Christian came to us at seven and a half weeks old. A friend picked her out for me, and I had only seen two pictures of her before our introduction. My trainer, Shelley, had offered to travel with me to pick her up.

When we arrived at the house where she was, we were greeted by our friends and three puppies. We sat on the grass in the fenced front yard and greeted everyone along with the puppies, watching the pups play and petting them when they would run over to greet us. They were beautiful, and especially Christian. She has a black face, with a white nose, white all four legs and her underside. One color that I didn't expect was light brown cheek patches. I had been told that there was lots of white on her mother's side, and this litter showed that.

After about a half of an hour of letting the pups play, I let my two Border Collies out of the car to introduce Chris to them. The Borders ignored them at first, sniffing and smelling the whole front yard. But after several minutes, my eldest, Kate, started trying to play with them. The pups were unsure of this huge dog next to them, making play posture by putting her butt in the air and her front on the ground. Kate was not so successful with getting the pups to play with her that day, though she tried pretty hard to convince them.

When we left for home, Chris was put into a small crate positioned in the back seat of the car, with the big girls in the back of the SUV. Christian was fine for a little while, and then started whining some, with me correcting her, by tapping on the crate. She eventually went to sleep and was quiet for the rest of the three-hour trip home.