Farm Fresh Blog

Other Half and I made a quick trip overnight trip out of town, leaving most of the dogs at the house either in the yard, or in outside kennel runs.

Most, not all:

Too much trouble

Too Precious

While everyone else stayed at home where Son could come by and care for them. Too Much Trouble went to a professional kennel and Too Precious stayed with her grandma!

This is because she is a Little Princess who does not stay in a concrete kennel and loose in a fenced yard was out of the question. Certain members of the family are not only too precious, they are smart and uppity and may be "voted off the island" by other dogs, thus, for her safety and my peace of mind, she went to stay with my mother overnight.

Now Lily knows my mother quite well. My old farm was right next door to my mom's house, and Lily grew up there. 

When she was little, my mom would babysit Lily while I was at work. That, apparently is not enough, for a determined Border Collie who has been abandoned, left in loving hands while her mom goes on an overnighter.  Less than 4 hours later my mother called to report that Lily had escaped three times!

 "Lassie Come Home!"

It would appear that while she was happy to see G'ma and enjoyed her company, Miss Lily firmly believed that a Border Collie's place is with her mom and so Lily headed out in search of me.  Poor Lil was convinced that if she could just get to her OLD home (next door) that she could find me.  There are several reasons why this was a bad idea:

a) I was not there.
b) The new family had removed both doggy doors.
c) The new family had two small children.
d) Small children like Lily. Lily is afraid of small children.
e) If left alone long enough to determine that I was NOT next door, Lily may then decide to hit the road in search of her OTHER home.

One can easily understand why my mother was concerned. Pit one clever Senior Citizen against one clever Border Collie and that must be reality television at its finest. For instance, I would have paid good money to watch this:

My mother has a doggy door so that her own dog can let himself into the yard to pee instead of using the dining room floor. Because Lily grew up with doggy doors, this was an express lane to the back yard and freedom.  Apparently she had sneaked out of the house twice and so my mother decided that she would plug any tiny holes in her back yard to prevent our Canine Einstein from escaping. Lily watched all this from the porch.

Mom then went into the house and watched from the window as Lily inspected each newly plugged gap. Then, much to my mother's dismay, she hoisted her tiny ass over the fence like a gazelle and headed back to her Old House.

Thus it became apparent that unless her outdoor time was supervised, Lily would leave any time she pleased in search of her mom.

This is the same dog who, even if she is already outside, will sit beside the back door waiting for me to go with her before she will "do her business."  While she has none of the annoying destructive separation anxiety issues, Homegirl is most definitely a titty-baby dog who has watched too many Lassie Re-runs. Since she was 6 weeks old, Lily has only spent 2 nights away from me.

Ironically, when I went to retrieve her this morning, although she was happy to see me, she blasted past me to greet Other Half, and then came back inside to play like she had been on vacation and daycare was the most wonderful place in the world. 

Afterwards we went to The Kennel to pick up Oli. As we pulled up an alarm of barking dogs sounded. Lily was quite interested in such chaos and leaped to the front seat to get a better view. Other Half asked her,

"What's THAT, Gator?"

To which Lily replied, "Those are doggies who don't have grandmas!"