Collies | Merilang Press Books, Snowdonia, Collies and Poetry

Collies

A few pictures that my Web developer added.  We share a love of these wonderful dogs.

Here are the three present incumbents with their stories. Others will follow on separate pages.

Jess, at her photogenic best, expecting a walk.

This is Jess. She came to me when she was eight months old.

Her owners adored her but had several small toddler grandchildren and Jess was afraid of them and they thought she might snap at them from sheer fright. So they let her come and live with me for her own sake.

Dyfi

From the farm by the lake he came

in a secret cloud of shame.

The farmer did not say

just why he could not stay,

but chasing sheep unbidden

is utterly forbidden

Dyfi arrived unasked for. I only went into the post office to collect my pension and was met by,

‘Do you re-home dogs?’

‘No, I do home visits sometimes for the RSPCA but I don’t actually rehome them.’

The post master produced a slip of paper.

‘Well, you see, there’s this farmer and he’s got a dog he doesn’t want to keep. Doesn’t want to have it put down so  . . . . . ‘

In a soft moment I said I’d go and see it. Nice dog, didn’t fight mine. So I reckoned I could house train him and find him a home.

Dyfi looking ready for anything

On arrival at Bodyfuddau I tied him by a rope to the shed where my neighbour’s dogs used to live when they came on their holidays. ands set about unloading shopping. I had barely removed one bag from the van when he had chewed through the rope and was chasing sheep from end to end of the nearest field. It took me 2 hours to catch him and that only by wading into the river.

Obviously I couldn’t pass him on to anyone without the skills to retrain him so he is still here. It took nearly two years to teach him to leqavemy pet sheep,alone but he now comes off the lead to supervise their winter breakfasts. This is quite useful as he keeps them away while I put out their mueski; one of them, Felix, liked to stamp on my heels while I was doing that.

But I can’t trust him with other people’s sheep so he wears a muzzle to go down the lane. He doesn’t mind and comes to put his nose into the muzzle.

Silver

We don’t know all her history but know that one farmer acquired her and was going to sell her but had no takers so left her in  a barn for four months. Then his son, also a farmern offered to take her. He took her to a dog rescue centre and said, ‘She’s no good. Please find her a home.’

Actually he misjudged her as if she gets among sheep, she quietly rounds them up to the middle of the field and then comes back satisfied. I wish she would explain things to Dyfi.

BACK TO MERILANG BOOKSHOP

and to see the other collies find their pages at the bottom of the list to the right.

Silver just after her arrival from Dog Rescue.

via merilang.com