Debbie Meier Posted October 8, 2011 Report Share Posted October 8, 2011 A few months back I saw an ad on craigslist where someone was looking for a working dog, didn't care what breed of working dog, Aussie, ACD, Border Collie or mix, they just wanted something to help with their cows. Just for the heck of it I dropped the poster a note letting them know that I had a border collie available the was looking for a home. He was a dog that wasn't going to cut it as a trial dog and was limited as a ranch dog, more of a farm yard pet. The poster called me back, said that he was interested in looking and wanted to know more about the dogs. I suggested that if he was not busy that he should come down to the Iowa State Fair Cattledog and Sheepdog trials. Long story short, he showed up, spent the entire day totally enthralled with the dogs. Even half jokingly asked Wayne if he could take Jake with him to go load a pot of cows that night. A few weeks later he dropped in to look at the dogs that we had, we showed him the farm yard pet, disclosed him as such and then moved on to our other young dogs also showing him the parents of the pups we have available. He came straight out and told us that he can't spend alot of money, he is just out of college, has moved to the farm where they have cattle and no one in his family has ever bought a dog. Every dog they have ever had was a free dog, but that what they have been given recently shows no desire to work. After looking at dogs I could tell that he had his eye on Nap a 6 month old pup that was just starting to take to training, we were asking more for Nap then he wanted to spend but I went ahead an told him that I would let him have Nap for the price he stated. Rather then purchasing Nap he decided to wait and look at a few more pups that he was told about. About 2 weeks or so later the phone rings, "is Nap still available?". He had spent the time too go look at these other pups and realized that the parents were not really working dogs, they were farm dogs but not working dogs. Over the last few weeks I have recieved little notes here and there, the first not 10 minutes after he picked him up, "don't know what I am going to do with the crazy dog sleeping on the seat of the car", "Boy, Jiggs (renamed), really likes cows". "Jiggs is starting to understand his directions and has a great stop", mind you this person has never trained a working dog before. Here is today's update, but not about Jiggs: "holy crap! just got in, and turned on RFDTV where they were showing sheep dog trials. Pretty sure they were in scotland or something. That dog just ran most of a mile, climbed a mountain, and brought the sheep back. I guess now I have a goal to shoot for" I can't help but wonder if he had scanned past sheep dog trialling in the past but he just didn't see it. Well he sees it now and by gosh I think he gets it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Journey Posted October 8, 2011 Report Share Posted October 8, 2011 Wonderful story, thanks Debbie! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShoresDog Posted October 8, 2011 Report Share Posted October 8, 2011 Nice story, Debbie, sure made me smile! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tea Posted October 8, 2011 Report Share Posted October 8, 2011 Cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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