Various Visits

Well, yesterday was a slow day, and no progress finding Tater's owner, but we did get a chance to visit various places. Here, for example, is Tater lying down on the job at the local Petco, where I finally caved in and bought him a collar. In fact, he is wearing his new collar here. That blue floor is what they have in the fish department.

I've been trying to resist the temptation to re-home him into our house by small steps, but it's hard to avoid. Since we didn't have any records on him, for example, I went ahead and had the vet give him a full set of vaccines. No problem there, except now there's this rabies tag, and where does that hang? Yup, on the collar he didn't come with.

More and more Tater is following the lead of Trevor and Faith and following them around the house to stay with the group. He no longer seems interested in hanging out by himself downstairs. As he grows more confident, a few mildly obsessive behaviors are emerging: chasing his tail for ten minutes at a stretch or orbiting the dining room table.

After Petco, my son and I went out to dinner. This particular restaurant won't allow a dog in their outdoor section (some restaurants around here do), but we were able to get the table closest to a convenient nearby railing. Sorry for the (very) poor photo quality. The moral of this story is that the digital zoom on the LG G2X cell phone stinks.

We did learn in the course of this little experiment that Tater will obey commands from a fair distance away. People who "work" Border Collies presumably take that for granted as something you would teach a dog, but I don't have the sense that this guy has ever been worked, and it's unusual for other dogs to be trained that way. One or two of mine have been over the years, but it's a surprise in a rescue. He's clearly been taught "sit" (which he confuses for "down"), and "come", but not "paw" or "heel".

I'm also starting to get calls of the form "I don't know who he is, but if you don't find the owner and you don't keep him I would like to adopt him." I'm telling people that if we don't take him in he's going into Border Collie rescue (because they are equipped to evaluate and place him), but I'll be happy to pass along their contact info. Amazing how many people lose interest all of a sudden when they hear that.

I've also had to explain to a few people that BC and Aussie mixes usually don't have the same behavior patterns as the pure-breds. Trevor (BC/Spaniel), for example, has no herding drive, though he was prone to tear around our house in Maryland at top speed as a younger dog.

Speaking of herding drive, I can't remember whether I have passed along that we found Tater's herding focus: blueberry muffins. Given a look at a blueberry muffin, his strategy is to laser-stare it down and think herding thoughts at it until it holds still, and then pounce. So far he's managed to maintain focus for almost three whole seconds before the muffin disappeared on him. The nearest he wants to get to a sheep is to see one on television from the reassuring comfort and safety of his couch.