... but the colors are black, brown, and white. His name is "Ollie", that's him in the attached picture.

"Desmo", our golden retriever mix who was the inspiration for my username (and my avatar) on numerous forums, had to be put down last August. He was just shy of his 17th birthday. We had gotten him from a retriever rescue org when he was two so he had been with us for quite some time. Sadly, his "sister" Sophia had to be put down last December due to cancer. She was only 10, which is about average for a retriever but still took us by surprise. Desmo had spoiled us as far as life expectancies go... losing them both within a year wasn't something we had ever considered.

After Desmo was gone my wife and I decided to hold off on getting a dog for a while. Less responsibility, easier to travel, etc.

Yeah right, that lasted maybe a month when she called me one afternoon and said she had found a dog. Long story short, we went to the Humane Society that evening and brought Ollie home with us. He's an 8 year old border collie/Australian shepherd mix, who they said had a few issues. So far the only issue we've seen has been storm anxiety. Previous owners (yes, he's had a few houses) had been giving him prescription doggy downers and claimed he was destructive, needed 24/7 attention... really?

He's had zero prescription drugs since being with us. He's destroyed nothing except a dog toy that wouldn't have lasted five minutes with any of our previous dogs (he worked on it for a few days). He did have one quirk we didn't like but it took two days to train him not to do it anymore. He rides in cars better than any dog we've ever had. The vets have commented what a sweetie he is during exams and getting his nails trimmed, no drama at all, he just sits there and lets them do their thing.

So anyway, yeah, my 851 now has a tri color to hang out with. And hang out he will, my other dogs didn't like being in my shop. Ollie loves it. He'll follow me down there and just lounge around while I work. In fact I've only had trouble trying to get him to come back upstairs when I'm done! I think the dryer freaks him out...