Riker ... the name had been picked out for years, but we were waiting for the right pup to come along. One thing was for certain, he had to be Dillon's grandson. I started looking at the litter that was linebred on Dillon back in 2013 that produced three girls that were still intact. Since two of the daughters were in the western part of VA and I was planning to attend a seminar near there in March, I contacted those two owners near the end of January, 2019 for the possibility of stopping by to meet the girls in March.  Much to my surprise, Beauty had a litter of ten on the ground, with five of them being males. I really wasn't looking for a puppy quite yet, but I also wasn't sure that this particular cross would ever occur again. Not only was Beauty Dillon's daughter, the sire Strider, was Dillon's great grandson.

My friend Vicki & I made the trip there when the puppies were 5 weeks old to see them and try to make a decision on "if" there was a puppy there for me and if so, "which" puppy it would be. I struggled a bit knowing that since these pups were Dillon's grandpups, there might be one or more of them that would look like him. As much as I loved Dillon, I also wanted my next pup not to grow up in Dillon's shadow.

Upon arrival at the Bailey home, we met the Beauty, Strider and their one year old daughter, Belle before meeting the puppies. While I realize that 5 weeks old is not going to give you a complete picture of any puppy's temperament, we did want to see what the puppies were like in general. We ended up testing nine of the ten puppies because Vicki was also interested in a puppy, but needed a female. Out of the four available males, two were black & white. I knew based on markings and color that I would always see Dillon if I went that direction. The other two males were tri-colored. It took awhile, but I finally decided on one boy, that would become Riker. Vicki decided on one of the tri females. When I went back to VA in March, I brought both pups back to NC.

For the first few months of life here, Riker was raised by Kira. She grew very fond of the boy, but we lost her in August, just shy of her 14th birthday. At that point, I tried integrating Riker with Holly and Roper. Roper was delighted, but Holly was not so much. He has yet to win her over, but has a great time hanging out with Roper, going to classes & seeing his sister there and just in general, being a puppy boy.

He certainly will not be as tall a boy as Dillon was, but that is okay. Riker is his own dog, even though I see some of my past ES in him as well. He has Bec's coat - on the longer side, plus a lot of her personality - loves people and gets along with most dogs. He seems to process things like Kira used to do and he loves our trainer just as much as Dillon did. He is making his way into my heart daily and I hope I have him here at least as long as Dillon was!