I looked for another Australian Shepherd for over a year…  I had four dogs but little Shadow was 16 years old.

Shadow… my Shadow – she was a good dog!!  She was a great pack leader!!  She was a kind leader!!  She assumed the leadership role from “Rocky” who was a type “bully.”  He was a short dog who thought he was big… we use to laugh saying he had “short man syndrome.”

 One day – in the summer, while I was weeding the beds – he was hanging by the fence looking at a “goose feather” that I had placed up on the fence between the post and actual fencing materials.  Shadow walked by and jumped up to check it out, too… Rocky jumped her. Shadow had had enough of him bullying her… and so she responded. I broke up the fight that Shadow was winning (as she had him down).  Of course she was going to win… he was about 12 inches tall and weighed about 30 pounds… a mixed breed.  She was a black shepherd and was 20 inches tall – weighing about 50 pounds.  It was over…  Shadow assumed the leadership and Rocky never bothered her again.

 She would step in if he was bullying Misty and he would turn away and lay down.  She was a good leader – only intervening where needed.  She was smart, too!  She developed neuropathy… which impacted her back legs.  I wish that I had her now – as a puppy – when I know a little more about agility.  She would have been even more AWESOME than she was at her ripe old age!  She was good when she started at 10 years… but because she was older – it didn’t last very long before she got hurt.  Shadow passed February, 2016 at the age of 16 (actually 15 years and 10 months).  Hopefully I’ll see her – and Rocky – again as they wait for me at the “Rainbow Bridge.”

Rocky came to me when my good friend, Barb Mathews, and I went into a pet store and looked at the pups.  We ended up a day or so later getting puppies.  Rocky was a tiny fur ball…  his sibling “Lady” (Barb’s dog) – was the same size – and “Donnie” (the dog that Barb’s husband got for his mom and who looked just like Rocky but was the size of Shadow).  Rocky was “on the muscle” from the very beginning… thank God he was small.

I believe Rocky came to me in 1998… the years kind of blend together!  Rocky came to us because Michael (my first dog as an “adult”) had passed – and Kelly (my second dog and Michael’s companion) was so lonesome.  She mourned so…  Rocky was very cute…  Kelly “mothered” him and taught him things… how to use the doggie door, how to ask for things, etc.  As Rocky aged…  I would have to correct him as he would torment her.  He would sit in the hallway and growl at her as she tried to pass through on her way outside.  She would stop and go back into the bedroom.  He was a “bully” of a sort to her.  She wouldn’t challenge him or at least I never saw her do it so he kept on assuming he was the “boss.”

Rocky had issues with his anal glands.  At the time, I didn’t know how to express them (I do now as I went to Vet Tech school… how easy it would have been!).  They often would get infected.  Ultimately – they were his demise.  I am still a bit angry about his passing…  the last time they became an issue for him (and I didn’t pick it up until it was too late) – and even though I took him several times to the vet – having a bowel movement for him became difficult.  He strained and strained… eventually tearing the wall that held his organs in place.  It makes me very sad because this should have been caught by the vet (I wrote him a letter about how I felt and how I felt he failed at his job… Dr. Robert Knapp).   The only satisfaction that I got was when I took him to Dr. Knapp to put him down… and Dr. Knapp went to put the sedative in his arm – Rocky – keeping in true form – snapped at him.  God love that dog!!