I've heard it said that a good cattle dog is equal to four cowboys on horseback. I don't know if that's exactly true, but I do know one thing, a good working cattle dog is worth their weight in gold.
We adopted Pepper, a border collie mix,
when she was approximately four months old.
No one knew her exact age. She was found wandering the streets in a town about an hour away from us and an elderly lady took her in. This lady was unable to care for her, so she phoned the SPCA to come and pick her up. Eventually Pepper made her way to the SPCA in our nearest town, where a friend of ours fostered her. She told us about "Zipper", (the name given to her by the SPCA), who was in her home at the time, and we went to have a look. We fell in love and adopted her in January 2000.
We trained her ourselves with the little knowledge we had and worked with her natural instinct. She caught on and became very handy, although definitely not perfect. She was brave when she was at the south end of northbound cows but when they would turn and face her, she would tuck her tail and run. We were always careful not to stand in close proximity to Pepper when there was a protective yak mama who was bent on getting rid of that black and white "coyote" in the pasture, as we would inadvertently become the next target.
After looking through all our photos of Pepper over the years, I realized that I don't have any of her actually working cattle. This is probably because 1) I wasn't there or 2) If I was there, I was helping and there was no time to take a photo! The closest thing I have are the following two photos, taken her first summer with us as she was getting "acquainted" with a yak-cross calf.
She knew the following words or phrases:
Pepper, come, sit, lie down, way to me, come by, get 'em, that'll do, gopher, owl, pigeon, coyote, kennel, barn, jump up, truck, tractor.
She had some fears:
men, guns, thunder, BBQ's, fires, cameras and even binoculars!
Some of the things she liked to do were:
chase a ball, run alongside one of us riding our bike, preventing the yak and cattle from eating a bale before the strings were cut, trying desperately and hopelessly to chase a jackrabbit or two.
She also liked to ride in the tractor...
Help with chores....
Run along with us while we were out riding...
In her leisure time, one of her favorite activities was swimming...
She loved the splash of the water when you would throw a rock in...
Chasing and digging after gophers...
Did I mention she loved swimming?
It was hard to get her out of the water some days...
Did I mention she loved to dig in gopher holes?
This was the aftermath...
Good thing she loved swimming so much.
It made clean up that much easier.
In July 2010, she still had enough energy to hike up to
Bovin (Blue) Lake with us.
And my favorite all time photo of her, taken that same month along the Drywood Creek...
Unfortunately, in November 2010 her health deteriorated to the point where we had to make the difficult decision to have her put down. She is buried in the field where she loved to run and chase gophers so much. RIP Pepper.
Now on to the next chapter, our new little border collie pup, Duke,
who was born on May 29, 2011!
Here he is at five weeks...
...and after we brought him home at eight weeks.
We have high hopes that this little fella will turn out to be a great working dog. He has already shown us that he overcomes his fears and learns quickly. Duke is getting used to the bigger four-legged critters on our place and has even attempted to help out when they need to be moved, although I'm never there with a camera to capture the moment (sound familiar?).
We've noticed he has a near obsession with chairs.
He loves to be underneath them the most...
...but sitting on top when we're not works for him too!
He already loves riding in the tractor...
One thing is for sure, he's growing up far too fast
and the puppy stage will soon be over!
He's managed to wiggle his way into our hearts and as with Pepper, the past and future memories we have of Duke will always be a part of our life.
