Our bruiser of a cat Shadow passed away at almost 10 years of age due to leukemia and was a central figure in our boys lives from the time of their birth and was therapy for my wife and I during very trying times due to a miscarriage. Our oldest son was 7 and our youngest was only 2 1/2 when Shadow passed and his prescence was noticiably missed. I could not bring myself to look for another cat (Shadow was a Russian Blue, 20 pounds of pure muscle and big enough to guard a junk yard), so we decided to find a dog. After looking we decided on purchasing an Australian Shephard and found someone who had some 3 week old puppies for sale. Turns out, the lady selling the puppies was someone I went to High School with, even though she lived in another state. Well, we looked at the puppies and our oldest immediately fell in love with the pudgiest fuzzball I had ever seen who was mothering all of the other puppies (this I would later find out was her herding skills). Well we left without choosing a puppy but our oldest son, who never cried about anything, got teary eye so we knew right away that she was the one for us. After we returned and paid for our bundle of joy, our oldest son held her in the box on his lap and we tried to think of a name for her. After about 45 minutes, no one could agree on a name. All of a sudden someone pulled out in front of us and I had to make a quick stop, and the puppy and the box flipped out of my son’s lap and onto the floor of the car. We all gasped and our son commented that she ‘flipped’ off of his lap. As soon as he said ‘flip’, she looked up and let out the cutest bark, so since that day she has been Flip. Flip loves the water and we can’t keep her out of any lakes or reivers we visit when fishing and she is constantly swimming to the point of exhaustion, chasing fish, pulling boulders out of the river and ‘demanding’ we throw them for her to retrieve and finding any way to stay wet. However, come bath time, forget it, she wants nothing to do with getting clean or being in the water! Our oldest girl is 10 now, has some mild dysplasia in her hips so her days of swimming for hours is now down to swimming at max for 30 minutes only with a life vest attached. She is still our velcro Aussie and I think the prettiest one I have ever seen. Loyal, Protective, Honest and Loving. Attached is a picture of her exhausted and just before she fell asleep after swimming. Isn’t she beautiful!

Matt from TX