We named the dog Indiana!

Indiana Jones came into out lives on November 28, 2006, he was 8 months old.  We had been thinking about getting another dog since our sweet fuzzy boy Dallas of 17 years had left us in October 2006.  We had adopted our second dog Coco as a companion to Dallas in April 2006.  When Dallas passed, he left a huge whole in all our lives.  So, I would go into the web site of the place we adopted Coco from every day, looking for the dog that would stand out to me.  I wasn't in any hurry.  I found this dog named Kyle and thought what a silly name for a dog, but found that I couldn't stop thinking about him.  So after a week or so I showed him to my husband and he liked him too.  So off we went to the shelter to see Kyle and see if he would get along with our sweet little girl Coco.  Well, they go along great, running and playing in the shelter's fenced yard.  My husband Bob fell in love with him and said to me, "I want this dog!"  I was a little doubtful since he was bigger than I expected, he was thirty-five pounds and only 8 months old.  The people at the shelter noticed this in me and talked to me about it.  I told them that I never had a big dog before, nothing over 24 pounds.  They told me that he wasn't considered a "big" dog, but he was one to me.  Well, I got over is and we said we would adopt him and then the fun started.  We were going out of town for the Thanksgiving weekend to visit a friend of mine that was dieing from cancer.  They told us that they couldn't hold him for us because that wouldn't be fair to him, if someone else wanted to adopt him.  So, we went home with very heavy hearts and hoped that he would still be there after we came home from our holiday.  We tried to keep it from our minds, but couldn't, everyone knew the story about Kyle and everyone was keeping their fingers crossed for us.  I told Bob that I could not have a dog named Kyle so we started to think of names for him in hope hat we would get him.  One day I was sitting at work and heard in my head, "We named the dog Indiana!"  Since all this was happening around our weekend in Indiana, I thought it was a great idea and both my husband and I loved the Indiana Jones movies.  So I called my husband and he thought it was a great idea too, that is as long as his name was Indiana Jones.  To say that we were anxious during our holiday is putting it mildly.  We called from Indianapolis the day we were coming home to see if he was still available and he was!  We told them we would be in the day after we got home to pick him up and our worry was finally at an end.

We found out that Indiana was from a Kentucky rescue and was born under someone's porch.  The owner of that porch was going to drown the puppies and someone found out about it.  So this person contacted a pastor's wife in the town and she got them to a shelter.  Then they were brought up to the shelter we adopted him from in Illinois.  How lucky for us.  We have found that Indy is a very gentle soul and is very afraid of loud noise.  My husband and I are big sports fans so when we are cheering Indy doesn't understand and runs and hides.  I found him in the back bedroom during the Super Bowl shaking.  I couldn't even get him to come out. We really have to watch it around him, but I think he is getting used to us! 

Indiana Jones is a Golden Retriever/Australian Cattle Dog mix, although everyone says they only see cattle dog in him.  He turned one year old on April 4, 2007.  Now, if we can just make him understand that he is not a lap dog like his sister Coco.  Coco is a Min Pin and is only 14 pounds.  Indy wants to do everything Coco does and he looks pretty darn funny trying to imitate her.  These are my silly kids and we are so blessed to have them!