Sheepdogs

This is at another farm I sometimes take care of, people from the UK who like to play quaint farm house like those reality TV shows they like over there ("This Farming Life", etc). They started with the dogs as a hobby, the guy likes doing sheep dog trials with the smart ones - Jenny was the smartest, but she is gone now. Died suddenly of cancer, like Nell - in many ways. Jenny was a model, she is the dog on some brand of shampoo somewhere - she was beautiful as well as wicked smart. Too smart for a lot of people to handle, she would defy you if she thought she could. She would push every red line boundary, set a paw over it to gauge reaction - but she would listen to me and only tease a little about coming inside when called.

As you can see, these guys are pretty hardheaded, but I let them know what they can get away with and so we get along fine. Wren is the youngest one, she still acts like a bratty puppy sometimes because she is the baby of the family - personally, I know she is just too smart for her own good and "exploits the system" by working her real family over - I don't let her get away with that shit, so she pouts sometimes because I won't play her games. Either drop the toy so I can throw it, or quit asking me to play (occasionally I'll try to out-fox her and slam my boot down on the frisbee before she can snatch it away again in her game of "fake out" - ha, foiled your little "plan" didn't I?? - only when I can do this in one fluid motion with little effort: if you are going to try this you better not miss, because every time you do they get better).

Moss is the only one who will play frisbee politely for a while (Nell would faithfully bring the frisbee back to me all day long if I would throw it for her, not every dog will do that to exhaustion - you'd have to stop her eventually because she would keep going and tire herself out). Moss was imported from Wales as a puppy (his brother, Emmett, came with him - he lives at Heather's) - $$$$ to do that, I was terrified of losing him and being responsible for letting such an expensive puppy get killed in the road or whatever - luckily he made it to adulthood and he doesn't fit out under the gate anymore. He is the sweetest and smartest and most polite of the Lucas dogs. I tell them Emmett is a nice dog, but they definitely got the sweeter (better, all around) dog - I told them if they ever breed him to someone, I'd like a puppy from him because he is my kind of dog. You can see what a good boy he is by his eyes, even if he is giving me a hard time near the end 😂