The Nature of Dog-ness

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On a border collie forum I frequent, someone asked how people see and perceive their dogs. The answers engendered made me think and I decided I'll share my answer. Which is:

My dogs are my partners. We stand together on a very old, well-trodden path laid down by shepherds decades and centuries ago. Personally, I can only make poor mimicry of what those shepherds did - and still do - for I am not a farmer and I have no flock of my own. Perhaps there's a shepherd or farmer somewhere in my family tree who walked the fells with a pair of shaggy sheepdogs at his heels and "whistled through his fist" to bring the sheep down or put them out. But I don't know, and I can't say. My dogs, however ... their heritage is gloriously undiminished.
My dogs carry, undiluted, the blood of canine kings. To some, that ancient, hardscrabble shepherding life may have seemed like one of servitude, but I know, and my dogs tell me, that it's in their blood as sure as song and the sea. So, I see my dogs as furry, dusty, dirty, muddy, hairy, four-legged miracles that have been gifted to me to caretake and enjoy. I am their servant as much as they are mine, for I can't demand their instinct, their talent, their heart. They share that with me without reservation, and it's upon me to be a good custodian of those gifts.

I see my dogs as partners and companions, but in no way human. They are better than human. They still possess what we lost in the Garden long ages ago. Whatever pettiness they may own, it's innocent and like as not our fault. Whatever meanness they may own, it's without guile and again, possibly our fault. I'm glad my dogs aren't human. I'm glad they encourage me to look outside myself, to stop short when things go wrong and ask myself the question, "What can I do better?"

I see my dogs as friends who give me their whole hearts, who devote themselves to loving me as no other thing on earth can or does. But this does not preclude their dog-ness nor does it diminish them to "little furry people." They are Dogs: honorably, faithfully, cleverly, wisely, beautifully, joyfully, wholly Dogs. They are my gifts. They are the axis around which my funny little world revolves. In all things and all deeds, I always come back to their Dogness.

I'm farm-sitting for a friend this weekend. We just got done feeding sheep, horses and chickens and in a little while, I'll bring the ewes and lambs in off the pasture for the night. My dogs are presently napping, content in their dogness, and they'll spring to their feet the moment I stand, alert and ready and cocked to fire. This Dogness of theirs - I wouldn't dream of insulting it with silly anthropomorphizing. They are ever so much more than that.


And that is how I see my dogs.
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Our Trial Did Not Suck

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I haven't blogged here since way back last spring, mainly because I'm not very bloggery, but today I have something to say.

This past weekend, our local sheepdogging club, the High Desert Sheep Dog Association, hosted its first-ever sanctioned USBCHA field trial. Very little about the Open trial went as planned and I've winced and cringed and moaned. But now I want to write about it one more time and be done with it.

First of all, our Open handlers are not alone in thinking, "Wow, that didn't go very well." Of our 29 to 30 Open competitors, only 9 or 10 per day walked away with scores. That is absolutely not what we had in mind!

But our trial did not suck. Let me go over this with a few bullet points.

• The exhaust pen was in an awkward, inconvenient place, creating a crappy draw for dogs bringing sheep down the fetch. Why didn't we put it back in the corner behind the handler's post and the judge?
  
  Well, that was the plan. The ranch recently sold and all those acres of beautiful grass hay fields are being ripped and replanted with alfalfa, but they were reserving that particular field for our use. We reckoned on maybe 60-70 acres. The exhaust pen doubled as our night pen, so it had to be where someone could park an RV and keep watch over the sheep at night. However, with all that acreage, we could just put the pen at the end of the blacktop and the handler's post would be out away from it. The course itself would lay east-ish well beyond that.
  
  But a couple weeks before the trial, I got a phone call: "Will 40 acres be enough for your trial?" 
  
  Errr ... oops. Now we had a little square field into which we must squeeze an Open course and still allow for an RV to watch sheep. We daren't risk someone bogging down in the field, nor could we camp someone on the trial course, so the exhaust pen had to stay where it was. That, we are well aware, was not ideal. But that didn't make our trial suck.
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• What the *bleep* was going on at set out, with a crowd of half a dozen people and two or three dogs on the field at once?
  
  Well, simply put, dogs alone could not pull those sheep away from the set out pens, nor hold them once at the drop off point. They simply were not very impressed by dogs, and we learned that people actually exerted more influence than our dogs. Maybe that's how the Rafter 7 flock is handled at home. I don't know. But I have never seen (and certainly never set) sheep so adamant about running back to set out. Once these yearlings broke and bolted back, they would run right over a dog - and if the dog gripped to stop them, they would just drag it along behind. So, we had to march them out like a platoon of Marines because not one other damn thing worked. But that didn't make our trial suck.
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• Yeah, and what about those sheep? Most of our dogs couldn't even finish the course with those lousy things.
  
  Yeah, we kind of noticed that. Especially when we took our turns at the post and fared as poorly as everyone else. They had two speeds: run like hell or stand there and stare.
  
  But you know ... we had no idea. We hired range ewes. We got range ewes. I've worked set out for a few trials so I thought I knew a little bit, but these were different. Rafter 7 has also sold and these sheep will be moving to some other ranch, so maybe with all the sorting and selling they've been doing lately, these ewes just kind of went dead-headed. Heaven knows, because I don't. But we truly wish more people could have enjoyed success and come away happy. That right there is suck.
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• So, why didn't you put them out in sets of 5? Maybe that would have settled them down a little.
  
  True. But we only leased so many sheep and allowed for sets of 4, so had we tried to change to sets of 5, it would have meant re-running some of the sheep each day. I don't think anybody would have liked that. If done, that would have been suck.
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• Alright, then why didn't you get the sheep a couple days early and move them around the course in groups with dogs?
  
  You're kidding, right? The HDSDA spent over $900 to lease those sheep for 2 days, plus the cost of hay at about $20 a bale. If we'd got them two days early, those expenses would have doubled. I guess we could have doubled our entry fees, but who really wants to see that? Plus we'd need someone to camp out there to babysit the sheep those nights, too. Simply put, getting the sheep early was a financial and logistical impossibility. But that did not make our trial suck.
  
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  Did elements of our trial suck? You bet they did.
  
  But did the trial itself suck? I say NO. We did the best we could with the situation we had. The trial field shrank, the sheep were difficult, the exhaust was in the wrong place and set out looked like a circle jerk. There are a number of things we'd love to have done differently, and things we'd change and improve if we do this again.
  
  But for this first time ... by golly, we pulled the damn thing off. We held our first Open trial and handlers went to the post and dogs went up the field, and some of the time they came back down with sheep. I'm proud as hell of our crew and all the volunteers who stepped in to keep things rolling. From our judge who dragged and fed hay Saturday evening to the handlers who came up to help at set out, from folks who fed the sheep Sunday morning before the trial crew even got there and stayed to help tear down pens Sunday afternoon, to everyone who, in countless ways, offered help and kindness and hard work ... our trial freakin' rocked.
  
  So, maybe it wasn't pretty and maybe our dogs got sucked into the Vortex of Wrongness, and what should have been good runs just died out there in the grass. But so it goes. I saw a lot of good happening out there, even if it didn't involve the sheep's behavior. I'm proud of everyone who stepped in and pulled together and did their bit to make things right.
  
  If you were there and you are unhappy with how things went for you and your dog, I understand. Believe me, the trial we got is NOT the trial the HDSDA planned, wanted or envisioned. But we tried. We tried our damnedest and worked our butts off, and good people showed what they were really made of.
  
  That's what I'm taking home from this. Our trial did not suck. Maybe the sheep did. We had no control over that. But given the situation, I think we did pretty damn good.
  
  And that's all I'm gonna say about that.

HELP! My Puppy Just Stole the Space Shuttle! (Or, some thoughts for first-time Border Collie owners)

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Alrighty, then. I've had a request to share some points from a discussion with a very nice lady on Facebook. This very  nice lady is a first-time owner of a well-bred (working bred) border collie puppy. She's had Aussies and understands how they tick, but this little bundle of energy, instinct and intellect has been tying her in knots. I know the feeling.

I'm no expert or a professional trainer, and I don't pretend to be. I'm just a gal with working border collies who has way too much time to think, in particular, about my relationship with my dogs. How does what I'm doing, or not doing, affect the way my dog responds to me or the requests I put on him and the tasks I ask him to do?

So, what I'm going to expound on, here, is the Care and Handling of Baby Border Collies: How Not To Do It. Now, bear in mind that there are as many schools of thought about raising puppies, including border collies, as there are minds to conceive them. But when it comes to border collie puppies, my personal theory that less is more. The mistake I sometimes see first-time border collie owners make is that they fall into the trap of thinking they must constantly train, constantly engage, constantly interact with their puppy.

To you, dear frazzled BC puppy owners, I say: relax. Don't TRY so hard. That busy furball you just brought home is only a baby. He is the babiest of babies, his attention span is about 30 seconds, and he has the WHOLE WORLD to try and conquer in 60 seconds. Having a busy, bright, super active Border Collie puppy does NOT mean you have to constantly feed his brain. In fact, I think that is more apt to backfire and instead create a dog that requires (or demands) constant stimulation. 

Do Not Over-Stimulate the Border Collie. What puppies need is to learn how to relax. How to be. How to hang out. How to spend time with you but not have it always be About Something.

Now, is the little terror driving you up a wall, to the point you're continually stuffing him in his crate so you can have a little peace? Don't do that. A 9 or 10 week old border collie should not spend hours a day in a crate. They need to run. They need to explore. They need to play with other dogs. They need room and time to learn their own bodies. They need to hang out with you. And they need to learn how to just chillax near you with a good chew bone or chewie toy.

And yes, in this modern age, where not all collies can grow up on the farm, I personally believe in giving puppies toys. Not everyone does and that's fine, but I do. I don't mean toys that you have to engage with. I mean toys that they can use to entertain themselves. Kongs. Nylabones. Those chewie bones that smell like bacon or cheese or whatever. Things that work those puppy teeth.

(By the way, any time my puppy starts gnawing a chair or the carpet, he gets a little "NO" and I immediately stuff an acceptable, correct chewie in his mouth. Chewing is okay. Chewing the furniture is not.)

But my dog's toys are for their use, not mine. I don't play tug, I don't play Frisbee and I only toss the ball a few feet. I don't want to risk them tweaking their backs or damaging their legs leaping in the air after toys.

And again I will say, I don't believe border collie puppies need scads of training and tons of classes and constant Things To Do. Yes, of course they need to get out and see new things. But border collies have been around for over 200 years, and they evolved without anything magical or special done - other than nurturing the working instinct.

Personally, I won't take a puppy out in public until he's had the first 2 sets of shots. I have never done puppy classes. I haven't seen the need. I simply take my puppy out to visit friends who have other dogs, or let those dogs come visit them. I let them have freedom to play, freedom to be. And yes, I do let them play with my older dogs. How else is a puppy to learn how to be a dog? Think of all the things dogs hand down to each other, even things we may not realize: the rules of the house, how not to pester the cat, how to avoid and respect old grumpy dogs, how to read the scents on a fence post - important things for a dog.

Of course I make sure my puppy bonds with me, as I don't want him so attached to the other dogs that I don't exist. So, my puppy and I do lots of hanging out together. That's the main thing I do with a puppy. We don't train all the time, we hang. We eat/share treats together. We sit together. We go out in the yard and take walks together. We do belly rubs and I'll hold one end of a chewy while he gnaws the other. I'll watch while he beats up all his toys or chases leaves and ignores me completely. It's what puppies do. It's how they grow.

But besides the fact that I don't accept the risk of parvo, (all someone has to do is walk in with shoes they wore somewhere parvo was present) I feel that that taking them out in the Big World too soon is fraught with risk. Border collies are sensitive to noise and motion and being overwhelmed, so why would I want to risk frying his puppy brain? Why take my little guy out somewhere, only to find out he's in a fear period and now I've made him forever terrified of yellow coats or people in blue hats? Let them learn from older dogs, yours and those of your friends. Let your friends come to meet them, or take them to safe homes for play dates.

But you don't need a lot of frantic dashing about to puppy classes or obedience school or whatever. We're raising dogs, here, not Chinese musical prodigies who are destined to be groomed from birth. The smartest dog on earth does not need to be bombarded with things to make his brain more active.

I feel my pups get way more out of one-on-one time with me, than they ever would with a class full of distractions. Obedience training from me means that every day, several times a day, we take 60 seconds and practice one thing. Do two or three sits. Call him to me by name. Work on baby stays. But just one thing. And then we're done. A couple hours later, we may do it or another thing again. But I never ask for more than 2 or 3 repetitions of ANYthing. Just a few seconds and class is over.

Now, if a pup is overly independent and the recall is a continued problem, I become a walking treat dispenser. I keep a pouch with chopped hot dogs or cubes of cheese with me all the time. The puppy is free to do what he wants, until I want him, and then I bribe his little puppy butt with food. Sometimes I may have him drag a long line, about 20 feet of light clothesline with a knot on the end, if I want to be sure I can catch him. Also, a wise friend recommends that sometimes hide from the puppy, just vanish from sight and peek to see when they notice and start to worry if they're all alone. Then we pop out and voila, we're the savior.

But I do not require all his focus on me. That's not what a border collie is bred for. They are SUPPOSED to be independent. That's how they learn to think and adapt to our training, when on sheep. I teach him to look to me, but not at me. I don't want him to fixate on me to the exclusion of other dogs or other things. 

A border collie is a partner. You are the leader, but he's beside you, not behind you. Let him have the freedom to be. Don't keep him crated. Don't keep him isolated. Don't over-train him. Don't bombard him with things to stimulate and entertain him. He doesn't need more. He just needs time to be a puppy and grow up. Make sure he has enough freedom to just "be." Well-behaved older dogs are the best tutor he'll have in how to behave in the bigger world. After all, we don't speak dog. We're just the bumbling human who's trying to shape what the border collie already is.

And that, to quote Forrest Gump, is all I'm gonna say about that. :)

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Breeding Shelter Dogs - and Other Myths

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A couple of my Facebook friends shared this, and I think it bears reading. So go ahead - read it.

Then come back and read the rest of my thoughts on the subject.

ARTICLE:
Who Killed These Dogs? - Dogstar Daily

......

Okay, so. Did you read?

The point here is that responsible and INFORMED dog ownership is the key to ending homeless and unwanted shelter dogs. I've seen so many absurd, misinformed and simply wrong things repeated by otherwise intelligent people that it frightens me how uneducated much of the dog-owning public really is.

Placing the blame for unwanted pets on breeders - ALL breeders - as a blanket accusation is not only erroneous, it's untrue.

Case in point. A woman I know bred a litter a couple years ago. She breeds only seldom and she screened each prospective owner to the very best of her ability, turning aside people whom she felt would not be a good fit for her dogs. One of her pups went to a young family with a nice home, a big yard, an active lifestyle - it seemed perfect.

And for two years, this breeder assumed all was well. Until one day someone called to tell her that this dog had been posted to Craigslist. These people didn't bother to call her, the breeder, per their agreement when she sold the pup. They didn't tell anyone at all. They just ... advertised on Craigslist. The next step undoubtedly would have been the local pound.

Fortunately, the breeder was able to persuade the people to return the dog to her, and so it escaped becoming another set of shelter statistics. But let's look at this.

IF the breeder had never learned of the dog's situation, it probably would have gone to some random home, where it would have overwhelmed its new owners with its complete lack of social skills or understanding of rules, or perhaps its snappishness around small children, and it would have wound up in the local pound or on the streets, to be snagged by animal control.

Nice Rescue Person then goes to the animal shelter and sees this beautiful dog, and they are horrified: how could ANYone abandon a beautiful young dog like this? What horrible, irresponsible person put this poor dog out there in the world where it could end up abandoned in a shelter, in the first place? All this dog needed was a little love and understanding!

But seriously ... how is this the breeder's fault? She did everything she could, short of having the FBI check out their record of pet ownership. She had no way of knowing the new owners would be unable to manage the dog's energy or intelligence and would end up shutting it up in the back yard.

But just suppose she never bred that litter. Just suppose that pup never was born and never wound up on Craig's List.

What would stop that SAME couple from adopting a shelter dog ... and doing the exact same thing? What would stop them from taking a shelter dog home, full of good intentions, and still being overwhelmed by the dog, finally shutting it up in the back yard until they decide to get rid of it, after all?

Just because someone adopts a dog from a shelter, that does NOT create them into a better, more informed, more responsible pet owner!

And just because someone breeds a litter of dogs, that does not mean their pups are either going to end up in a shelter, or take a home that could have gone to a shelter dog. An ignorant or irresponsible pet owner *remains* an irresponsible pet owner, regardless of where their dog(s) came from.

It is a fallacy to think that only by stopping breeding will homeless dogs cease to exist. Only when the American public becomes vastly more educated than it is now will abandoned, neglected and homeless dogs cease to be a problem in this country.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

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And Then There Were Four ...

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A few years ago, hubby and I lived just down the road in this little rural redneck trailer park. It was a decent enough place for a couple cowboy/mule packer types, and our space had a green lawn, a beautiful big shade tree and room for all our dogs.

Anyhow, the winter of 1998/99, about this same time of year, hubby and I came back from town and as we drove towards our house, we saw this little dog frolicking in the snow, next to one of the other mobile homes. It was the cutest thing, about 3 or 4 months old and it looked like a border collie on a corgi chassis! Short legs, pointy ears, adorable fox-face, but it had a long black coat, white on the chest and a big plumy tail.

We soon found out the pup was named Scruffy, and it belonged to a single mom with 2 small children and a live-in boyfriend. They weren't real good about keeping track of him and he sometimes went strolling around the trailer park, but it was a quiet place with very little traffic. Of course he soon discovered our house with its collection of dogs, and somehow he struck up a friendship with my border collie, Rose.

So, we started letting him into our yard. Just for a little bit, mind, but he and Rose would romp and play and have a great old time! This was kind of amazing, really, because Rose was a grown lady and did not allow such familiarity with any other dog. No, sir. But she would play with Scruffy, and when they had enough, we'd let Scruffy out and he'd trundle off up the street towards home.

Well, at some point during the winter, the neighbor's boyfriend disappeared, probably kicked out, and the little dog was seen roaming the trailer park more and more. Some residents began getting annoyed at the rascal, because he got in their trash and ate the cat food on their porches. The trailer park manager didn't like him at all, and once I saw the old fart *kick* Scruffy off someone's front porch!

But as weeks turned to months, Scruffy continued his visits to our house and maintained his friendship with Rose. We could give him at least that much. From time to time, when we took our dogs somewhere in the car, Scruffy would "accidentally" get in with them and go along. But we'd send him home, after the adventure was over.

Then ... sometime in April, we got a late, heavy storm. When we looked out our front window, there was Scruffy. Curled up in a ball, sound asleep under a big spruce tree, amidst about a foot of new snow.

"Get him in here," Tye said. Which we did and we closed the gate behind him. Scruffy came in the house, licked Tye to say, "Thank you," and that settled that. Nor did we open that gate ever again.

When we went back to the mountains to pack mules that summer, Scruffy went with us. His former owner never came asking about him, even once. Maybe she cared, though. Maybe she was just glad the pup went somewhere else, when she had two babes to raise, alone.

As the years went on, Scruffy accompanied his border collie pals, Rose and Jesse, to our sheepdog training lessons. He had no interest in sheep or any other livestock, the big silly things, but he loved being the "greeter" down at the ranch. Only when I had to retire Rose due to hip dysplasia did Scruffy stop coming down to lessons with me. But he soon found a new "job" as hubby Tye's private eye dog, riding along while Tye went about his work, sharing snacks when they stopped for coffee or lunch on the road.

Oh, Scruffy had his rescue-dog issues. He was a fear-biter, he would yowl when being bathed, he was terrified of being grabbed, and for a long time, he was fearful of men he didn't know. But with time and love, those issues faded into the background. To us, he was just a happy, bouncy, buoyant personality, who trotted around with his little chest out and his tail flagged proudly behind him.I had to do some scrambling to learn the stubborn corgi mindset, and I'm forever grateful to the mail list, Corgi-L. But he was kind to our cats, got along with almost all dogs, and above all things, he loved hanging out with Tye.

That bond meant everything, when Scruffy's girls finally began passing away. Shortly after we moved to this house, he lost Rose, and then he lost Dolly and Della, all within about 18 months' time. Some of his sparkle seemed lost with them. But he was still our Scruffy, the PI dog, and he bore the coming of the new pups, Nick and Gael and Ash, with admirable patience.

Time takes its toll on us all, though. Last fall he took sick and lost all appetite - unheard of, for a corgi! - and we got him in to the vet. A bazillion tests ($$$!) later, the vet found that his kidney values were a bit off, but mainly, Scruffy had a raging bladder infection! She prescribed a heavy dose of two strong antibiotics (can't recall what they were) and Scruffy rebounded with notable speed. Soon he was his old self, and life was good.

But ... last month he took another bad turn and this time, the antibiotics had no effect. This time, the vet said his kidneys were indeed failing. There wasn't a lot we could do, but we tried all we could. Scruffy was a fighter, and though his body weakened and grew more frail by the day, that stubborn light refused to go out. However, by this past Monday, we could see he was weary and tired and done. He had stopped eating days ago, and now he could no longer seem to drink water. Today we made the appointment to say goodbye.

I had to work, so Tye had to handle it alone. I felt horrible for him. Yet it seemed to go as well as these things can. Tye took Scruffy for one last ride in the car, one last stop at Starbucks, one last offered bite of scone (or some other sweet,) even if Scruffy would not take it. When they got to the vet, Tye just sat in the car with his little partner and talked and petted. The vet came out to the car to administer the sedative, and Tye stayed with him until Scruffy passed beyond knowing. We'll get him back as we did Della and Dolly, a box of ashes which we'll one day scatter in the mountains.

Tonight, the dogs seem to know something is changed. Tye said that when he got home, Nick, Gael, Ash and Jesse all clung close around him. Now that I'm home from work, they are just ... quiet. Very quiet. And although Scruffy removed himself from interaction with them days if not weeks ago, I think they feel the silence of that missing heartbeat.

I know I do. Tye and I both do.

But Scruffy is past sickness or weakness or pain, now. I want to believe he is once again that sprightly little dog of years past, and that he gambols once again with his dear sister, Rose, racing through the green grass as fast as ever his funny short legs can go.

Run fast, run free, little Scruffy No-Legs. We will be along in a while.
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Round-up of Nick's Vet Visit Today

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Alrighty, then!  I'm reiterating everything I posted here on FB in more scattered form, earlier today, so if you're tired of hearing from me, move along, nothing to see, here. ;)

In a nutshell, Nick may *still* need a 4 or 5 thousand dollar back surgery. But honestly, it's not as scary as it was, and it's not immediate.

I took Nick in to see Dr. D.W. Griffin of Loomis Basin Veterinary Hospital, in Loomis, CA. Just as with Dr. Richardson at Campus Commons in Sacramento, he was given an extremely thorough physical exam, which returned Nick's neurological responses as wholly normal. His musculature, stance and weight-bearing were also balanced and correct. However, Dr. Griffin did think Nick showed some discomfort when pressed firmly at the lumbo-sacral area. Not a lot, just Nick tilting his head to shoot a dour glance back at the doc.  ;)

Then - oh, happy day! - they took not one, not two, but three beautiful *digital* X-rays. Those things are so COOL!   :-p

Ultimately, Dr. Griffin's findings did not differ drastically from Dr. Richardson's. Nick has a form of Cauda Equina, with spondylosis-y stuff going on at the juncture of L7 and his sacrum. There's an instability there that's been pinching and causing the pain he was experiencing. I do not know the *cause* of that, but it seems to be something that just ... happens. Wear and tear in a hard-driving dog. I'm not sure if Nick's accident back in October (whatever it was) caused it, or just triggered its manifestation. I belatedly realized I need to ask Dr. G some more questions. (Hey, my brain was full!)

However, he said that it's a very *mild* form of the condition. If Nick were just a house dog, he'd have told me to just take Nick home, keep him fit, watch his weight and feed him glucosamine. But given that Nick's a working sheepdog, an athlete, it may not be so simple. What we have at the moment is "wait and see."

What IS notably different is that Dr. Griffin looked at our shiny, nifty, awesome new digital X-rays (all 3 views) and he did NOT see the Transitional Vertebral Segmentation that Dr. R. thought he saw in the previous, single-film X-ray. People, this is SUCH a relief! This means that Nick doesn't have something congenitally wrong with him. He's just damaged himself while storming around being a border collie.

He could still, (maybe, possibly, someday?) sire healthy Nick-babies and leave a legacy behind. It's a dream, anyhow.  :)

Meanwhile, though, I can bring him carefully back to work, focus on his fitness, monitor how he's doing and let time tell. Dr, Richardson said lots of long walks and swimming if possible would be good for his overall fitness. Also, the doc approved of my regimen of MSM, Synovi G3 and Cetyl-M supplements for Nick. Then, if going back to work means that Nick does regress to pain and lameness ... I'll know that surgery will come sooner than later. Next fall maybe. Or not.

But it's such a relief to have a clear picture of what's going on, clear knowledge of what to do and what to watch for, and so good to escape the pressure of, "OMG, need surgery, need surgery, MUST DO SURGERY, OMG, SURGERY!" that I had begun to feel from Dr. R.

I have room to breathe. I have things to do, to help Nick. I still have a dog I can work, in the meanwhile. And the potential of *needing* surgery no longer feels like the end of the world. Nick's not on the brink of shattering like a twig.

*whew* I needed that. I'll have the X-ray images PLUS an impartial evaluation from their radiologist by next week, so I'll share all that, when I get 'em.  :)

Thank you, everyone, for sticking with me, putting up with me, and offering your support. And special thanks to T and WolfTown (http://www.wolftown.org) and everyone who has contributed to them! They cut today's vet bill nearly in half.   :D

Just had some pie. Now going to have some wine. Yes.

Nick's Diagnosis, the Official Version

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I got the report from Dr. Richardson, detailing his opinion of Nick to my vet. Here's what he said:

"He does appear to have some mild expression of Transitional Vertebral Segmentation as evidenced by what I believe is a small vestige of soft tissue at the juncture of S1 and S2. The LS (lumbosacral) Spondylosis is also evident and I would correlate that early development to this transitional aspect of the L-S anatomy. Consequently, ruling out the hips as you have his radiographs and my evaluating his knees by physical exam, we are left with a clinical diagnosis of Cauda Equina, with episodic expression by his bursts of activity.

I have informed Ms Atwater that this will likely worsen in time and thereby prepared her for possible surgical intervention when deemed necessary. I have had more success than not in helping such patients by dorsal decompression, guided by an in house CT scanning immediately before entering the OR. Many of our law enforcement dogs have returned to work, and I would expect an athletic outcome for Nick, providing neurologic damage does not ensue before decompression."

So ... it looks like he's saying that the early onset of the spondylosis is due to the TVS in his sacrum, and that Nick's physical exertions (he uses himself like an Abrams tank!) trigger his painful physical symptoms. And apparently he feels surgery will halt the whole nasty mess.

It's going to take time to get money set aside for any operation, and in the meanwhile ... I guess I'm just going to keep an eye on Nick. He's still laid off of work for at least 2 more weeks, so he'll have had a minimum of 1 month off at home. I'm kind of curious to see if the lay-off will make any difference in the recurrences of his symptoms, or not. Sounds like I should expect "not," though.

Here's an article that makes me feel a little better about Nick's situation:
http://www.acvim.org/websites/acvim/index.php?p=197

It's kind of hard to tell, from reading Dr. Richardson's note, if I should expect Nick to collapse or ruin himself at any moment, or if this is a vague sort of condition that could manifest over months or years. Anyhow, I'm going to get another set of x-rays and another opinion, just for my peace of mind.

Speaking of which, think I'll have a glass of wine to chase my cookies. I want to SLEEP, tonight. :-/

Vet's diagnosis for Nick

Well, guys ... I've had a good cry, now I'm trying to shake my brains into some useful order. Dr. Richardson called this evening with a diagnosis for Nick, having received and viewed the X-rays. (Which I forgot to bring with me on my visit, last week!)

He's saying Cauda Equina. He's saying surgery. What he saw in the X-rays *did* show the sacrum pressing on places it should not.

Guys, I'm devastated. Nick is everything to me, my first open-quality border collie and the vehicle for so many dreams. More, he's my best friend, my partner and my pal. He is my heart dog, in every sense of the term. I look in those big golden eyes and see so much love. He gives me everything, every ounce of his strength and every beat of his sweet, gallant heart.

But my Nick is not sound. He's not even 4 years old, his trialing career has barely begun, and he faces a debilitating problem.

Oh, there WILL be surgery. At some point in the fairly near future. He's not in dire shape - heck, right now, you'd never know there was a thing wrong with him! I've been able to work him and trial him with never a mis-step. But if he overdoes it, there's pain.

So ... now we manage our finances and plan for that surgery within the year. Meanwhile, I try to wrap my mind around the fact that my beloved Nick will have to go under the knife. :(

Dr. Richardson did seem to think Nick's prognosis would be good, with surgery. (He mentioned Spondylosis, but then went to the Cauda Equina thing. Not sure how that relates...?)

What he would do, Dr. Richardson said, is go in and remove just a wee bit of bone, no more than a thumbnail, to remove pressure on those nerves. He said he's done this same surgery for this same condition on working K-9s, particularly Malinois police dogs, and they are able to return to service. And ... that's encouraging.

But I'm not easy about this. My first border collie turned out to have severe hip dysplasia and a vet advised a Femoral Head Ostectomy. This was done, but she was never really sound, again. By age 6, she was pretty much retired. Thus, the idea of someone whittling on my dog's *spine* scares me to death!

I'm hoping that Nick's youth and the apparent intermittent nature of his condition means it's not as dire a case - (yet!) - as it could be, and that his outlook will thus be good. But it's still scary. And I still wish it wasn't so.

Now I'm gonna go hug Nick and then eat some chocolate chip cookies. I already cleaned the house today, so baking is the only stress relief I've got ....

Thanks, Wolftown! :)

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I have been so blessed throughout this scare with Nick, and one of those special entities was the non-profit called WOLF TOWN. Directed by my friend, T Martino Yamamoto, they are an active force in both wildlife rehab and sustainable agriculture.

Wolftown stood ready to assist me with finances, if Nick needed an MRI, and thankfully, it turns out he doesn't, at least not at this time. However, my gratitude for them is boundless, and so I would ask that, if you can spare a few bucks, please consider donating to their emergency fund. Just click into the site and look for the Donate button.

Today they stood prepared to help a good sheepdog. Tomorrow they may save an injured falcon or wounded fox or baby seal. Whatever the need, your small donation will be a big help. Please think about it. I'm going to go hug Nick again, and I'll be saying some pretty heart-felt prayers, tonight. :)

WOLFTOWN! --- Rescuing wolves, wildlife, and ourselves

www.wolftown.org

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Nick - Back Injury!

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First, I apologize in advance for what is going to be probably the longest, most rambling post I've ever made. But I'm struggling with panic, here, and I posted this very same post on the border collie forum, so don't feel obliged to read it twice. ;)

Here is Nick's story. In the latter part of October, I was doing yard work while the dogs were free to play around the place. At one point, Nick ran down to the bottom of the property with his sister, as they often did. He came back up a while later, walking like a 90 year old man. He was visibly in pain, and it appeared to be in his hips or lower back.

Scared to death, I got him in to the vet the very next day. As best my vet could figure, he'd suffered an injury to the base of his tail, right at the bottom of his spine. My vet's guess was that he'd either tried to jump up somewhere and missed and fell back on his rump, or someone ran into him.

I'm inclined to think his little sister, Gael, probably collided with him from behind.

For whatever reason, the vet didn't prescribe X-rays, but we laid Nick up for about 3 weeks, and put him on some Rimadyl. With that rest time, he seemed to recover and his movement looked normal, including leaping lightly into the truck.

But then I ran him at Dunnigan Hills and at the end of the day, (after two good runs on those big hills) I went to put him in the truck ... and he didn't want to jump up. He was hurting again. When I got him home about 4 hours later, he was kind of hitching on one hip.

Of course, I laid him off again. During that time, I got him to a local holistic vet who does chiropractic. She adjusted him and while doing so, she showed me how an off-kilter tilt to his hips revealed that his back was out. When she had done the adjustment, it really seemed to help him.

A couple weeks later, I put him back to work and tried to go easy on him. There was one day of practice when we got home and he again got out of the truck seeming a bit ouchy and stiff. But some more time off, and he seemed good as gold. I finally put him back on the work roster and he seemed sound.

Well, last weekend, I spent 2 days at a friend's house, building fence and working on her arena, and the dogs just ran around and played. When I got done on the 2nd day (this past Monday) ... once more, Nick couldn't jump in the truck. There had been no wreck, no collisions, no wild leaps, just ordinary running around on a flat field, but two days of that was clearly too much.

I got him in to the vet for X-rays today.

We still have no real answers. What I do have is a whole lot of fear.

The X-ray was indeterminate. What it seems to show is that the disk-space between the last vertebra and the base of the tail (I can't remember what L this is) may be a little bit wider than the others, which may indicate there is swelling pressing the bones apart. But my vet said she did not think the disk was herniated or ruptured. (He can walk and trot normally, it just hurts him to perform any upward lifting movement, and his lope looks a bit tucked-under at the rump.)

Another odd thing, on the X-ray, there seems to be a ghostly image of what could be some calcification, a "flaring" at the bottom of the last vertebra and also the first bone of the tail. My vet said this could be Nick's body's attempt to compensate for an injury, by creating this calcification. But she said that if so, that bone would not be smooth, it would be rough, like granite, and that could cause him pain.

However, she's unable to diagnose any further, so she's referring me to a vet in Sacramento, Dr. Bob Richardson. She's sending me with Nick's X-rays, both the "before" image from when we OFA'd his hips and the "after" image of his lower back that we took today. And she said I might want to get an MRI done, but anyhow, to consult with Dr. Richardson, because he's handled this sort of thing for years and has more expertise than her.

This ... is where I start to panic. Since my vet can't pinpoint just what is going on, all we have are maybes. And those maybes range from Spondylitis to Spondylosis to arthritis to surgery to ... we don't know what.

People, I am scared. to. death. I made the appointment to see Dr. Richardson next Thursday, but his office said the visit and consultation will be $130, and an MRI runs from $1,000 to $2,000 !!!

I don't HAVE that kind of money! I just don't. God help me, I work part time in a liquor store and make $93 a week. My husband is self-employed, so he gets paid for when he works, but this time of year ... things can get slow. Plus his old corgi boy is sick and we need to get HIM in to the vet, because it looks like he's either suffering a return of his bladder infection or maybe something worse.

So ... I'm panicking. I'm terrified. I'm looking at this beautiful dog who isn't even 4 years old, yet, and who carries all my hopes and dreams in his gallant and loving heart, and I'm scared. The unknown scares me. The uncertainties scare me. And the financial aspect simply devastates me. An MRI will wipe out my bank account - and that's if it falls on the lower end of the quote range. There will be nothing left if this vet recommends further treatment.

But I'm trying to be useful and think how to help, in at least some small way. I've got rimadyl for Nick. He's already on MSN, and I've got a big tub of Synovi G3 that I've started him on. He'll be laid off for at least the next 2 months, no running, no playing, no nothin'.

And I'll pray. A lot. Fervently.

 My world is wrapped up in this dog. It's probably pretty pathetic, but that's how it is. So the complete lack of financial resources is more frightening than words can express.

Thanks for listening, anyhow. Some prayers would be welcome, too.

P.S.
I realize I'm guilty of perpetuating this injury, by not laying him off long enough, in the first place. Belatedly, I know this. I just hope I haven't ruined Nick for life.

How Sheepdog Trials Relate to Practical Farm Work

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This is what our dogs are all about. Thanks, ABCA, for producing such a lovely and informative video. :)

For a Good Dog

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A friend of mine recently suffered a tragic loss. Perhaps some day she'll see this. Perhaps she won't want to. But it awoke an old pain in me, for a dog I lost before I got Nick. Today, these words just wanted to come out.
.

~ * ~

This morning I awoke and you were still –
No. I can't say the word,
So brutal, so final, so damning.
But you were not
There as the sun rose,
Your fleet form racing across the fields,
Red tongue lolling,
Laughing
At me, mud-bound in my human form.
The others know you are gone.
There is a space among their furry, gently-swirling bodies
That they do not touch.
Where you should be.
What if. If only.
If only I had been
Wiser
Quicker
Omnipotent.
If only I could stave off Death by the sheer force of my will.
My anguish.
My need/wish/want to undo just one moment,
One fractional instant of time,
And have you
Back.
Your silken head under my hand.
Your bright eyes at my feet,
Shining in the grass,
Laser-leveled at the sheep who speak (spoke)
To the silent, siren calling of your blood.
I try not to look at the places where
You
Are not.
At the void you once filled
With the vibrant, joyful Is-ness of your being.
But that would mean
Not looking
At those who curl around my legs,
Caress my hands with damp tongues,
Trying, in their way, to
Touch me.
If only the corroding tears could
Blind me to your absence.
The shards of my heart
Grate together like broken bones.

~ For J. E.
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© G. M. Atwater
At Mountain House, 30 November 2011
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Happy Birthday, Jesse. You are a Very Good Dog.

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Today is the 12th birthday of my good ol' dog, Jesse. It's hard when the good un's grow old.

But it's good to look back on our long journey together. We first met Jesse, then known as "Whip," 10 years ago, when we worked one of several summers at Reds Meadow Pack Station. "Whip" then belonged to one of the other mule packers, but sadly spent most of his time tied to a tree. The guy had got "Whip" from the breeder as partial payment on a horseshoeing bill, but this guy really didn't know what to do with an active young border collie. If "Whip" got loose, he just ran. And then he got caught and went back to his tree.

We felt sorry for the poor pooch and soon realized that this was actually a pretty nice dog. A fellow employee's young daughter would take him for walks on leash, and I'd see "Whip" walking perfectly at heel beside this little blond girl, a lovely picture. Someone, thought I, has spent some time with this dog, and it's certain it wasn't his present owner.

Long story short, we finally talked "Whip's" owner into letting us take him, because the guy really had no attachment to or understanding of the dog. In the hand-off, we learned who the dog's breeder was and best of all, we learned his real name: Jesse. The first time we called him by that name, Jesse literally frolicked. You know me, you know me!

And so he came to live with us. Oh, I didn't really plan to keep Jesse. I just couldn't stand to see him living tied to a tree, and anyhow, we already had 4 dogs. Maybe I could find a nice agility or flyball home for him. Right? But when we got back to civilization, I took him to my sheepdog trainer, Sandy Moore, for an instinct test.

"I sure hope he doesn't herd," I told her, just before I went in the arena. "We really don't need another dog."

But Fate had its own designs. Jesse tested brilliantly. Two years old and never having never seen a sheep, he was a natural. Beautiful flanks, lovely shape to his movements ... I looked at Sandy in something like despair, and she laughed at me. She's kept right on laughing for all these past ten years.  ;)

Still, the road wasn't easy. As a rescue, Jesse had some "issues." His previous owner hadn't been fair in his dealings, and it took little to shatter Jesse's confidence. Too much pressure, too harsh a voice and Jesse would quit the sheep and bolt for safety beside the nearest friend. At one point he developed a positive phobia of a certain training field, the cause of which I never discerned, but it was six months before I could get him to set foot back in that field.

It didn't help that I was still struggling to learn the myriad subtleties of stockdog training, and heaven knows the many mistakes I made along the way. The progress we made was, in very large part, due the intrinsic magic of Jesse's heart. He stuck by me, I stayed with him, and together we learned and grew as a working team.

I can't begin to point out the place or time where Jesse became a Very Good Dog. For the longest time, I was surprised by our successes, and even more surprised when we repeated them. In ASCA trials and AHBA trials, and even one USBCHA Novice-Novice trial, Jesse and I brought in the wins. When we weren't trialing, we were stockhandling for trials, and at every chance we helped friends with livestock chores, whether vaccinating lambs or moving cows to summer range.

Somewhere along the line, that unsure, worried dog became my rock, and the dog that folks around me knew they could count on. If a green handler needed someone to outfield their sheep, Jesse was our man. If a cranky ewe or recalcitrant wether needed its nose pinched, a flash of Jesse's teeth did the job. If sheep escaped a young dog's control, I could send Jesse racing off over the ditches and hills to fetch the woolly rascals back.

And somewhere along the line, I think Jesse taught me more than I ever taught him. The measure and magic of a Very Good Dog were my lesson this decade past, and I am blessed to have been the student in this class of one.

Oh, out there in the world of Big Hats, my Jesse may not amount to much. He's never done a 600-yard outrun, never set foot on so much as a Pro-Novice course. I honestly don't know if he would have made an Open dog, at all. His stops aren't great, his outruns are tight, and on his lifts he tends to slice at the top. (All of those a product of my imprecise training.) He's an upright, loose-eyed, not very stylish dog, and his bloodlines aren't remarkable at all. But if you needed a chore done on the ranch or farm, Jesse and I could saddle up and get 'er done. To me, that's  been what counts.

At 12 years old, he still wants to work. He's showing his age, finally, in the grizzling on his face, the faint cloudiness in his eyes, and his hindquarters are getting weak. The chiropractor is also now his friend, given the way he throws himself about with the younger dogs. But he still wants to work, and I still find things for him to do. I'll keep making work for him until he shows me he simply can't.

Because he is my Jesse, my partner and friend, and he is my Very Good Dog. Happy birthday, you funny old man. I love you and I'll love you forever.

~ Gloria
Mountain House
14 February 2011

ODE TO A SHEEPDOG

 
When he leaves me
in his thundering stride,
I watch in very awe,
For he is a black javelin soaring, racing,
Flung from ages past.
On and on and up, he flies,
Until reaching the top, where he turns,
Eyes golden and fever-bright,
And a discussion is had:
“Move, I command thee.”
“Why should we, fanged beast?”
“Because this is the order of things,” he replies.
And the ewes turn and flow towards me,
Little round women in woolen skirts
And their knees flash in sunlight as they come.
I am almost loath to intrude
With my shrill human commands,
For he heeds the call of his blood,
Which whispers from windy hills and fells half a world away.
But when we are done and I whistle him to me,
He comes loping, galloping, joyous
For love of me and what we are together.
And from the long, cool shadows of time,
His forbears watch,
Red tongues lolling in approval.


© G. M. Atwater

11 Nov 2010
Mountain House, Nevada

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Once More to the Dogs

It's very rarely indeed, that we can point to any single person and say, "That person changed my life."

Oddly enough, only tonight it dawns on me, I know two such persons. Those people are my sheepdog trainer/instructor, Sandy Moore, and her good blue dog, "Mister."

My hubby and I moved into this area just over ten years ago, from a ranch in San Diego County. I'd had one winter's sheepdog lessons with my dog, Della, through a trainer down there, and I wanted to continue my training. So, I asked around to see if any stockdog trainer existed in the Carson Valley. This led me to Sandy - and to her constant companion, Mister.

Mister was one of Heaven's fortuitous accidents, a chance breeding between a Belgian Sheepdog and an Australian Shepherd. He was an only pup, and he chose Sandy just as much as Sandy chose him. When I met him, Mister was about 3 years old, a tall, confident, handsome rascal with an intelligent face and bright, wise eyes. Over the years, I got used to pulling into the yard and having him appear at my truck door, wanting to know who I'd brought and if I had any spare cookies. He was a constant fixture on every lesson day, and probably knew us all by name.

Mister was, in all the best ways, the lord of the manor. There on the ranch where Sandy trained, Mister was her hired hand. Sorting sheep, offering backup to inexperienced young dogs, standing patiently at the gate while Sandy worked with her students, he seemed for all the world as if he were supervising affairs. In his mind, he probably was.

The Blue Dog made an indelible impact not only on his human friends, but also sometimes on their dogs. Mister taught my boy, Jesse, his social graces: how to hang out and chill, how to wait one's turn. He also influenced Jesse in unexpected ways. All on his own, without my teaching, Jesse learned from Mister how to bring sheep out of a heavily crowded pen by crawling in under them. Jesse also learned from Mister the peculiar knack of shouldering sheep, particularly lambs, to get them moving, rather than using his teeth.

As a stock dog, Mister was amazing. I've seen with my own eyes how he could grab an uncooperative sheep and, without drawing blood, just slam the darned thing to the ground. When the sheep got up, Mister would simply stand there, watching, and sure enough, the sheep would do as Mister wanted. I've seen him go after a cow with every fang bared, and I've seen him nudging wobbly little lambs along, ever so gently. He was Sandy's partner, her friend and right hand, and more faithful than any human could be.

As Mister grew older, often he and my Jesse would stand at a fence together, quietly watching others work and undoubtedly exchanging notes. Thanks to Sandy, training and working my sheepdogs became my great passion. Thanks to Mister, Jesse became a true gentleman of a dog. Together, Sandy and Mister helped shape a very large part of my life, and I cannot imagine my world without their influence in it.

Sadly, I must now imagine a world without Mister in it. Last Tuesday, that grand old man, that good old Blue Dog, went on ahead to fields that our feet cannot yet tread. I've said enough farewells, in this past year, to know well the grief of losing a canine friend. But Mister was something extraordinary, a personage whose like but seldom comes along. He left his paw prints large in so many lives and so many hearts, but no one will mourn him as deeply as Sandy. My circle of friends is diminished by one, and while I know he is at last free of pain and weakness and the infirmities of age ... I'll miss him.

I'll miss him.

I leave the final words for Mister's passing in the form of a quote from Sandy herself:
"He seemed neither old nor young. The character of his strength lay in his eyes. They looked as old as the hills and as young as the wild. I never tired of looking at them."
~ John Muir


Mister -- Born: March 17, 1996 -- Passed: Dec 1, 2009

Good night, old friend.

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I Measure My Life in Dog Years

In 1983, I met the man I would one day marry. In 1984, we got our first dog.

We acquired Cub as an 8-week-old puppy, while visiting a friend who was Animal Control officer in the tiny town of Bridgeport, CA. He got a call someone found a dog at the dump, but it turned out to be a fat, healthy Australian shepherd pup - with a tail. When the pup cried in her kennel, I took her in my lap where she fell right to asleep. When it came time to leave, our friend said, "Well, you three better go on home."

Cub became our constant companion for the next eleven years. She was beautiful to behold, black and tan with a blue merle collar around her neck, copper on her cheeks and eyebrows, and a glorious plume for a tail. Yet however eye-catching her appearance, (and people often remarked) it was her spirit that shined the most. As a puppy, Cub was silly, happy, and playful. As an adult, she was silly, happy and filled with the joy of life. She could put timid dogs at ease, soothe dominant dogs' anxieties, and she greeted everyone she ever met with a beaming, loose-tongued smile.

This beautiful girl accompanied us on countless miles while we rode cattle ranges and mountain trails. She had almost no skills as a herding dog, but she was a splendid trail dog, tireless and wise, and she did have one great skill. Cub could bark a herd of cows out of a willow thicket like nobody's business, and she wouldn't quit until the last one came out.

We honestly had no idea how extraordinary she was, as a physical type. We thought it normal to ride 15 to 40 miles a day and Cub would not only keep up, but she would almost double the mileage. Yet when we brought her in for vet checks, the vets would sometimes call in their assistants to admire Cub's iron-hard musculature, or the rawhide toughness of her feet. She was just our dog, our partner and pal, who loved playing stick and chasing balls, going swimming, pouncing after fish in the streams, and following the wild trails with us.

In all, Cub lived the perfect dog's life. She never knew a chain, rarely felt a leash, and lived a life of near-total canine freedom on the cattle ranges and amongst the peaks. We lost Cub to illness in October of 1995, and our vet wept with us, as he administered his final mercy.

We got our next dog the following year, ostensibly as a companion for Nikki, the spaniel-border collie rescue we'd acquired along the way, who fell into depression after Cub's passing. Born on St. Patrick's Day, 1996, Della was a Border Collie-Aussie mix from a rancher friend's breeding. Della proved to be a worthy successor to Cub, a delightful personality full of bounce, happiness, and playfulness and she absolutely lived to be with us. She was not much of a working dog, either, but who cared? Della filled our lives with joy and laughter.

However, poor Nikki never recovered from the loss of her mate, and refused to have a thing to do with Della. So, we bought Dolly from the same breeder in 1997, a puppy for our puppy.

Though full sisters, Dolly was Della's opposite in almost every way. The only things they really had in common were parents, pointed ears, and black-and-white coats. Dolly was serious, oh, so serious, and had a poker face, to boot. Oh, she'd play and chase sticks and loved a game of tug-of-war, but she did these things with a powerful sense of competition. Dolly ruled the back of the pickup truck and when strangers came to our gate, she'd stand off and eye them with a cool lupine stare that could mean anything or nothing at all.

As with Cub, Della and Dolly were our companions of the trail, logging innumerable miles in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and on ranches in southern Cali and Nevada. They proved a good team on cattle, a one-two punch that convinced most cows to get a move on, and together, they bolstered each other's confidence. Dolly was tough as an old used boot, one time colliding with Della at full speed, whilst they both went after the same cow. Dolly hit her sister hard enough to crack one shoulder blade, and she tumbled on impact, but came up screaming - mad as hell and trying to catch and eat that cow on only three legs. Dolly healed up just fine, though, and continued on her butch and stoic career.

Della retired herself from herding at about age 8, just lying down in an arena one day when Dolly brought in a group of sheep. Della only worked to please us, not because it was her calling in life, and she thought it much better to stay home and play pampered house pet.

However, our lifestyle changed and we only cowboyed or packed mules part time, and the sisters settled gracefully into retirement. We lost Dolly on December 8, 2008, a victim of lymphoma. The doctors gave her 2-3 months to live. The tough old thing stuck it out for almost 5.

Nor can we forget Rose, my first purebred Border Collie. She was born on Easter Sunday, April 12, 1998, from a nice pair of working dogs owned by our good friend, Chris Rigali. We were packing mules in the Sierras in those days, so Rose kind of grew up like a canine Tom Sawyer, playing with our older dogs, chasing squeaky critters, and rolling in whatever stinky stuff she could find. By six months old, she was going up the trail with us, a little black coyote slinking among the rock slides and flying across the alpine meadows.

I found a sheepdog trainer here in Gardnerville when Rose was about 10 months, but ... I had me a bit of trouble. Our sweet, fluffy, mild-mannered Rose turned out to be a Tasmanian devil on sheep: driven, direct, independent, hard-willed and way too much dog for me. My trainer did the best she could, but I simply lacked the skills to manage a dog as tough and headstrong as Rose. Then at about age 3 and a half, she had a fall, injured her hip - and X-rays revealed she had severe hip dysplasia. She'd held herself together this far by little more than muscle tone and willpower.

Our vet performed a femoral ostectomy, but Rose never recovered to 100%. Eventually, I had to concede that my tough little girl's career as a sheepdog was essentially over. It broke my heart, and I've never shed the idea that somehow, I failed her. I should have been more careful; I should have known something was wrong before she got hurt. But Rose lived out her days as our beloved friend, as quiet and gentle at home as she was hell on wheels with sheep.

We lost Rose to cancer just this June, four months after Dolly.

Now ... we look at one more loss. Tomorrow at 4:00 p.m., we send our sweet, cute, funny little Della beyond the Rainbow Bridge. That's easier to say than that we're hauling her down to be killed. I don't know if it's three deaths so close together, or if it's the fact she's the eldest of the three, but this time is so much harder.

Della is terminally ill. They first diagnosed her with a raging bladder infection, which we treated with medication and she seemed to recover. But within 4 days of finishing her meds, she began a steep decline, and stronger medications have done nothing at all. She's stopped eating, she's lost weight, she's weak, she sleeps 23 hours out of 24, and most of all, our loving little Velcro dog, who yips insistently if we shut her out of our sight, wants nothing but to be left alone. Last night, we brought Della upstairs to bed, but when we started turning out the lights, she just walked outside, went downstairs and spent the night out sleeping under the juniper bush that's become her den.

It's time. She's tired, she's sick, all that sparkle and joy is gone, and she's done. But I'm not ready, even if she is.

Oh, I still have Jesse, my brilliant Border Collie partner, who came to us as a rescue eight years ago and inadvertently filled the void Rose's lameness created. He turned 10 in February and while he's a bit slower these days, he still loves and lives to work sheep. We still have Scruffy, Tye's corgi-border collie rescue who, now at age 9, is pretty much Tye's shadow. Plus, I've young Nick, my gifted, beautiful border boy in whom I've placed such hopes. Further, I've put in for a pup, a full sister to Nick, whom I hope to get in early fall.

But when it comes to Della, I want to grab and hold her and weep into the fragrance of her fur, crying, "Not yet! Don't leave! Don't go!"

This time, for whatever reason, I'm not at all prepared to say goodbye. Maybe it's the history, the miles and the years. Maybe it's that we have loved her so well and so long. There will always be dogs in our life. Since Cub fell asleep in my lap twenty-five years ago, we can't imagine it any other way.

However, Kipling was not wrong when he wrote this verse, which I will leave with you:


We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-term loan is as bad as a long--
So why in--Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

~*~  

Della - 17 March 1996 - 30 July 2009

 

Nick - good boy

This is what I love about my border collies. They are beautiful just by the nature of their being.



That is Nick, my pup from Geri Byrnes' Annie & Dan, taken April 26, '09. Here Nick is not quite one year old. Someday, if I get my act together, he's gonna be one helluva dog.

Good night, Dolly, and farewell

Yesterday we said goodbye to our old dog, Dolly, at 11 and a half years old. In late June she was diagnosed with lymphoma, and the vet gave her 2-to-3 months to live.

The tough old thing stuck it out for five and half.

Dolly wasn't anything fancy. She was a half-Aussie, half-BC, ranch bred dog of no particular lineage, and in those days, we didn't know a thing about formal cowdog training. What a dog naturally had is what we took to work, and that was all.

But if we had a bull sulking in a bog or a cow up on the hill, we could tell her, "Git 'em up!" and by golly, they'd be got. She and her sister, Della, were the one-two punch that saved us and our horses a lot of extra work. When we hired on packing mules for guide/outfitter services, Dolly put her energies to patrolling squeakies up on the rock slides or chasing trout in the shallows, and sniffing out the secret ways of mountain critters.

She was butch, aloof, and independent, and she'd come to us for affection if and when it suited her. If you came to our gate, while the rest of the pack clamored and yelled, she'd stand back and measure you with a wolfish, opaque stare that just said, "Hmm...." One time she fell out of my pickup truck going 60 miles per hour - *broke* her chain whilst lunging at a semi going the other way. But she suffered nothing more than bruises and a bitten tongue. Looking through photos last night, we found it grimly amusing to see how many times we caught her with one of those plastic "satellite dish" vet collars around her neck. But going easy on herself never once crossed her mind.

At the vet's, we asked the doc to come out and administer the sedative in our truck, rather than subject Dolly to the scariness of the vet's office. As the drug began to take hold and consciousness faded, Dolly's last overt act was to growl and snap at her sister for crowding too close. Hardass right up to the bitter end. That's our girl.

Dolly never set foot on a trial field, or saw the sense in a half-mile outrun. (Put the spurs to that nag, Mom, and come on, help me out.) She had no square flanks and no finesse and nothing you'd call style. Her favorite approach was straight-on at thirty miles per hour.

She was none of those things to which men refer when they speak of the venerable, the great. But to those of us she leaves behind, Dolly was a good ol' dog.

That'll do, Dolly, good girl. Time for you to go on Home.

Love,

Me and the Pack

Dolly - 20 March 1997 - 8 December 2008

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Still kicking ... Me in my writer's hat

Where, oh where, did the past year and three months go?

It just ... went. Like a Kleenex snatched out the car window. It's been a busy year, including a return to fan fiction, (oh, joy, someone combined horror with classic rock, a classic car, and handsome spook hunters - catch "Supernatural" Thursday nights on The CW) raising and losing a beautiful new Border Collie pup, moving to a new house with acreage (renting), and working my freakin' arse off so's to support my new-found travel habit.

Yup, took a 6-day road trip to see my parents near Seattle last October, went to a fan convention in Orlando in April (EyeCon), went on an 8-day Moot/road trip to New Mexico and Arizona as my annual ladies' escape with friends, competed in some out of town sheepdog trials, and I'm fixing to go to another fan convention in September. The height of hurricane season. Pray for me. :-p

Work-wise, I clean dog kennels and sheep pens two days a week, help a friend work her horses, help another friend with odd jobs around her property, and pick up other under-the-table work, all involving labor and/or livestock, whenever the chance permits. It's cash, baby, and I'd rather work outside than in an office. :-) I don't fare well in captivity ...

With the loss of my beautiful 1-1/2 year old pup, Flynn, to accident in early May, my dog-training pals went together and got me a new pup. Nick is a completely different dog from joyful, elegant, grey-hound fast Flynn, but he's impeccably bred, smart to the point of scariness, wonderfully level-headed, and at only 4 months, I can tell he's going to be a helluva dog. I will mourn Flynn until time spins down, but Nick has filled my heart. Yes, I am blessed in friends.

This morning I awoke from the satisfying exhaustion of a weekend sheepdog trial, and discovered summer had momentarily given way to the sharp, clean bite of autumn. From mornings of 65 desert degrees, the mercury dropped to a startling 40. The day will warm, even here at 5800 feet among the pinion pines, but it reminds me that Fall is fast approaching. It's coming time to reorder my time. Less play, more work - and more writing. I'm giving myself September to finish playing hooky, but I've manuscripts in need of the knife and words in need of whittling. Time indeed to call the muses back from their summer among leaves and sunlight.

Until then ... to whomever should chance to read this ... may you find crisp apples and rosy tomatoes and thick green zucchini as your part of the harvest bounty, and watch you for the cheery faces of pumpkins among the vines. :-)

~ G. M. Atwater