A Golden Retriever & 2 Border Collies

Kilt, after a day of herding sheep

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This story isn’t a synchro. It’s about how dogs penetrate our lives and teach us about what’s important. You know, squirrels, bones, the moment.

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 Between  January 1 and May 1 our friend Cassie and her two border collies, Willow, 10, and Kilt, barely 2, were living with us.

Let me tell you about border collies. Before Cassie and her dogs moved in with us, I would see these two dogs – and other border collies – at the dog park, focused, task-oriented dogs. Give them a ball, a Frisbee, or a herd of sheep – a herd of anything, really – and their instincts kick in.

They are bullets on four legs, these dogs, racing toward whatever the task is, and when the task is captured, caught, herded, they are ready for the next task, goal, herd. And all of this is great if you live on a sheep farm, where the creatures must be herded daily, or on several thousand acres where these dogs can race and run and chase whatever they want.

But in a house with just a backyard, they are easily bored. During the day, Kilt trotted into my room with a worn out Frisbee that she dropped at my feet. If I didn’t pay attention to it, she found an old weathered tennis ball and came  into my office and bounced it in  front if me,. C’mon, Trish, throw me a ball, c’mon, c’mon, let’s play. C’mon – pant, pant – give me a job, a task.  

On Mondays, Cassie’s day off, she took her dogs to a sheep herding place an hour north of us, where Kilt and Willow got to actually do what they were bred to do – herd sheep. They came home exhausted, quiet, satisfied. The rest of the week, though, they had to satisfy themselves with dog park visits, tussles with Noah, and marrow bones, an all time favorite past time.

At first, our two cats were wary of these dogs. Simba, the orange tabby male, spent a lot of time in the garage, hiding out. Our white cat, Powder, named after the character in the movie of the same name, was the first to warm up to them, to accept them. She sat at the edge of the kitchen table and swatted them when they passed by. And because she isn’t declawed, they felt those swats, they respected her.  When she was on the floor and they sneaked up to try to steal her food, she hissed, lashed out – and they kept their distance.

3 dogs riveted on someone with a treat

Simba and Willow sometimes shared the same room. Willow liked the quilts piled up in Noah’s crate in our bedroom and often claimed it while Simba curled up at the foot of our bed. Simba seemed to be fine with this arrangement. And yet, in the beginning, we kept the dogs and cats in separate parts of the house because we weren’t sure how or if they would accept each other. But that’s the thing about animals that share the same space. They adapt. They somehow work it all out They are masters at co-existence, at live and let live.

The photo below is slightly out of focus, but provides a sense of this live and let live motto at which dogs and cats excel. Perhaps there’s a lesson here for politicians!

Since Cassie and her dogs left, Noah has been kind of down in the dumps. We think he has a soft spot for Kilt, who shares many of the same attributes as our daughter’s dog, Nika, a border collie/lab mix. When we biked  down to the park in our neighborhood, all three dogs ran free, without leashes, and Noah somehow managed to keep pace with Kilt, the silver bullet,  and grabbed her back legs and took her down. But Kilt always wrenched free and raced on, forever onward, like the wind.

This weekend, though, our daughter came home for mother’s day. She not only brought her dog, but her roommate’s as well, a yellow lab that looks like Old Yeller. So now Noah has two buddies to play with again.

Happy Mother’s Day to all!