Mike and Phil,

Thanks for the wealth of knowledge in your last posts. I do suspect I will look for a pup that I can raise from "scratch". Going to hunt tests again seems like the thing to do.

I had a web chat with my parents and dog back home last night and managed to make him roll over through skype :-) and this only made it harder to be without a dog.

However, as eager as I am, it is obviously imperative that I not rush into this. Perhaps if I squirrel a bit more money away a more expensive dog may avoid other medical costs in the future.

I'll keep ya'll updated and I'll set myself a tentative goal of having "Duke" (perhaps too over used?) winter of 2010/2011