Ty is a new experience in puppyness for me. I was expecting another Bonnie-like pup, and he is nothing like her. Bonnie was a bold and intensely curious puppy who had to explore and participate in everything. She was fascinated with animal movement, whether it was a chicken pecking the ground, a mouse in the grass, a cow walking in a field, or a buzzard circling in the sky. She still is. It was years before she gave up watching the water swirl down the toilet, and she still feels absolutely obliged to look down every storm drain and over every parapet she encounters. A busy and destructive pup, she required constant monitoring.

Ty observes without neccesarily choosing to butt in unless it looks particularly fun. He is not at all fearful; I have had plenty of experience with dogs who are nervous about trying anything new, a very tedious trait. Ty accepts almost everything with aplomb and interest. Even when I expect him to be frightened, such as when a diesel bus roars past a few feet away, he is merely startled and then relaxes. Although he plays hard, he does a surprising amount of lounging about, generally right under my feet.

Bonnie is a one-person dog who nevertheless greets friends with a passionate frenzy, and sometimes has scarcely less enthusiasm for strangers. Ty presently greets strangers with puppy wiggles, but I can tell he's going to grow out of this. He will be the classic "reserved with strangers" Aussie. But he is more inclusive of my family than Bonnie is, who would rather sit in my car waiting for me than go for a walk with my husband.

This is a fifteen week old pup who is easier to be around than many adult dogs. He learns effortlessly and rarely gets into any trouble. I can't help but wonder what kind of stockdog he will make, with that easy-going personality. Yet Bonnie, for all her constant predatory behaviors, quickly backs down from challenging stock, and has yet to bite anything hard, even a mouse. Ty observes the goats and chickens with the same calm curiousity that he watches everything else. When shown a cow through a fence, he stiffened, growled, and then woofed menacingly a few times — he has an impressive growl and a rarely-used, unpuppylike bark. What a mystery it all is to me.

I try to reassure myself by reviewing his ancestry, which contains a lot of reputedly excellent stockdogs, particularly cow dogs. He appears to take after his dad Clint, in both looks and personality, and those lines I am personally unfamiliar with. I just don't know what to expect. Clint is linebred on the famous old working sires Jones Reddy Teddy and Taylor's Luke the Drifter, and on Luke's son Silverledge Slide Me Five, although they appear rather far back in his pedigree.

Clearly, other breeders in other parts of the country have had a different idea of what a working Aussie is supposed to be like; not better or worse, but different. I am looking forward to discovering more about what those ideas might be.