Ember sitting, Pyro laying. 3 months old

Ember (Australian Shepherd), our not so sweet little girl,  came to live with us in October 2006. If you read about Pyro first you will understand Ember was our second  choice, but life always has a way of working out. Ember is still crazy but many steps below Pyro. She is the ruler of Dog Hill, if another dog is misbehaving or two of the boys are not getting along, she will step in and quietly tell everyone to behave. We are very happy she did come home with us.

Originally Pyro was to be a stud dog, but as he and Ember grew, the breeder felt with Pyro’s behavior he would not make a good show dog. At the same time Ember grew up to be a beautiful girl and the breeder asked to change our original agreement and show Ember instead of Pyro. We really did not understand what the show world meant and didn’t realize that Ember would be gone sometimes a couple of weeks at a time or when she was bred would go live with the breeder during the delivery and for many weeks as her puppies grew.

Can’t say I would ever do this again as Deresa and I are not the type who wants our dogs going away. Just something you want to think about if you ever find yourself in this type of agreement. The breeder, Robin, was great to work with and we learned a lot from her, but I have heard of stories were things did not go well, so do your research first.

Things went well in Ember’s beauty pageant world (what I call it), she tilted in may events and earned her Championship. Eventually she was bred and had one litter of 4 puppies. We attempted to breed her a couple more times but never successfully. Her career was over and she was scheduled to be spayed at 8 years old. The week of her surgery we noticed Ember was not feeling well and had a vaginal discharge. We took her to the 24 hr emergency room and she was diagnosed with Pyrometreosis. Because a Deresa performed a Snout-To-Tail Assessment we find the problem quickly and Ember did fine.

Ember, like all our dogs, live a pretty busy life as younger pups. Even as they age we are lucky to be homesteading and they have a lot of room to run and play. Ember played in agility for a while, has a couple of trick titles worked as my demo dog in teaching, earned a title in Rally Obedience and played around in frisbee sports.

Nearing 12 now she still has a lot of energy, still controls the household and depends her belly rubs.