So, now we’re down to one dog on the farm (from 4 only 18 months ago), and she’s getting a bit prissy, so we think it’s time she had company again.
She’s a middle-aged mid-sized spayed female, purebred mutt, generally fine with other dogs - loved her buddies, but with strangers, not overly friendly, but not too rude, either. She was at the bottom of the pecking order with the gang of 4, and a lot of her play habits, etc, I can tell she learned from the others. We’ve had her since she came from the pound at approx 1yo, and she had 0 personality, oddly.
We have no kids, but kids do visit, and we also have plenty of cats, and quite a few horses.
So - we’ve been watching the local pounds to find something to keep her company. Male or female, doesn’t matter. Age doesn’t matter (preferably not a puppy). Prefer not hounds or other hunting types, huskies, or anything too aggressive. No teenyweenies, but any other size is fine.
The pounds all seem to be full of hound/hound x’s, huskies, or teenyweenies. 
We went and “met” a great dog at one pound, an XL lab/Great Dane x, young-ish male, and oddly, he scared the snot out of our resident dog when introduced. He did nothing, was very polite, but she wouldn’t ease up, even after half an hour of us lazing around in the grass with him and the staff member there, so sadly he’s probably not a good match. Too bad, as he’s an AWESOME dog.
We met another dog yesterday, larger mid-sized female, 3yo, seemed very pleasant and personable, so we’ll arrange another introduction shortly.
Then I saw another dog listed, an “Australian Cattle Dog,” young, female. Sounds nice, just waiting to hear back how she is with cats, her history, etc.
Her listing: http://www.ottawahumane.ca/adoption/petharbor_dogs.cfm
In the meantime, can anyone give me feedback on living with Australian Cattle Dogs? Are they in fact aka Blue Heelers? She’s kind of a strawberry roan, so red, not blue.
I’d like to know how they are generally with cats, or other critters that run, such as the horses :rolleyes: When things go bad, what happens? As in, if things go bad with our current only dog, it means she ate all the cat food and burps a bit :winkgrin: She’s not great with kids, so she chooses to hide under the bed if any are visiting. I don’t expect any dog to be perfect, and every household is different, and there will always be teething problems!
I did search the forum, and there are lots of good stories, so they sound awesome, but perhaps a bit too much energy for us - not sure about that.
- On a separate point, I was noticing how so many coth’ers have wonderful stories about dogs that might be ghastly in different situations, but here on COTH there seems to be a lot of people who love their potentially tricky dogs deeply, and handle them extremely well, so there are very few insurmountable issues. Big thumbs up on that one!
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That said, I LOVE them. Have four - 3 females, 1 male. Mine have a lot (and I mean a LOT) of obedience training. They are smart and train easily but some have a “what’s in it for me” attitude. Clicker training works great with them. They need mental stimulation as well as physical. A bored cattle dog will invent things to do and you probably won’t like what they come up with.
But he is very sweet and wants to be good, and is pretty durable.