Lyle Sundog Gordon the Border Collie

Lyle is my first young puppy since 1987. After rescuing Darwin the Amazing Border Collie when he was about a year old, I knew there was no other dog for me but another border collie. It has been nearly 7 years since Darwin's passing---a long time to be without a dog's companionship. Lyle was born on Christmas Eve, which is appropriate since he is a holiday gift from my parents, and that is the date we always opened gifts in my family. He was raised on a sheep ranch in Atoka, Oklahoma, receiving love and attention from four children. He came home to Michigan by airplane on February 19, 2016 at 8 weeks old. For the first several days, he missed his siblings and kid friends, but he is adjusting well to his new life as my loyal companion. Photos appear with most recent at the top. Not all are in perfect focus, as he moves around quite a bit and I want to document him growing up.

Lyle is derived from Old French, "L'Isle," meaning "the island." I have studied and still do study the French language and I contemplated giving him a French name due to my interest, but that is not the primary reason I chose it. One baby name book I read stretched the meaning of "Lyle" to mean "unique," which he certainly is, but to me, the significance of the name is to a character from a series of old books I enjoyed as a child about Lovable Lyle the Crocodile.

A sundog is one of the two bright spots (often rainbow-like) that appear on either side of the sun due to ice crystals in the atmosphere interacting with the sun's light. The scientific name for them is parhelia (or parhelion in the singular). I liked "Sundog" for a name already, since I enjoy seeing this phenomenon, but it turned out to be even more fitting because Lyle loves the ice and snow!

Gordon was the name he was given by one of the children he grew up with, a 4-year old boy, after Gordon the train from the Thomas and Friends TV series. The Scottish meaning of "Gordon" is "three-sided or three-cornered hill" or "from the marshes." A three-sided or -cornered hill including its base would form a tetrahedron, one of my favorite geometric figures. Lyle seems to love being outdoors and I'm sure he'd love wading around in the marshes if he had the opportunity. So I decided to keep "Gordon" as his last name.

He has since acquired these aliases as well: Mister Lyle, Monsieur Lyle, Puppas, Mr. Puppadupples, Mr. Puppaduppalis, L-Dawg, Puppadooples, Puppadoopleduppas, Puppadoops, Mr. Vittles.

Through 3 months old	3 and 4 months old	5 and 6 months old
7, 8 and 9 months old	10 and 11 months old	1 - 1 1/4 years old
1 1/4 - 1 1/2 years old	1 1/2 - 1 3/4 years old	1 3/4 - 2 years old
2 - 2 1/4 years old	2 1/4 - 2 1/2 years old	2 1/2 - 3 years old
3 - 3 1/2 years old	3 1/2 - 4 years old	4 - 4 1/2 years old
4 1/2 - 5 years old	5 - 6 years old	6 - 7 years old
7 - 8 years old	8 - 9 years old