Against the Grain
It wasn’t that long ago that we decided to get Blue. Our beloved cattle dog, Heidi, had died in December after a long life. Sight unseen, we picked Blue out of a lineup of other rescue dogs. She was our chosen because of her goofy smile in the photo. We were cautiously given a series of questions to determine if we were a good match. Blue is a pure bred blue heeler out of a kill shelter in TN. She’d been returned from two adopted families for reasons unbeknownst to me. It didn’t matter to me. I missed having a dog around the house. I wanted a reason to go on walks again.
Bringing a high energy three year old cattle dog into a village home is a lot to ask of such a dog. She’s wired up to chase everything that moves. She gets impatient with the pace of my walks. She’s an athlete who needs to run. Being extremely intelligent, I’ve been bribing her with kibble on her walks to ignore those moving vehicles. She’s been getting better at it but there’s times when she snaps back to her old self and makes a mad jump at a car to see if I’m paying attention.
I recently tried bringing her into some nearby woods. The first day I let her off leash practicing retrieving games. It was splendid watching her true self emerge as she bounded over fallen logs. Inspired by the previous day, I was excited to let her run free. She took off in an instant and I was left alone in a panic. Where did she go? I called my husband to discuss what I should do. After a few minutes, I decided to carry on with my search. My husband called me back a few minutes later saying that she was in the yard. She had found her way home. I was overjoyed that she had made it home.
Life is funny that way for humans as it is for animals. We ask our square peg selves to contort into that round hole. Sometimes it works. Let’s hope it works for Blue and me.
