Take Two, They're Small!

I'm the non-dog person, remember? The one who was persuaded by a TV program on Animal Planet to get a dog, after not having had one for more than 35 years -- after never having had one of my own, that wasn't "the family dog." The one who wandered into a beginning agility class with Miko the WonderDog just to see what it was like and did her best to resist the appeal and the challenge and is still doing her best to keep from getting caught up in the competition end of it all because BT,DT with the horses, and didn't much like the person I was back then.

So yeah, that person. So what happens? We go for a drive on Labor Day weekend (hey, why not?!), with the vague notion of looking at a miniature poodle at a shelter in Santa Rosa. Really, it was just a destination. We wanted to get out of the house for the day. We took Miko; maybe we'd drop in on friends in Guerneville, let him swim in the river. Or maybe we'd go to the beach.

The poodle was a cute little dog, but some other people were there first, and besides he didn't like cats. Oh well. But while Elsa was looking at some other small dogs, one of the shelter workers found out that I did agility with Miko. Weren't Border Collies supposed to be good agility dogs? Yes indeed, said I. "You got a BeeCee?" They did, or anyway a BC/Australian Shepherd mix. Cat friendly, people super-friendly; he and Miko played happily together in the field behind the shelter. And so, although I'd said I didn't want a border collie (too OCD for me! the best thing about Miko is that he isn't a BC!), I went home that day with one in the back of the car.

He was pretty skinny because he'd been in the hospital with kennel cough (and later turned out to be giardia positive -- yikes!), and had really, really bad hair. I expect his coat had been badly matted and maybe full of burrs, so someone took the kitchen shears to him. In the pictures on this page, he's gained nearly 4 lbs (bringing him up to just a little over 40), and while his coat isn't exactly great, it's much better than it was. I'm hoping that in the spring when he sheds out, his summer coat will look shiny and nice.

All we were told about Miko's life before we got him was that he'd been picked up as a stray. He was housebroken and pretty well socialized, so he'd been some(careless)body's dog at some point in his young life. We don't know much about Moxie's past, either, except that it must have been sad. How he came to be in the shelter was like this: One night in July '06, a car was observed driving slowly down a road. It stopped. A door opened. A dog came flying out head over heels, over a fence into a back yard. The door closed, the car sped away. There were witnesses, but no one got the license number. As it happened, the owner of the backyard sometimes fostered dogs for the shelter. She kept her sudden visitor for 2 weeks, during which she learned that he was sweet tempered, affectionate, housebroken, crate-trained, and would sit and lie down on command. Who on earth would literally throw away such a great little dog?

I imagine it was a case of someone being beguiled by a cute little black puppy, and having no idea what an adolescent border collie would be like in an apartment, or house with small yard -- not enough exercise, not enough mental challenge ... Moxie is a handful even now.

He is not the small couch-potato 2nd dog we probably should have gotten. But Miko would probably have made that dog's life miserable. He and Moxie are well matched, size and energy-wise. Try as they might, they can't quite tire each other out, but they do take the edge off till it's time for a training session or a trip to the park.


Come on and throw the freakin ball, wouldja??!!

Moxie hasn't started formal agility training yet, but I take him to the practice field with Miko most weekends and he's gonna be a pistol. He's fast, of course, and focused, and fearless. Best of all, he loves the whole process. His favorite things are the contact obstacles, especially the dogwalk; he'll self-reward by running back and forth over that 6 or 8 times if I let him (not that I always have much choice!) He likes the tunnels too, and even the teeter, which a lot of dogs hate. I think he'll be a good jumper too, though right now he tends to run so fast that he flattens out. We're working on it.