Gone To the Dogs

I often try to get Farm Buddy to write some blog posts.  There is lots of interesting stuff happening over there, but it is often hard for me to write about because it is difficult to do so and still respect her privacy.  Finally, with a bit of prompting from some of you and in honor of the Border Collie Brigade, she decided to tell the dog's stories.  Once you get her started, she does go on a bit:)  So, grab an extra cup of coffee and enjoy this guest post from FB at Natural Borders Farm....

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Well hello.  I am the guest blogger today, writing in honor of Scout and Tanner’s birthday!  Yes, of course I know that Tanner is very regrettably no longer with us, but it is still his birthday, and I am going to continue to celebrate it forever.  My dog, Scout, is Tanner’s brother.  He is twelve today.  They were born back in 2002.  

Here is how it came about.  At the time, I had my first border collie, Lark, and she was about twelve years old.  I was worried that working the cattle was going to become too much for her, and decided to add a puppy to our family.  After much deliberation, I found a very nice woman that had a litter due, so I reserved a female puppy.  Just about everyone wanted a female pup, but on October 28, 2002, seven male puppies were born, with not one sister in the bunch!

At that time, Kris had one older dog and had no plans of getting a new pup, but weeks later, her old dog was diagnosed with very aggressive bone cancer.  Although at first reluctant, I finally talked Kris into getting a puppy with me.  What fun we had going to visit the puppies every week while waiting for them to be old enough to come home!

Finally, on December 22, 2002, we brought the brothers home.  At the time, Kris lived about seventeen miles from me, so we would try to get together a couple of times a week.  Whenever I told Scout that he was going to see his brother, he would race to the window and wait for his arrival.  They had a blast together!  Eventually Kris moved to the same town where my farm is located, and I assumed the best job ever, which was taking care of Tanner when Kris was at work.  

Now I know you know a lot about Tanner, so let me tell you about Mr. Scout!  He is a piece of work; always has been and always will be.  First of all, he is a stockdog.  He will work sheep, cattle, pigs, chickens, probably anything.  He is fearless.  He is also very opinionated.  We will have cattle to move, I will call him over to tell him my game plan.  He listens and says, ‘Well that’s not a bad plan, but we are going to do things MY way.’  However, he always does get the job done!  He is a direct dog.  He doesn’t like to mess around with an outrun.  Thinks things should be handled head on, when it comes to livestock.  Even after we get the cattle moved and everyone is in the right place, he likes to do what I call his “drive-by shooting”, where he makes a little run at any unfortunate cow that is near the fence just to prove how tough he is.  

Scout’s specialty is bulls.  When a bull comes over for the season, the bull always marches into the pasture of ladies with a big attitude.  Scout likes to sort of limp into the pasture where the bull is (think Killdeer bird faking a broken wing).  He then lays down about fifty feet from the new bull.  The bull strides confidently over for the first forty feet, then hesitates a little, seeing this seemingly almost dead-looking dog.  Scout maintains his position, still appearing to be a brain-dead dog that is incapable of movement.  Finally the bull regains his confidence and approaches Scout, getting closer and closer.  Scout appears to be a resting zombie.  He waits until the bull is sniffing him over, actually touching him, then leaps into the air and bites the bull hard on the nose!  From that moment on, throughout the time that the bull remains on the farm, he is very, very respectful of Scout!  

Scout is also a great sleeping dog.  He sleeps under the covers, next to me, with his head on the pillow.  He has done this every night since I brought him home.  When he thinks it is time to get up, he jumps off the bed and whacks me on the head with his paw.  I try to hide under the covers, but he is relentless.  When I finally get up and head straight for the shower, he remains in the bathroom, guarding against serial killers.  As soon as I am dressed and ready to go, he quickly goes back to bed to grab an hour or two of additional sleep.  He is a real piece of work.  

My other border collie is Kelsey.  She is five and a half.  When Scout turned ten, I thought I should start thinking about where I would eventually get another puppy.  I was referred to a breeder and went to meet her and her dogs.  She had two females that she said she planned to have puppies from in about a year.  One of these females was Kelsey.  I liked her best right away because of her pricked ears.

The following year, this breeder called me and asked if I would be interested in purchasing Kelsey because she had several new, promising herding dogs, and was willing to let Kelsey go.  As I said, I had planned to get a puppy, and never thought about getting an older dog, so I told her that I wasn’t interested.  Kelsey was just shy of three years old at that time.  However, I just kept thinking about her.  I decided that bringing a new pup home would be very hard on Scout because he was used to being the center of my universe, and I knew a pup would require and just attract much of my attention; whereas an older dog wouldn’t be so needy or quite as cute!  I decided to give Kelsey a try.  In my life of often making bad decisions, this was a spectacularly good one!!!  Kelsey is a GREAT dog!  And she even has a fabulous outrun!  

Kelsey is a tremendous stock dog on both sheep and cattle, but she has a totally different style than Scout.  Where he is direct, she is subtle.  She is also very gentle, never ever grips, and wouldn’t even consider a drive-by shooting!  If she encounters stubborn cattle, like my cow Violet, she becomes a mosquito, buzzing back and forth until Violet finally lumbers in the correct direction.  However, she does have a weakness.  Kelsey is made for a kind and gentle world.  She cannot tolerate anger or stress.  This is not a problem, as long as I keep her in the house when I am trying to bale hay!

I know Shelley wanted to know what happened to Buster.  In case you are not familiar with Buster, he was a Maremma dog that I considered buying last summer during the fox wars.  Last summer, there was a family of foxes that did their best to totally ruin my life.  They killed many of my beautiful chickens, including moms with baby chicks.  Poor Kelsey and I were nervous wrecks!  Every time we heard a chicken cluck, I would race outside, and Kelsey would hide behind the couch (remember her stress hang-up). The woman I got Kelsey from had Buster, a male Maremma that wasn’t working out for her because he liked to hang out at the farmstead instead of staying with his sheep in different fields.  She thought he might work for me. 

Buster was a very sweet dog, and I really took to him.  He had known Kelsey, as they came from the same farm, and they got along very, very well.  However, Buster was a very large male dog, and I was scared to introduce him to Scout and Tanner.  I was told that as long as they were respectful to him, Buster would not bother them at all.  Well, the problem was that Scout was not respectful of anyone except possibly me, and then only occasionally!  I knew he would give Buster attitude, and he was eleven years old and about half the size of Buster.  The way I solved this problem was by just keeping them apart, which made a lot of extra work for me.  In the morning, I would first take Scout and Kelsey for a walkabout, then Buster and Kelsey.  This would continue throughout the day, which took a lot of extra time and energy.  Also, Buster was no border collie.  If we were hiking about the farm and something caught his interest, he just left!  He did not pay any attention to my wishes at all, which was frightening, as I feared for his safety.  As the weeks went by, he did get better at this, but it was still a problem.  

At night, I kept Buster in my mudroom attached to a lead, so that he could go in and out of the house as he pleased, but still be safe.  He was becoming very fond of me, and appointed himself my bodyguard (not so much the chicken’s bodyguard).  Buster did not appreciate Kris arriving back from work at two in the morning, which is when she came to pick up Tanner.  This became a very serious problem.  I told Kris to use the front door and give Buster plenty of space, but I could tell that those two did not get along.  Finally I realized that if Buster’s lead broke, he might actually eat both Kris and Tanner!  

It was a very tough decision, but I finally decided that I could not risk Kris, Tanner, or Scout ever being harmed, so I did return him.  He remains at his old farm, and is doing very well. 

The coyotes apparently killed off the foxes, and the summer of 2014 was blissful!  I still entertain the thought of a livestock guard dog, but I believe I would have to have a puppy.  Here is the thing; I would like to have a livestock guard dog (LGD), as I do worry about my sheep.  My sheep go in and out of the barn as they please.  I do not lock them up.  Coyotes could potentially wipe them out, which does concern me, although the coyotes and I have signed a peace treaty.  The thing is, if I got one LGD pup, I would feel bad to have the pup just living in the barn and outside with the sheep.  Also those pups are seriously irresistible, and the next thing you know it would be sleeping with Scout, Kelsey, and I!  Therefore, I believe I would have to have two pups, so that they could keep each other company and be happy, and I wouldn’t feel guilty, but that winds up being a huge investment to guard my small flock, although I would be devastated if my sheep were harmed.  If anyone has any great ideas about this, please let me know.  

Okay, well that is all the dog news from Natural Borders Farm.  Next time, we will cover either sheep or cattle!  So Happy Birthday to Scout and Tanner!  October 28^th will always be a special day for Kris and I.