Ok, that’s only partially her name. She came to live with us about two weeks ago now, and is an absolute sweetie. Doesn’t like the dog much (probably because he keeps wanting to chase her…), but the humans she loooooves. She’s all full of purrs for the littlest bit of attention.

She’s a stray, but obviously had been accustomed to being around people – the nice lady that took her in and found her a new home (ours) said she’d been begging all the neighbors for food. They tried to find her people, and finally decided that she must have belonged with the people down the street who had recently moved out – apparently they just left her. So now she lives with us.

For the first couple of days, we just called her Kitty, as that’s what the lady she had been staying with called her, and she seemed to answer to it. And being a fanatic for all things Buffy (yes, the tv show), I decided that she should be called Miss Kitty Fantastico (though she looks nothing like her Buffy-verse namesake), since having a cat named Kitty is just lame.

Then, after she’d been here for a few days (and after spending those days trying out every single name that I thought might fit her, and rejecting them all), I woke up one morning with a picture of her face in my mind, along with the name Anu.

So, Anu is now her “real” name – it seems to fit her and she seems to respond to it. But most of the time I still call her Miss Kitty Fantastico, ’cause she is.

It’s hard to believe that Ceili has been gone for over half a year. We had so many adventures together and she can never be replaced, but having a place like this without a dog just seems wrong.

I’ve been researching the various breeds that are good with livestock. Heelers (Australian cattle dogs) are popular with ranchers around here, but it sounded like their need for exercise and structured activity might be a bit much for our little homestead, so I started thinking I’d like a mix of heeler and a more common “housepet” breed. That idea solidified into a plan on Sunday, and a quick peek at Craigslist brought up an ad for an 11 month old, obedience trained heeler/German shepherd mix named “Daks” (Australian slang for underwear). I sent off a quick email.

Around 6pm last night I was out defending my country from old beer cans practicing my marksmanship in a gravel pit 10 unpaved miles away and the cellphone rang. It was Teri, calling to tell me that Daks was on his way over to meet us. I rushed back down the logging roads and did my best to make myself presentable, and long story short, Daks ended up staying with us.

We’re already falling in love with this sweet, energetic little mutt. He loves running around our fields chasing thrown apples, and is absolutely crazy about the goats (they’ve only met through the fence so far; introducing them will be a long process). He’s still a bit puppyish, but obeys the main voice commands pretty well, and made it through his first night without any inappropriate chewing or puddles =)

Teri shot a few pictures this morning. Here’s Daks waiting for me to throw an apple that fell off the tree:

Here he is hoping to catch the apple (hasn’t happened yet):

And here he is being VERY excited about the goats: