Creedence wondering what I'm doing.

We found Creedence one year to the day after Spook died.  Spook's original name was Creedence, so it seemed appropriate.

Aardvark.  The day after we found him, Chris commented that he looked like an aardvark , and the nickname just stuck.  He goes by Aardvark more often than he does his real name.

Around February 17, 2004.

We speculated about his ancestry for some time and the guesses were all over the map.  We figured he had black Labrador, Collie, and German Shepherd - perhaps Greyhound - in him.  Our vet suggested he might have coyote blood.  Finally, we had him DNA tested.  As it turns out, he is such a mutt that they couldn't pinpoint primary or secondary breeds at all, but they could fish out markers for a few of the breeds floating around in the mix. They are:
- Collie
- Sheltie
- Akita
- Poodle
- Pug

We had a good laugh about the poodle and pug.  The test results don't mean that other breeds are not present - just that the test couldn't pick them up.  We'll never know about his possible coyote ancestry, since the test only looks for domestic dog breeds.

Rather tall and skinny.  He is our tallest dog, but only weighs around 65 pounds (29 kg).  His coat looks like what would happen if you crossed a black Lab and a longer-haired dog like a German Shepherd:  it is semi-long and very shiny, almost blue-black.  Really, he's a peculiar looking dog all the way around.  His small, beady, intense eyes crack us up.

A fair number of people find him scary-looking and are hesitant to approach him.  He does tend to look a bit demonic or something, and he has a rather weasely, sneaky quality about him that adds to that impression.  He's not aggressive at all, though.

His bark is on the high-pitched, yappy side, which we hoped he would grow out of, but no such luck...  It sounds rather like a Collie bark. His howl is fairly high-pitched and is usually preceded by a series of high-pitched "yips."

Typical of most younger dogs, he has barking fits - especially when he plays.  He and Brittany love to steal objects from each other; the dog who lost the object then barks nonstop until he or she is able to steal it back.

Chris was walking the dogs after dark on May 17, 2004 (I'd stayed home for some reason) and found little Creedence under a prickly pear cactus on the side of the road, looking scared to death.  He grabbed him and brought him home, where we pulled cactus stickers out of him and fed him.

He smelled like cigarette smoke, so we think someone had just recently driven him out there and tossed him out of the car.  As usual, we did the poster and ad thing, but no one responded.

Creedence is a very earnest, eager guy and is quite friendly.  He was more cautious than the average puppy, which was a good thing, as it kept him from doing silly stuff like chasing cars and antagonizing strange dogs.  He doesn't cause much trouble (except for a few notable incidents), he's not the least bit aggressive, and he's very affectionate.  It's hard to imagine why someone left him to die in the desert.

He does have some peculiar habits, however.  For some time, he constantly dug under our fence and went gallivanting off into the desert, often taking Lily, MacKenzie, and Geneva with him.  We installed an electric fence around our entire property to put a stop to that.  He enjoys climbing on top of things like our cars (leaving paw prints all over) and the pig houses.  Of all our dogs, he is the least likely to curl up and sleep with other dogs, preferring to sleep alone instead.  He's the only dog I've ever seen pounce on things like a cat.

Creedence gets along with all the dogs and even won over Lily and Bobby, who disliked him at first.  He's capable of standing up for himself and his friends, though.  Every so often, Lily would push Brittany around and when she did, Creedence often came to Brittany's defense, biting at Lily's legs and barking loudly until she let up.  It's wasn't an all-out, aggressive sort of attack, but it got the job done.

Like MacKenzie and Brittany, he had a run-in with Tick Fever (Ehrlichiosis).  In the fall of 2005, he was diagnosed with Immune Mediated Thrombocytopenia.  See details.

Playing with Brittany and Dmitri (and anyone else who will play with him), chewing things up, and digging and sitting in holes.

He loves Brittany and Dmitri, but gets along with everyone.  Geneva was his best friend and he had a hard time getting over her loss, but Dmitri's addition to the family helped quite a bit.