Nine months after Lizzie passed, I was finally ready to try again with another pup. You can never replace a dog, and each dog is unique. I had to wait until I was ready to accept a dog that wasn’t Lizzie, and not before.

On September 27, 2013, I was sitting at brunch with friends from the working dog club, discussing the possibility of getting a new german shepherd puppy. Then, my friend mentioned that litter had just been born the day before from one of the club females. 10 puppies! Five males and five females. The father is Ike von der Donauvorstadt , imported from Germany for a limited breeding, and the mother is Bhairavi vom Dopheide, one of the club dogs.  Was I ready for a working pup? It’s a big committment! I decided yes and the next day my deposit for a male pup was in the mail. I would get the second pick after the breeder. She was going to keep one male and one female from the litter.

It was so exciting seeing the pictures of the pup grow up, and going to visit from time to time to see who the front runner may be. My friend Stan was helping me evaluate the puppies as well. From our first visit, the “yellow boy” stood out to him. (Yellow being the collar color by which the puppies are distinguished) I was too overwhelmed with puppy to be able to choose!

Our final pick was made at the training field. There, yellow boy definitely stood out for us. When food was sprinkled into the grass, he never picked up his head to quit looking for more food. When we took three of the males away from the litter to see how they reacted to the rag, yellow boy was the only one who stayed to wrestle with the rag…the other two ran back to the litter. Then and there, yellow boy was dubbed “Cosmo”!

A few days later, I would be able to pick him up and take him home. And my house would be chaos once again. Just the way I like it. ☺