Name: Nellie

Species: Canine

Breed: Australian Shephard

Whoa, Nellie! This girl is the one we call the million-dollar dog… but let’s start from the beginning.

Our dogs are really now a “yours, mine, and ours” situation. Superman is mine, Nellie is Colton’s and Denims is ours. I even wrote a post about how our dogs are definitely like our kids.

Colton didn’t have a dog of his own when we started dating again in 2013. He kept telling me he wasn’t ready for another one, until finally, the day we left for our first “road trip” in August of 2013, he told me he was ready to start looking. He was very specific on what he wanted: standard size Australian Shepard, blue merle, registered, female. He told me this right after we had hit the road on our way to Fort Worth for a weekend trip. By the time we reached the state line (honestly, way before…) I had found a lady that had a litter of blue merle Aussie puppies listed on Craigslist, and she was just outside of Fort Worth. Technically, the puppies weren’t ready for their new homes until the next week, but she agreed we could come look while we were in town!

We enjoyed our vacation, which included a trip to the Fort Worth Zoo (PENGUINS!) and to the Justin Boot Outlet (BOOTS!) but then, our last full day in Texas, we went to pick out a puppy. Now, most of you have never experienced my enthusiasm over baby animals of any kind, but basically, whatever you are imagining, multiply that by ten. I grin, I squeal, I baby talk, I want to pick up every baby and love them and squeeze them and hug them and call them George (bonus points if you know what cartoon that’s off of!) I picked Nellie out of the litter first thing, or really, she picked us out. She was the first one to run up to us! I was trying so hard to be unbiased and let Colton pick his favorite, but I know I did a terrible job of hiding my immediate attachment to her.

That night we snuck her in our hotel room, and she was a perfect angel. She never made a peep, and never had an accident. She handled the six hour road trip the next day like a seasoned traveler. Colton was still row crop farming back then, and Nellie took to farm life like a fish to water. She was a “corn dog” and loved riding in the big trucks, tractors, whatever was moving. Colt had a box of Milkbones in the pocket on the back of the passenger seat in his truck so he could reach back and give her one occasionally. We later learned that Nellie had figured out how to reach in and get her own Milkbone when she decided she needed a snack!

The journey to Nellie becoming our million-dollar dog started when she was 3 months old. My rope horse accidentally stepped on her and broke her back right leg in two spots. It was bad. Very, very bad. We rushed her to our amazing vet (Shout out to Dr. Jeff!) and he checked her out and did X-rays. Where the horse had stepped was so dirty and muddy it got infected almost immediately. He sent Nellie home the next day and told us if the infection didn’t clear up in a few days, that amputation would probably be our only option.

When I say the infection was bad, let me clarify a little. I have a fairly strong stomach: I’ve splinted broken legs on goats, I’ve cleaned out a hole in a horse’s chest where a t-post had went in, I’ve cleaned up pretty much any bodily function an animal has. However, that night, the first time we unwrapped Nellie’s broken leg to clean the wound and change the dressing, before I even saw the leg, the smell made me so sick and lightheaded that I had to sit down. I’ve never had that reaction to a sight or smell before. It took me, Colton, and mom, and a lot of patience and teamwork, but we cleaned the wound twice to three times a day, every day, and got the infection cleared up. I think we really surprised Dr. Jeff. He ended up putting pins internally on the upper leg break, and she had external pins on the lower break. Luckily, she healed up from this trauma!

Round two of the million-dollar dog happened when she was three. I was feeding goats one morning and the dogs were all out helping, as usual. When I was walking through the barn, I heard one of the dogs yelp really loud, and I knew something was wrong. When I finally got around the barn, I noticed Nellie’s back leg was hurt. I assumed she had just stepped wrong and hurt her bad leg. I took her up to mom’s so she could take it easy while I went to work. Man, did I feel like a bad dog mom when Mom called at lunch and said, I think you need to take her to the vet. When we got X-rays, we learned that Nellie had shattered her right hip joint. My best guess is that when she was running with the other dogs, she caught her hip on the back bumper of my horse trailer. With the internal pins in that leg, the leg was stronger than the joint, so when she hit, it shattered.

Dr. Jeff did a FHO – femoral head osteotomy. In laymen’s terms. He cut the ball off of the ball and socket joint, and then as it healed, scar tissue built up around the joint to hold the bones in place. So, Nellie’s back leg now functions like a goat or deer’s front leg – there’s no joint, just cartilage. These days you don’t even hardly notice she’s got a bum leg.

Aside from her dramatic vet issues, Nellie has more personality than almost any dog I’ve met. Colton is pretty sure she understands most of the English language. She’s our main toy dog. She can entertain herself with a basketball for hours, and you have to take it away from her to get her to stop. In the house, she loves her rope, and you better watch your shins, or she’ll beat you with it.

If Nellie was on a motivational poster, it would say: Nap Hard, Play Hard