It has already been more than a year since Pearl disrupted our quiet house with six puppies. Their birthday was December 3. We are happy four of them went to good homes, and we kept two for ourselves, thoroughly enjoying the chaos and companionship good dogs can provide! Not to mention their incredible instincts, and how handy they are working cows.
This is the first time I have ever had a border collie dog, and now I can’t imagine not having a border collie! Josie is really the best little friend. She is company on my quiet home days, company when I go to town, company on my morning walks and gladly curls up next to me while I milk Posey. She is such a good partner when we’re moving cows, except for her propensity to quit me and go to where the big action is, and it is hilarious to watch her work the entire herd, back and forth and back and forth, with seemingly endless energy. She has learned to help load cows into the alleyway and into the chute, and on her own figured out that the catwalk right before the alleyway is a great place to post herself when cows are getting loaded. She’ll go forever, but then is more than happy to curl up on the sofa at the end of the day and cuddle.
So here are some cute photos of Bess and Josie to brighten your day!
I’m awfully glad God created dogs.
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There is sure an extra dose of sass in this fluffy little black-and-white body.
Over the last couple of weeks, calving has come to an end and the pre-branding work, which included long days gathering cows and sorting pairs and tagging and vaccinating, occupied much of our time. The pups would accompany us, but would find themselves locked in the aluminum trailer while we were riding out to gather or working in the corrals, to keep them out of the way and prevent any “self-deployment,” as we call their tendency to, well, self-deploy. Sometimes they apparently think the cows just need a little wake-up, or maybe even need to be shuffled to the next hill. So we lock them up and have the delightful pleasure of listening to the two pups howling inside that tin-can of a trailer. I imagine the echo is pretty inspirational.
One of those mornings, we were horseback in the corral about 100 yards from the trailer, and I caught a glimpse of a little black dog on the back of the flatbed pickup. At first I figured it was Dave’s pup, Cooper, who hadn’t been locked up and likes to sit on top of the pickup cab, but it didn’t take long to see that it was in fact my pup, Josie. She had somehow managed to climb out one of the trailer windows and then jump up onto the flatbed, both of which were rather impressive feats. She then rummaged around in the coffee break bag and stole an apple and put teeth marks in the other. She was happy as a clam and didn’t show a bit of remorse. Her conscience was not pricked. I had introduced her to apples, and she apparently likes them well enough to self-deploy on them as well.
A couple days later, she gave us quite a good scare while we were working pairs. When we took coffee break, which generally happens at an appropriate lull which generally happens around 10am, Josie climbed out of the trailer looking rather lethargic, kind of slinking around and trembling. It was abnormal enough I started looking all over her for possible snake fang marks, or wondering if she had managed to get herself kicked or stepped on by one of the horses. I didn’t find anything, but she kind of moaned when I pressed her little belly and, even more abnormally, she showed no interest when I was eating an apple or a beef stick. She loves to share, but not that time. At one point she was curled up in my lap, with her head bobbing and eyes closing, still shaking and shivering. It was bizarre. Brad said later he almost had me take the ATV back to the house and get her to the vet. Anyway, a couple hours later she was just fine, right as rain. All I can figure is that the dramatic little thing got her feelings hurt when she ended up locked in the trailer by herself for what must have been a tortuous hour. Horror of horrors. It was quite the convincing performance. She got a lot of mileage out of that. Thank goodness I didn’t take her to the vet. That would have been embarrassing.
Oh, Josie. I really don’t know what I’d do without her.
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Four months ago today, Pearl had her intro into motherhood and let’s just say it has been a journey. Her maternal instincts were a little sluggish, sort of like a heifer who looks at her first calf like it’s a different species from who knows where and how in the world did it get here? That was Pearl. The first pup arrived and the guilty look on Pearl’s face very clearly said: “I’m so sorry, I have no idea what this thing is or where it came from!” I’m pretty sure she never even knew when she was going to have another pup, because she’d stand up and another one would just – plop – hit the floor. For Pete’s sake, she took off before she was done having all her babies (to go bunny hunt, by the way), and couldn’t get back to the house in time so resorted to having her last pup outside under the deck in 20 degree weather requiring us to do some un-carpentry to get the pup out.
Anyway, her maternal instincts did eventually kick in, after a fashion, although she always looked vaguely pained and tormented. But she managed to raise them all without accidentally killing any of them, or intentionally, for that matter, and they have all gone to great families. However, I just wanted to share this sequence of pictures that really is just the perfect visual of Pearl’s relationship to her pups.
Ironically, Pearl and Bess, the pup who got plastered in these pictures, get along swimmingly, but Josie is kind of scared of her. I don’t blame her. Pearl can get a downright possessed look in her eyes, right before gleefully plowing her into the ground. She isn’t exactly maternal.
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Mud. Animal antics. Homemade bread. Baskets and baskets of eggs. More mud! Feeding cows. Puppy mischief. Live calves. A good save. More mud. New chicks. It was a good week.
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So I haven’t written much about Josie, and I really don’t know why. She was our first puppy clever enough to figure out how to escape the enclosure in the house, and got stepped on by Elvis and scared me half to death when the pups were older and sleeping in the barn. She limped out of hiding, crying pitifully and holding her little stepped-on leg up, and came straight to me to be held. Bess got to experience her first day on the job and got her own blog post, but apparently Josie just got lumped in with Bess and has been kind of overlooked.
Josie at this point has had many first days on the job! These pups are so intelligent and showing promise of being cowy, and it has already been a treat to watch their instincts start to come out. Bess goes nuts when she hears Brad yelling at cows and barrels down the hill to find him. Josie is a little more subdued, but this morning when we were gathering cows from the calving lot into the corrals, Josie took a leap off the fourwheeler and ran to help get the cows rounded up. She managed to not get stepped on.
From the get-go, I guess I thought Bess would be my dog and Josie would be Brad’s, but somehow things got turned upside down and this little dog stole my little heart. And oh my goodness, is she a faithful little companion! She has been my lap-warmer during my morning devotions or when I’m writing, she’s my chicken chores buddy, and revels in our walks. She likes riding in the tractor, she doesn’t have her ATV legs yet, and she is fast. Very fast. She can also be extremely slow and has this irritating and adorable habit of plunking her little butt down and tilting her head to the side when she hears her name and is pretending she doesn’t remember it. Naptime is sacred as is her bedtime, and before bed potty breaks are met with dramatic resistance and suddenly forgetting how to walk. She likes cheese and hotdogs, and doesn’t like spinach. She follows me around the kitchen and preemptively “downs” when she thinks I might give her something. She thinks she has me figured out.
As far as her name is concerned, when I name a critter it is usually just because the name somehow fits. And then it sticks, and that’s that. And given Brad’s track record of names like “Yellow Cat” and “Grey Cat,” I don’t take any chances. But Josie’s dad’s name is Joe, and her grandpa was Jonas, so Josie seemed appropriate.
Welcome to the crew, Josie girl!
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