Last year, actually around Springtime, we adopted a
“retired” Border Collie. His name is Merck.
Strange name for a dog, I know. Merck! C’m ere, Merck! I know that’s how
it’s spelled, even though it’s Welsh.
Actually Merck is Welsh. He was
born in Wales and that’s what his AKC papers say. Yes, the ole Merck-man is an AKC registered
pure breed dog. We got him by offering
him a home since his retirement.
You see, Border Collies are working dogs. Like
Greyhounds, they are bred primarily to serve humans in order to perform a
specific job. They are very carefully
bred and when you take them home, they come with a family lineage tree that can
go back several, like at least five, generations. Border Collies are bred to herd other animals,
usually sheep, but they are sometimes used to herd small cattle. And, they ain’t
cheap!!! I mean, you will pay a premium for top-o-the-line
Border Collie sheppard dogs.
Think about it, if you are a sheep person, or have cattle or
some other kind of livestock you need to keep a handle on, you gotta have help.
Livestock like this can, and will,
wander about and get into trouble and get injured, or worse. And, if this kind of livestock, etc., is your
livelihood, you simply gotta take good care of it. It’s cash on the hoof. So, you gotta spend money to make money. A well-trained Border Collie is about the best
employee you can hire for this kind of job.
But, you also need to be honest in your research and know
that when a dog is bred for a particular
job, a particular kind of life, it will be genetically hardwired to do
that job. Some breeds have been doing a
particular job for millennia. You can never un-wire that kind of breeding.
Border Collies have to
work. Border Collies have to be extremely active. They want
to do their job. If they are denied
work, they can and will go a bit nuts.
Border Collies are not
aggressive; not at all mean, but they are
athletes. They run, they herd, they
chase. If they can’t do these things,
you will pay for it in furniture and carpeting.
Border Collies are not
city apartment dogs. A couple walks in a
city park will simply not do it.
Now, we come to the meat (as it were) of this part of this
blog. Like all working warriors, they get old.
Because working dogs are hardwired athletes, these fellas are in shape –
their whole lives. If they survive to
adulthood, and are allowed to do what they just
love to do, are well fed and not abused, they will live very long lives for
dogs. But, being dogs, they don’t get
Social Security or 401 K’s.
If you have a reason to acquire these dogs, you are also in
some kind of business that works on the profit
margin, as do all businesses. The
dogs help you make money when they are working, they get old and can’t work, and
they cost you money. I do not want to
seem to be questioning the humanity of these business-persons, or the deep
affection they probably have for their working dogs, but let’s be honest, every
business has to retire workers when
they can no longer fulfill their working contracts. Humans can look after themselves,
domesticated dogs cannot.
In short, that’s how we wound up adopting Merck … or the Merck-man as we call him. He’s an intact
male, or former breeder dog. But, like his
human male counterparts, let’ also be real here, he’s interested but no longer quite has the drive or stamina to
complete the job. So he’ will look and
he will sniff as all dogs do, but he’ll kind do a dog pick-up wink, maybe drop a one-liner,
if nothing comes of that, he’ll just accept it and trot off somewhere. He’s fathered hundreds of Championship pups,
he’s got nothing to prove.
As a household pet, he’s just wonderful. He loves attention, but doesn’t demand it. He needs his daily walk-about, sniff-about, toilette … two three times a day, if
it’s not too hot. We live in a very
wooded place, lots of shadow cover, so his non-removable black fur coat doesn’t
heat him up too much and we carry a water bottle for him. At home, there’s my wife and I, who are way
past retirement age, but still
working as just about every senior has to do these days (who ever gets to
totally retire anymore?) and our adult disabled daughter. A young dog with lots of requirements was just not an option.
Worse than all the obligations of a puppy or youngish dog,
is the just plain energy it takes to
keep up with those obligatory requirements of non-senior dogs. Our last
dog just got really old, became totally dependent and housebound and of course
naturally, his body just gave out. We
had had him for twelve years, from a small ball of puppy love to a 110 pound
blind, deaf, arthritic old guy. He was a
complete member of the family and then he was gone and left a major emptiness
in our lives.
We had grown into a bit of a pack.
…. To be continued …
as “Merck and Craige: Useful
Old Dogs”
dalepeterson.us
Just published “Twelve
Roses for Kathy – A journey out of the darkness of bipolar disorder on a
motorcycle”
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