Meet Richard Campbell Gansey IV, Gansey for short. (Drew and I are big fans of The Raven Cycle, especially Will Patton’s reading.)

Look at this sweet puppy!

Gansey is a seven-month-old Blue Heeler/Border Collie mix. We’ve had him for a little over a week now, and he’s already changed our lives for the better. Yesterday, he even saved me from a close encounter with a cougar.

Mom and I were walking him across the ranch, when suddenly he started growling and lunging towards the tall grass. Only the leash kept him from charging right into it. We saw a flash of tawny brown fur emerge from the other side of the grass.

“Oh, look, a baby fawn,” Mom said.

But it wasn’t a a fawn. A cougar jumped out of the grass and ran out the opposite hill.

Thanks to Pixabay for the photo. I didn’t stick around long enough to take a picture of our cougar!

Knowledgeable neighbors, including Bryan, said it was probably either eating something it had killed in the grass, or else waiting to pounce on new prey. Either way, I didn’t want to run across it alone. Fortunately, Gansey was there to scare it away.

My hero.

In the past, I’ve been wary of hiking alone, but since we got Gansey, I’ve been out every day with him. Yesterday confirmed that he’ll sense predators long before I do.

When he’s not defending me from the local wildlife, Gansey enjoys chasing deer out of the garden, playing catch and tug-of-war, splashing in the creek, and digging up mole hills.

He will get that mole one day!

Oh, and eating poop. Also rolling in it. Poop and dead things. I never realized how many fragrant offerings the woods held until I started walking a dog through them every day.  I’m just lucky that Gansey likes water. So far, he’s averaging two baths a week.

Only Nicky the cat dislikes the newest addition to the household. We haven’t been able to stop Gansey from barking and lunging at him whenever Nicky ventures down from the loft.  So far, they are at an impasse, with Nicky upstairs and Gansey downstairs. Fortunately, the puppy can’t follow Nicky up to the loft. If anyone has any advice on integrating dogs into a house with cats, we’d love to hear it.