New Family Member

Kyle and I have added a new member to our family. We brought home a new baby girl on Wed. the 4th. She is sweet and happy to be with us, even though it has been a little bumpy so far. Her name is Kokanee... we are going with a theme. Kokanee is a type of salmon and as all of you know, the cats name is Trout, so we are sticking with the fishy names!! Kokanee is about a year and a half and she is a Blue Heeler/Australian Shepard mix. She came from a shelter in Orange Cove, we found her online. Kyle fell in love immediately and they rolled around on the ground at our "interview".

The rough part has been the horrible tick infestation that came with her. The shelter said she should not have any on her but I have pulled off at least 100. Yes that is correct, not a typo, ONE HUNDRED TICKS. I only hope I get them all and we don't get any mama ticks leaving us with future presents. To say the least I am a little grumpy about this and very disgusted (sorry if it is disgusting for anyone else) but we are diligently checking her everyday to find every last one of them. The main problem is they are very small to start and so they are very hard to see until they start feeding and grow. It has been looking promising as dead ticks are falling off of her due to the drops we used and I will keep searching for any remaining. We are lucky and they don't seem to be getting on any of the other animals so far.

But more good stuff... sorry for all the tick talk (ha-ha). She is very sweet natured and loves people. She is a little destructive and seems to like to play with everything except for the toys we bought for her. We are planning to get her into training as soon as possible to help us and her know what will work best. Kokanee loves Eddie (my brother's dog) and they play great together. I put Kokanee in the yard this morning and then Brandon put Eddie out about fifteen minutes later and they played happily for at least an hour. You can't beat that, two dogs who can entertain themselves when necessary. Kokanee and Trout also seem to do great together. Kokanee still seems a little scared of the cat, but in no way chases her. Trout is comfortable enough to walk around right in front of Kokanee without any fear, that is great!! We want our girls to be happy together.