We said goodbye to our little Cattle Dog Gracie on March 2nd. She had been in our family for fourteen wonderful years. We miss her so much but have been trying to ease our pain by reliving all of our great memories with Gracie.
Gracie became a member of our family when she was twelve weeks old. We were living on a farm in Applegate at the time and since we had a few cattle we decided we needed a Cattle Dog, or Blue Heeler as they are also known. We saw an ad in the paper, Cattle Dog puppies , $40, Talent, Oregon. When we arrived at the farm up in the Talent hills there were three puppies curled up in a dirt hole. Debra picked up one of them, we paid the man $40 and our great life with Gracie began.
Gracie lived on the 14 acre Applegate farm for four years and had a fun time with the cattle, a burro, two goats, chickens and her lifelong buddy, George the cat. In 2001 we moved to Jacksonville. Our family walks a lot and I think Gracie had been on every street, trail and in many of the buildings in this town. She had many friends and everyone knew Gracie. One of her favorite walks was to the post office where Renee and Julie would always have a treat for her and sometimes invite her behind the counter for her treat. I think she always wondered why we only went to US Bank a couple times a month because she also got a treat there. I think one of her proudest moments was when she had a private photo shoot with local photographer David Gibb who took this picture.
Gracie had a great life. Thank you to all her many Jacksonville friends who were so kind to her.
Gary and Debra Ekstrom