Meet Sadie

Meet Sadie, the newest member of our family. She’s a 10-week-old Aussiedoodle. That means she is a cross between an Australian Shepherd and a standard Poodle. We found her through a breeder who attends Church at the Gates in Missoula, Montana. Since we were going to be here anyway, we decided it was time to add a dog to our family.

I was raised with dogs all my growing-up years in Alabama. We had two fine collies named Blackie and Brownie who were followed by three beagles–Mao and Hun and Butterscotch. My dad loved to hunt quail, so we often had bird dogs as well.

Over the years Marlene and I have had a number of dogs, including a Miniature Schnauzer named Dixie. We also had a “weiner dog” named Klink (after Captain Klink on Hogan’s Heroes). There was a dog named Peabody in there somewhere. When we moved to Tupelo, we got a basset hound puppy named Dudley, who was joined later by another basset hound named Gary. We had to leave them behind when we moved to Dallas.

I think if it were not for the Coronavirus, we probably wouldn’t be getting a dog right now. But with our travel schedule up in the air, and with more and more of our ministry taking place online, it felt like the right time. Plus dogs are good for senior adults, which we definitely are.

We picked up Sadie yesterday. As you can imagine, the grandkids love her. So far, so good. She’ll go with us when we drive back to Kansas City next week.

They say that Aussidoodles are very smart dogs. One source calls them “the Einstein of dog breeds.” That intimidates me a little bit. I remember listening to the announcer at the Westminster Kennel Dog Show introduce various breeds, describing in detail their background (usually in Europe or maybe Egypt or China), their many fine attributes, and then close by saying, “These dogs do well when their owners are at least as smart as they are.”

We have our work cut out for us. We don’t want to let Sadie down.