Then Misty's second litter, by Geronimo, and Mom requested the "River" girl kept back from there. So River Song went to be Mom's dog. ("She gardens with me" Mom used as backup.)
So... everyone here had a Tervuren but me. (Except Dad, but he's not so much a dog lover!)
For the last litter Misty had for us, we got her bred to TK Look At The Radar, before he went to Colorado. I especially wanted a black Misty-girl for the program, the last genetic match we had available to pair Misty's valueable old lines with, and hoping for a black female to provide an alternative to Fiona, just in case.
So Misty's third daughter to join us turned out to be two black little girls, impossible to choose between. We kept them for a year, and then the bigger one "de-selected" herself by being unwilling to give up looking at chickens with a certain gleam in her eye.
Contacted by a previous puppy mom who was now completely under the spell of this amazing breed, we sent the bigger girl home with her to continue to safeguard the line, and kept "Empress". (Red collar at right. > )
Where her sister had shown a marked preferrence for Abi over me, Empress seemed to be the opposite, and while it's unkind to crow over something like that, I did feel the least bit flattered that I'd been "taken a shine to".
Not knowing which was going to stay, though, I had distanced my heart a little from them in their puppy stages, and while Empress has clearly shown since that she is mine according to her, I missed out on that "puppy love" stage while trying to be wise.
Feeling that we'd capitalized on the available genetics, I didn't intend to do any more puppy-keeping.
Then Luna had her second litter out of Geronimo... and there was a little girl there that was outstanding in every way. As much as I wanted to just stay with the status quo for a while, everyone who was around this little girl advised she be kept and watched because she was something really special. She had so much bone that we couldn't tell her apart from her brother, and for a breed with marked gender differences that was an amazing amount of solidarity in a female. So "TK Fox In The Grapes" became my second female... and I'm very excited about where she might end up! Lots of herd drive, we'll see where her opportunities lie.