Puppy

Olivia   November 5, 2018   40 Comments on Puppy

I generally don’t post about my dogs on this blog – which is odd since I post about chickens and turkeys and other random animals – but everyone seemed much more interested in seeing pictures of our new puppy than in hearing about our Hitching Post HT experience. Honestly, I don’t blame you. Puppy pictures are the best. The problem is, I have very few good pictures… because this puppy never stops moving.

Meet Skye.

We have no idea what breed(s) she is. She came up to Vermont from a rescue in the south. The rescue didn’t know what breed she was either. I’ve volunteered with rescues in the past, worked as a dog walker and a therapy dog trainer, and spent years as a kid pouring over breed books. All that and I have no idea what breed this dog is.  I’m not sure she is a dog. I think she might just be a ball of fluff come to life.

The fluff stalks the leaves

I’m not sure how big she’ll get, but she was 8 lbs at 12 weeks and was very underweight (she was bony and malnourished underneath all that fluff). She probably should have been 10 lbs at that time. She’s putting on weight and doing much better now that we got her stomach issues cleared up (minor puppy parasite) and are feeding her quality puppy food.

Is this not insanely cute?

She absolutely LOVED getting her medicine. She’d start bouncing and begging for it as soon as I got the syringe out. I wonder if she was bottle fed – apparently her mom died – and that’s why she loved the syringe. That or the medicine just tasted really good? I dunno, but I wish my horses were this easy to worm.

Most of the pictures I have of her are of her sleeping because she’s either a bouncing ball of energy and whirling dervish of destruction that’s impossible to get in focus on a camera or she’s conked out.

She likes to sleep upside down tough and it’s adorable. My other two dogs initially hated her. The one has gotten over it and is now playing with her/tolerating her. The other was initially terrified of her and has progressed to just hating her. Here’s Sky and Cora playing and Ceili coming in to tell them to knock that sh*t off.

I’ve been taking Skye into town to get her some exposure as she’s a very shy puppy who clearly didn’t get to see much of the world outside of her foster home and is terrified of new places and people. I wish I could have gotten her a bit younger to start the exposure earlier and I wish we didn’t live in the middle of nowhere so she could get even more, but we’re doing what we can. She starts puppy obedience class tomorrow and I am looking forward to getting her exposure to other dogs and people there too.

Feel free to jump in with breed guesses in the comments. I’d love to know what you think she might be. I have sent away for a DNA test, but apparently it takes 2-3 weeks to process. Do they not understand that I need instant gratification?

40 thoughts on “Puppy

  1. Nathalie

    The brindle pattern is unusual. I would try for akita mix (for looks) or pit bull (for probability), mixed in with a small dog that gives the size and head shape.

  2. Christa R.

    Maybe greyhound/some kind of sighthound mix? My greyhound is brindle and does the sleeping upside down, she also has the same type of ears. Whatever she is, she is adorable!

    1. Olivia Post author

      I always liked greyhounds. They’re such chill dogs. This puppy is a chunk though so I doubt she’s go greyhound in her.

    1. Olivia Post author

      I have thought maybe shepherd is in there, but she’s so small. Of course the malnutrition might be a contributing factor there.

  3. martidoll123

    omg if you don’t wnat her i will come get her! HA HAHA she is ADORABLE and a perfect addition to your farm! Enjoy. Glad the one dog is liking her now. The other may never change hating her (my schnauzer rescue Gretchen still hates my cat three years later but my cat ignores her) HA HA

    I like her name too. WIth that coat she has to have either shepherd or aussie or something in there I would think. Can’t wait to see what she looks like when she grows up. Enjoy 🙂 Tell me what DNA test you did, I really would love to do Ollie (We have no clue what he is mixed with)!

    Hope you guys are settling in nicely 🙂

    1. Olivia Post author

      My friend bought the Wisdom Panel DNA kit for me as a gift. They’re not too expensive. I went and got another one to do on my other mutt since I’m curious about her too. I’ll definitely do a post when I find out.

  4. Teresa

    Oh she is cute. I was wondering aussie too. Some Scotties have a brindle coat but I don’t see that in her. Although I suck at this.

  5. Megan K

    yeah i got a DNA test for my dog and he came back 38% collie, 12% golden and 50%…. dog

    seeing as she’s from the south, you might get a similar result!!

    she’s stupid cute tho and the gif of her playing and the other dog being fun police made me laugh.

    1. Nicole Sharpe

      Yeah I’m guessing she’s at least 50% dog also! But she might be 60% fluff demon…. Hard to say.

      So cute! I’m glad you posted puppy pics because I was going to harass you about it too!

  6. Bette

    She looks just like my friend’s dog she got 2 summers ago!!! Did Skye happen to come from the Hendersonville NC area? Seriously, same level of fluffiness and same color! He’s a really great dog so if they are related you really do have one of the coolest dogs!!!! Everyone loves my friend’s dog 🙂 Can’t wait to hear what her DNA test result says!!!!

  7. nadsnovik

    OMG she is adorable! Congrats!! The southern transports are a big thing now and are saving so many lives! We get dogs from Texas regularly and are doing our first transport with Oklahoma this month. I’m so glad she found her way to you. I can’t wait to see what she looks like as an adult. And even though breed id’ing animals is part of my daily existence at work.. I kinda am lost on this one too!

    1. Olivia Post author

      Most of the shelters up here have tons of cats and almost no dogs so we were having a hard time finding anything. There are a bunch of groups transporting dogs up from the south. Our older dog was also transported up north from Mississippi.

  8. Amanda

    FLOOFY BRINDLE <3

    I'm going to guess part hound. There are Southern region-specific hound breeds that come in that shade of brindle. Arya also came up on a rescue caravan from the south – we list her as Boxer/Lab but she looks astonishingly like the pictures of something called a "Tennessee Treeing Brindle."

    The rest, some kind of shepherd.

    Can't wait to meet her someday!

    1. Olivia Post author

      Oh the south and their hound dogs. Our other southern transplant is a “hound dog.” The brindle coloring might come from a hound, but the fluff comes from something else.

  9. Nicole Alvarez

    The shape of her muzzle, her color, and her upwards-curved tail scream Akita at me, but she’s really small to be an Akita. I was going to say her coat isn’t dense enough and her ears are too floppy… until I googled “brindle akita puppy”: there’s a resemblance for sure! Curious to see what the DNA test says. They can change so much when they grow up! We had mutts that looked like one thing as puppies and grew up into something completely different.

    She’s adorable. <3

    1. Olivia Post author

      I kinda thought she looked like an Akita puppy too, but she’s just way too small. She’s almost 4 months old now and weighs like 12lbs.

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