Subtitle — what can happen when a border collie gets bored. As a youngster, Lilly did not get into typical puppy trouble. She did not chew anything up. She did not have potty accidents in the house. She did not fuss much at all. Instead, she went looking for adventure.
Until we replaced most of it in summer 2006, the fence around our property showed some 30 years of sag. Droopy and bent, low at the top and high at the bottom, it had issues.
Your average dog, like our big boy Ginko, stayed perfectly contained in the fence. So, please don’t think it was that bad. Just not perfect.
Lilly, however, found the fence puzzle far too enticing. She went under. She went over. She even went through, aiming her leaps between the cattle fencing and the barbed wire atop it. Once Ginko (who is part Lab) taught her the joys of water, she even learned to hold her breath, dive in the creek, and swim under the fence.
We stretched new wire. We closed even tiny gaps. We drove posts across the creekbed. But, nothing stopped her.
Then, we started training in agility, and all that ended.
Once Lilly had some regular work to do, she no longer needed to create her own adventures. As amusing as I’m sure they were, she decided that home (and all the places she now got to go) were more fun. Suddenly, mommy was far more interesting.
People often say odd things about what it must be like to live with a high-energy dog. But, the truth is that each day it takes just a few sessions of fetch, just a bit of time asking her to think, and she’s perfectly happy. Granted, it’s an intense, staring contest, move-every-time-Mommy-moves kind of happy, but still happy.
I’m not going to tell you that Lilly never wanders. Winter 06-07, for example, sent so much snow that we essentially had not fence thanks to very tall snow drifts. Or, just a couple months ago, the elk peeled back our fence. Surely, Lilly took advantage of that gaping hole.
But, for the most part, a thinking girl is a girl who stays home.
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