We decided to re-home Dexter. A beagle is not the dog for us. Now we have picked up a new puppy who’s been with us a little more than a week now. We were told when we got him that he was a 7 week old Australian Shepherd Border Collie mix. We don’t doubt the age much, but we are starting to doubt the breed. We kept getting asked at Petsmart whether he was a German Shepherd. His name is Kepler.

We may end up with a bigger dog than we were planning, but he’s such a good animal that we aren’t going to care. Aside from a tendency towards puppy-play-biting, he’s been great. There have been a fair number of accidents as we attempt house-training, but everything we’ve read says that he’s got a long time left before we can expect much in that department.

Yesterday we took him to the vet, and he wasn’t sure of the breed either, so we’re going to just watch how he changes as he grows. I’ll get pictures up as soon as I can.

In other news, I got an unusual fortune cookie from Smith’s on Tuesday. At first I thought I was looking at the wrong side of the paper:

• Your lucky number for this week is the number five.