along puppy style. He was/is quite impressed with his self

Range turned 10 mos old a couple of days ago so I was looking at some of his puppy pics then remembered this thread. I changed the title and will post up a few of the adventures he's had (that I have pics of) and some other pics of him growing.

Even as a very young pup, he loved to swim. Gin loved the water, but didn't care much for swimming. Range swims tirelessly and you can't keep him out of the water. We live in a neighborhood on a lake so it can become a problem.
In July it was "cute". By October, I recognized I could have a potential problem.
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By late May he looked like the the top pic. A couple of weeks later I took the second pic of him at the vet after he'd been bitten in the yard by a copperhead, right hind leg. He recovered fine but still has the scar.
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In Nov we went to see how he felt about herding some goats. He worked silently with enthusiasm, he could do well at this.
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He won't likely ever be formally trained for trials or see cattle on a regular basis, but I do have access to some. Once he gets rid of his puppy silliness, we'll introduce him.
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Happy First Birthday Range.
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