Farm Fresh Blog

For most of the state of Texas, the only blizzard we ever experience is the one served at Dairy Queen. I'm totally okay with that. We did have a little bit of snow this week. Not much. Just enough to remind me that I don't need to live in Wyoming as I have absolutely no cold weather skills whatsoever. All week we've had some combination of rain, sleet, and snow. And yet, here we are back in the 70's today. Just a typical week in Texas.

The sun made an appearance today and was welcomed like a newborn baby. This is the first time it's popped out since Tuesday so the animals are on the move. Judge has finally crawled out of the barn and onto the picnic table to soak up some rays. He spent much of the week hating his job. It sucks to work outside in cold, wet weather. Been there, done that myself.  The sheep don't really care for him being in the stalls either. He takes up a lot of room and tends to be grumpy. Judge missed the kindergarten lessons on sharing. For that reason I had pity on him and let him out of the sheep pens and into the barn. Sometimes the living room but mostly the barn aisle. (Remember that we live in the barn.)

The snow has melted now and the rain quit so all the dogs are back outside. The sheep are in the pasture and the chickens are already on walkabout. Fortunately Judge is back on duty. After the weather we've had this week, the Boogey Beast is sure to be hungry. I was reminded of that when I looked out the kitchen window and saw Judge making ugly faces at the buzzards flying over the barnyard.

As far as Judge is concerned the vultures are Sky Coons - varmits which must be watched carefully. Not only does he monitor the pastures and the forest surrounding the open pasture for walking Boogey Beasts, but he patrols the air space surrounding the barnyard. Sky Coons must not be allowed to land.

Just in case there is any doubt about how he feels towards Sky Coons, check out this look. It kinda sums up his week.

"Die, Sky Coon. Die."

The sun rises and ushers in the daily roll call. I stumble out, coffee in hand, to count heads and see what drama lies waiting to smack me over the head with a stick this morning. I toss hay to the sheep and release the chickens. Theirs is a neighborhood requiring burglar bars and a strong police presence. They march out like happy citizens, pausing briefly to salute the sun before they begin their day gleefully unaware of the dangers lurking beyond.

The farm collies race to the pasture ahead of the Livestock Guardian Dogs who begin a deliberate area patrol.

While house dogs sniff the pasture like caffienated suburbanites scrolling their yahoo feed for the morning news, the Guard Dogs sniff the same spots like seasoned police officers reading a daily crime analysis report. The collies point and gawk at what they smell, sending giddy tweets to each other. "Read this!"

The Anatolian shows no such enthusiasm. He is annoyed, offended, insulted. Coyotes have tagged the fence line. He paints over their graffiti and glares into the wind.

Maybe they are watching him. Anatolian watching. A dangerous sport for a coyote.

The collies continue their play as the Guardian Dogs finish their patrol. The chickens have taken their chances and already pecked their way out there. Still six. Canaries in a coal mine.  It's safe to put the sheep out now.

The Guard Dogs settle down near the chickens and watch. And the forest watches back.

The lazy spiral of vultures overhead is my first clue. Curiosity gets the best of me so I slip on some boots and trudge out there. The sheep are still eating hay in their pens but the chickens have already wandered off into the wooded pasture - the Forbidden City. It calls to them each morning with promises of bugs, and grubs, and other delicacies found beyond the safe confines of the barnyard.

As I slide through the gate, Briar, the Livestock Guardian Dog, falls into step beside me. She has been watching chickens in the forest. Still six birds. Good dog, Briar. The vultures are circling toward the east, so I march toward the rising sun. In a very short time the cedars open to reveal the object of so much study.

The vultures are waiting on Judge.

One must be cautious when approaching any dog over a kill, but when the dog tips the scale over 100 pounds, extra caution is needed. Now is not the time to play dominance games. Buying dry kibble and shovelling it into a dog bowl doesn't give you the right to take anything from a dog as big as a mountain lion. He pauses as I walked up on him. I don't take a direct route in, but angle my path to glide past indirectly. He glares at me with lowered eyes. The crunch of bones is unmistakable. A few tufts of hair scattered in the grass. A spot of blood. Judge has fixed himself breakfast.

"Lemme see what you have there." I speak in a sing-song voice, careful not to imply that I am inviting myself to his meal, or God forbid, taking it from him.  He never stops eating, but doesn't threaten me as I come forward to inspect his rabbit. Poor bunny. Briar inspects his meal at a distance. She thoroughly checks out the murder scene, just in case any morsels or other bunnies are hanging around. Nothing.

The buzzards circle overhead. Waiting. They don't dare land on the ground to wait for him to finish. The Livestock Guardian Dogs despise the birds and had they landed Judge's second course would have been turkey vulture. While I am out there I take the opportunity to walk the game trails and explore a bit. The sheep now graze this pasture unattended. The browse is good but it doesn't come without risks. The best grazing is found in open patches surrounded by thick wooded areas. There are lots of places to hide a predator out here. The sound of crunching bones in the distance wafts through the cedar trees. Judge is proof that a very large predator can successfully hunt out here. I walk on.

Sheep's wool caught on mesquite thorns mark the way like traffic cones. Clearly sheep come this far. I push onward. The path is well worn. I round the corner and almost step on him. A dead raccoon. Briar ignores him. Nothing to see here. Carry on. I examine the body. Tufts of Briar's fluffy white hair are caught in the stiff dry weeds around the body. White bits of hair cling on weeds like crime scene markers. The dead raccoon is of no interest to Briar because she killed it.

"Did you kill this raccoon?"

She smiles. "I don't know what you're talking about."

I keep walking. Down another trail I find the body of an armadillo. This pisses me off. I like armadillos. I don't want my dogs killing them. I turn around to orient myself. The barn can clearly be seen from here. The dogs aren't ranging that far in their crime spree. Or is it?

I can't have it both ways. They either protect the pastures from intruders or they don't. I can't stand in front of them at roll call with a chart and a pointer, highlighting which animals are on the DO NOT KILL side and which animals are on THE BOOGEY BEAST side of the chart. It doesn't work that way. The same dog who doesn't kill chickens lies in the forest crunching up a rabbit. And one of the murdering bastards killed my armadillo.

There are no good answers. The sheep and the chickens are certainly safer because of them. But in the end, a dog is really just a wolf in better clothing.
 

The whip-like mind of a Border Collie crackles with electricity. Unlike the snap of a whip which results in a loud impressive pop, the end result of the Border Collie mind snap is silence. Total silence. Their chi, their fundamental life force, every fiber of their being, is concentrated in the power of silence which is filtered and released in the power of the stare. The stare of the Border Collie is the Jedi lightsaber.

Border Collie owners become particularly fine-tuned to the soundless hum of a Border Collie lightsaber being powered on.

Whuuuuuuuuushhhhhhhhhhhhhhzzzzoooooommmmmmmmmmm . . .

A lightsaber has powered on. I look around. Yep. Mesa has the chickens again.

It has taken her three days to turn this simple chore into an obsession. She is a sheepdog who has now added chickens to her growing list of things which must be controlled. The chickens have taken to going on walkabout. They leave the safety of the barnyard to scratch and peck the forbidden fruits on the other side of the fence - in the Land of Boogey Beast. The little Jedi dog has made it her mission to keep the birds where they belong.

The evolution of an obsession goes something like this:

Day One - Note the chickens are out of the barnyard. Cuss. Champion of Justice, the young Jedi warrior, is sent on an impossible mission: Go into the Land of Boogey Beasts to recover six missing chickens. She bows her head, places a hand on her lightsaber, and runs off. Minutes later she returns pushing six cackling hens. You are amazed and tell her so. As if you had approached a cop in the middle of a traffic stop to ask for directions to the donut shop, she raises an eyebrow in disdain and continues to push her suspects through the gate and into the sheep pen. Since you didn't get the hint the first time, you congratulate her again. She turns her head away, embarrassed and disgusted by your praise. And yet - Darth Vader has been born.

Day Two - Chickens are out again. Dispatch the Jedi. She pads off into the jungle and returns with six hens. As she stalks past the gate with the hens ahead of her, you hear the hum of a lightsaber and begin to detect the wheezing, labored breathing of Darth Vader.

Day Three - You are in the barnyard picking up firewood and hear the hum of a lightsaber powering up. You look around. Nothing. You catch glimpses of white sheep in the forest. The Livestock Guardian Dogs are on duty, thus you are unconcerned. You go back to picking up firewood. There it is again. A lightsaber. You walk toward the sheep pens. All the sheep are now in the pens. What the . . . ? Young Vader is standing in front of a hut, her lightsaber humming. You peek inside the hut. She has gathered one flock of sheep and six chickens from the forest and moved them into the sheep pens where she is now holding them.

Day Four - You scatter scratch grains around the barnyard and let the chickens out of their pen. A moment later you notice Darth Vader gathering confused hens and returning them to their pens. You snarl at Vader. Vader backs off but you note the veiled eyes. The wheezing breath increases as black gloved fingers open and close on an imaginary throat. Vader's obsession is growing. Vader doesn't need my praise. It is a self-rewarding activity.

And so it is with all Border Collie owners. We listen for sound of a lightsaber being powered on, heralding the launch of a new fixation, for Border Collies are Jedi Warriors, knights who are merely one step away from becoming Darth Vader.

A crunch of paws in the sand. The gentle smash of leaves on the forest floor. Inhale. Exhale. Stillness. The fog is watching us. It is a blanket covering the pasture, choking out the sunrise. The sheep eat their hay, blissfully unaware. The forest is watching them. Us. It watches us.

Before the sheep leave the barnyard the dogs patrol the lower pasture. Like the fog they move through the forest on cat feet, quiet except for the snap of a stick, the crisp crunch of paws on cold sand.

The bells on their collars tinkle and clang as they run. Growling. They storm off into the mist. It swallows them. Minutes later they are spit back out. They emerge along the fence. Stiff. Insulted. Angry.

They push the fog back. Into the forest.

And the sheep eat. Blissfully unaware.

My mother used to say, "Give the hardest job to the laziest person, and he'll find the easiest way to do it."

She was talking about me. In general terms. I prefer not to think of it as being lazy, rather, I'd like to say that I'm efficient. Sounds better. If I can figure out how to have a dog do the job for me, then it's even better. Training dogs takes time. See above. Even my own mother said I'm lazy.

Despite that, I spent most of my adult life training dogs. For years I was pretty heavy into training and showing in all manner of dog sports, then I switched to using dogs for Search & Rescue work. Mine were really well trained because I devoted a lot of time to making them that way. Then one day, I just quit. I'm not sure when it happened.

When did I stop being entertained enough by shaping behaviors that I quit devoting the time to teaching "Stupid Pet Tricks?" Maybe it was when I stopped being held accountable for the performance of my dogs. I stopped showing. I stopped doing Search & Rescue. I retired from police work. But I had more dogs. A lot more dogs!

Arguably these dogs do more actual work than my trial dogs. Except for a few retirees, one free-loader, and a puppy, every other dog on this ranch has a job to do each time the kennel door opens. And yet, I manage to put a shamefully small amount of time into training them. If we actually took the time to focus on skills, to practice and hone our communication, then we'd certainly look better.

But I get busy. I have other things that demand my time, so I do the basics and muddle through the rest. The dogs pick things up as we go. Because they're with me all day long, we communicate pretty well anyway. I've tried to select breeds that lend themselves to the job at hand and individuals within that breed who are bred to do the job. I think that's the key to a lazy trainer - get a dog bred to do the job in the first place. That's half the battle.

Now instead of training dog sports skills, I'm molding behaviors that make life easier for me on the ranch - handling the livestock, working and playing well with others, whatever it takes to make life on a farm roll a little smoother. Recently my Other Half has been complaining about the amount of cat food I go through in a given week. Clearly the cats aren't eating all that. I must confess, they aren't. The dogs are. And the chickens.

It began as a hair-brained experiment but has seen much success from very little effort. A win-win in my book! To expose young Livestock Guardian Dogs to chickens, I scattered cat food onto the ground thereby allowing birds and dogs to peck and scratch together. This desensitized the Guardian Dogs to the hens. Over time the chickens moved out of their pen to free-range during the day, so it was imperative that I desensitize the other dogs to the birds. Every morning I now turn the hens out of their pen and scatter cat food around the yard like bird seed. The dogs and the birds love it. Other Half complains. I do what I always do, I ignore him.

I ignore him because I believe in teaching this life skill. It's more than a Stupid Pet Trick and it takes no more time on my part than scattering scratch grains. This morning my efforts paid off.

I was deep in thought about the latest farm mystery. Why did the Livestock Guardian Dog bring home a cow's leg last night? (This mystery is still unfolding.)

With my mind on other things, I hastily did chores, then locked dogs in outside kennels before I shuffled down to the sheep pasture with a camera to document things. (because that's what CSIs do, and that's what retired CSIs still do)

I returned back to the house to find this:

Labradors and chickens do not make good roommates. This is a hunting dog who is not given to cuddling small animals. And he likes fried chicken. I had failed to notice the chicken inside the dog house when I locked Dillon inside and left him alone for ten minutes. I did note the barnyard was eerily quiet when I returned. No barking dogs. I think the Border Collies were waiting to see what Dillon would do with Darwin.

Nothing. Dillon did nothing with Darwin. Dillon waited. Darwin waited. When I opened the kennel door they both filed out like civilized drivers when the red light changes to green. They both had places to go, things to do, people to see.

There's your pay-off for training dogs. Not only did he not kill the chicken, but he didn't teach five other dogs how enjoyable the sport of chicken killing can be on a sunny morning. So just because you're a lazy dog trainer, it doesn't mean behaviors shouldn't get shaped. Just don't expect polish, and expect to run through a lot of cat food.

     The Blue Moon is rising.

     The Border Collies run ahead of me as I hike to the pasture below the barn. Mesa knows the drill - let the Dorper and Jacob flock out of the lower pasture, take them through the barnyard and into their pen for the night. Wyatt, the pup, has done this enough times to know how things should flow. He is getting some maturity now and is finally beginning to pay attention to the sheep and not just bounce along with Mesa. Lily, the older dog, walks beside me. She has long since given the reins to Mesa and concerns herself more with the perks of being a ranch dog rather than the actual work of it. Lily is happy enough to ride in the truck or the ATV and watch Mesa work.

     Wyatt and Mesa arrive at the gate and wait.

     I'm the one with the thumbs. Thumbs are needed to work the chain on the gate. One day I will devise another system so the Border Collies can do this themselves. No thumbs needed. Then I can sit in the porch swing and watch the dogs do my chores. Until then, I have to hike down there and back.

     Lily and I arrive to open the gate and the sheep file out. Once out they begin the uphill run. Lily waits with me while I close the gate. Mesa and Wyatt go with the sheep. When I start back up the hill I see Wyatt waiting for me by the barn. Something hasn't gone according to plan.

      I've forgotten to open the gate so the sheep can file into their pen. Mesa is holding them by the gate while Wyatt has come back to inform me that I had one job - open and close the gates - and I have failed miserably at that. He escorts me to where Mesa is holding sheep.

     The Labrador Retriever, who until this moment has busied himself with the arduous task of selecting just the right stick in a yard full of fallen limbs, has made his final selection and now gallops into the flock of sheep with a log in his mouth. They scatter and run like hell. On their way down the driveway the sheep notice an open gate which leads to another pasture. Like a flock of birds they all hook a left and head through that gate and into 150 wooded acres and a rising moon. I am helpless to stop them. How long will it take to get them all back?

     They thunder down the fence line as the Blue Moon rises above the trees and I hurl a curse into the sand at my feet. How far will they go before I can even reach the gate? Not far. A black and white streak glides ahead of the galloping sheep and turns the flock back on itself. I haven't even started toward the opened gate and the sheep are now loping back into the barnyard.  My heart smiles as my eyes search to identify my savior. I am confident it's Mesa. I'm wrong.

     Mesa and Wyatt stand in the barnyard and watch Lily neatly pen the runaway flock. She steals a glance at me as she slides past. The little black and white dog saved me a lot of work and she knows it. This flock is small, but it's particularly silly, so she waits at the gate as the sheep file in. Mesa and Wyatt close the loop around them at the back. I shut the gate and Lily gives me a smug look. Apparently she is not retired. She is in charge. There is a difference.

     Lily has made it clear that just because she chooses to let Mesa do all the work it doesn't mean that she can't do it anymore, merely that she's content to let others do the chores as long as they don't muck it up. And when they do, she is still here to swoop in and clean up our mess.

     The morning sun crests the line of trees and creeps across the barnyard with warm fingers. As eager to greet the day as the sheep are to greet their hay, the dogs chase each other, madly dashing up and down the hill, round and round the barn.

     This dog is no different. A stranger here would have no idea she is deaf and partially blind. MoonPossum lives her life with gusto. She grabs the day by the horns and insists on being a part of the fun. Possum so easily keeps up with the Border Collies in their frenzied chase games that it's easy to set aside her disabilities and forget she's different. Until . . .

     I walk toward the cow pens as she comes racing down the path toward me. There is plenty of time for her to see me but she keeps barrelling onward, never veering off the path, a little train steaming forward. Surely she sees me. She has to see me.

    Apparently not.

    I have just enough time to bend my knees before impact. Possum is clearly surprised that she's hit something, but then delighted that the something is me. We have a momentary love fest before she grins, wobbles into a lopsided lope, gathers steam, and off she goes to find her friends.

     Why didn't Possum see me? I need only glance down for the answer. I'm wearing camouflaged pajama pants and a camouflaged hunting jacket with brown house shoes. This has effectively made me invisible to Possum as she races down a wooded path. For a moment my heart breaks. It aches for her. It's easy to forget that Possum has vision problems. It's easy to forget that she's deaf. It's easy to feel sorry for her. Then again, why? Why should we? Possum doesn't.

     She races across the yard with wild abandon. Happy. The Border Collies know she's different, but she doesn't.  Possum is happy. I watch her join her buddies, leaping, biting, wrestling, running. There is no caution. None whatsoever.

     Perhaps we're the ones with the handicap, not her. Possum is not crippled by her disabilities. She motors forward, confident that things will sort themselves out as she runs. I watch her and consider the lessons she could teach the rest of us.
 

     Just keep trusting, keep blindly running forward, and the way will show itself. Nothing fun is ever accomplished from cowering in the dark, from sitting on the sidelines, from playing it safe. Chase life with gusto. Even if you're wrong, even when you make mistakes, get up. Get up! Dust yourself off! Failure is just another experience gained. Get back in the game!

You get a lot of thinking done when you're walking through the forest staring at a cow's ass.

The forest was thick. The cow was in labor. I'm out of shape. If you want a weight loss regiment, try raising cattle in a forested area. You could easily hide a grizzly bear in here.

Or a cow in labor.

For this reason we check the cattle daily and look for anyone bagging up. Last week we noticed that Poppy, one of the red Brafords, was starting to bag up.

"Keep an eye on her. We had to pull her first calf."

Her first calf was an exceptionally nice heifer calf, but was presented head first instead of front feet first. This meant we had to push the calf back inside her mother, reposition her, and then pull her out like a diver - front feet first, followed by the nose and head, and then the hips just plopped on out. It was a tough delivery, but Molly greeted the world as a healthy calf.

The plan had been to lock Poppy up in the sheep pasture below the barn when she looked like she was close to delivery so we could monitor her. That didn't happen.

On the day we planned to lock her up, Poppy didn't come to breakfast. Of course not.

You know why?

Because we planned to attend a horse show that day, that's why.

Instead, we loaded up the little ATV mule with a medical bag and headed out. We were hoping to find a cow with a fuzzy new calf. What we found was a cow in labor with two feet sticking out of her butt.

"Okay, we'll just have to deliver the calf here in the forest."

Poppy saw us coming, heaved herself up, and walked off. Take that.

Thus began a slow O.J. Simpson foot chase through the ranch. Poppy didn't appear to be in any distress and we stayed as far back as possible to keep an eye on her. It's easy to lose a red cow in the brush. She ambled up and down the banks of the creek which crisscrosses the ranch, stopping to drink, reflect on life and other cow problems, and graze a bit.

At least it was a pretty day for a walk. Why weren't we on horseback? We have four horses, two of which are pretty good cow horses. Why didn't we just rope her?

The brush in this area is too thick to easily travel on horseback.

Why didn't we use the Border Collies?

Cows in labor take a very dim very of Border Collies. Since these cows are pretty tame, our presence is only mildly annoying, add a Border Collie and a cow in labor will hike her tail over her back and crash through the woods like the Incredible Hulk.

Which leads us back to my walk through the forest. It was a long, slow walk, with plenty of time to think. And as I stood on the high creek bank, looking down at Poppy who was trying to decide if she wanted to have her calf or graze, I thought about how a ranch is like the Incredible Hulk and the rancher is like Loki.

I haven't watched a lot of the wildly popular Avengers movies. I've seen bits and pieces of most of them, enough to know who the characters are, and get a rough idea of the story line. Loki is kind of an arrogant bad guy. Hulk has rage issues.  This scene pretty much sums up the relationship between a farmer and the farm. The farmer is Loki and the farm is Hulk.

https://youtu.be/OZ4AydWIcsc     Hulk Smashes Loki - YouTube

Loki is a god. He believes that he's in charge. Hulk beats the crap out of him. Then he stomps off with a backward taunt, "Puny god."

And that's exactly what farming is like.

As I trudged through the forest, pushing aside briars and branches, stepping over downed logs, hoping not to find a rattlesnake sunning himself, I was thinking about chickens.

Yes, chickens.

The week before Christmas we bought eight new chickens. Blue Laced Red Wyandottes. They are rare enough that we sought out a breeder rather than add our names to the spring list at a mail-order hatchery which sells out so fast. We drove to Central Texas in the rain and came home with eight of the loveliest birds I'd ever seen. They were 4 and 5 months old. Thus began my love affair with my own Blue Laced Red Wyandottes.

I couldn't stop admiring them. I just loved these little birds. It was just over a week later when the first one got sick. A week after that I had to euthanize her. We had our suspicions but held our breath. The rest of the flock seemed okay. The next week another was sick. Just like the first. This time we contacted our vet and Texas A&M. She was culled and her body was sent to A&M for a necropsy. The next day another bird died. Thus far, 3 or the 8 are dead.

We are still waiting on the test results but suspect Marek's disease. This means that one by one, all my flock may die. They may also infect the adult birds I already had here, my Golden-Laced Wyandottes.

Each morning I hold my breath as I open the coop door, afraid of what the day may bring.  The remaining birds look fine, but then so did their comrades before the disease snatched them. It continues to weigh heavy on my mind.

So as I followed a cow's ass through the woods, I was thinking about dead chickens, and Loki. I timed the cow's contractions. Four minutes apart. Three minutes apart. Two minutes apart. Eventually we managed to get Poppy moved into the cattle working pens where she glared at us. She clearly wanted to have her baby in the privacy of the forest, not here in public with horses and other cows staring at her.

Since the cow didn't appear to be in distress, we opted to give her some time and some privacy. We left her alone for an hour. We returned hoping to find a new baby. What we found was Hulk snatching us up like Loki.

Poppy had not already given birth to a healthy calf. The feet were still hanging out. This was definitely a problem birth. We moved Poppy into the chute. Other Half took off his shirt, lathered his arm in KY Jelly, and dove in. What he found was a train wreck.

Instead of being in the classic diver's position, the calf's head was turned way back and down. After sorting everything out, Other Half began the long and painful task of pushing the calf's legs back inside and pulling the head into its proper place.
During this time, Poppy bawled and Other Half bawled. In a very short time he was covered in cow shit, cow piss, amniotic fluid, and mud, and his arm was in a vise.

But through it all, he talked to Poppy. He encouraged her. He pleaded with her. He comforted her. I think it was as much for himself as for her. I watched all this and was reminded why I love this man. Like most men can be, on many days he is an arrogant, selfish man-child who makes me question both his sanity and mine. But as he stood there in the cow pens, covered in goo, he was my hero. And Poppy's.

Other Half finally managed to get the calf turned and successfully delivered. He immediately began CPR.  The calf was dead. Clearly his neck was broken. Other Half continued his desperate attempts at CPR anyway.  He and Poppy had worked so hard. He couldn't give up. It was futile. The calf had been dead for a while.

Thus began the second guessing. We shouldn't have waited to let her have it in private. We should have just pulled it. Maybe it was still alive then. We should have locked her up the night before. Then we would have known exactly when labor started. Or would we? We had planned to go to a horse show, so we wouldn't have been home anyway. What if? What if?

In the end, it's just like the chickens. What will be, will be. How arrogant are humans? We think we're in charge. We think we are the gods of our little domain.

Puny gods.

It's rare that I promote something and shout from the rooftop, "Y'all need to buy this!" but this book is a must for anyone living with Border Collies and everyone who wants a Border Collie.  From Carol Price, the author of COLLIE PSYCHOLOGY,  this is Book One in a three part series on the Border Collie mind.  Book One - SECRETS OF THE WORKING MIND is probably one of the most comprehensive and thought provoking work that I've ever seen on what goes on inside the mind of a Border Collie, and why.

This is an expensive little book, and I'll admit, I wish it was bigger, but the moment I opened it up and thumbed through the pages, I was completely satisified that it was money well spent. This book explores in depth the link between OCD behaviors in Border Collies and the autism spectrum.

I purchased my copy from Border Collies In Action website, and I look forward to the next two books in this series.

If you have Border Collies, read this book. You'll love it, and your Border Collie will benefit greatly because it cannot help but improve your relationship with your dog.