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Every time you feel in God's creatures something pleasing and attractive, do not let your attention be arrested by them alone, but, passing them by, transfer your thought to God and say: "O my God, if Thy creations are so full of beauty, delight and joy, how infinitely more full of beauty, delight and joy art Thou Thyself, Creator of all!
- Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

You can’t get to joy by making everything perfect. You can only get there by seeing in every imperfection all that’s joy.
-Ann Voscamp

Friday, July 30, 2010

Katie

This is Katie.

Katie's much too busy to have a proper photograph taken.

She's trapped a chipmunk in this "pipe" thingy.

She worked on getting it out for most of the morning.

I think the chipmunk was laughing from a safe vantage point somewhere near his back door.

Katie's a funny dog. More funny neurotic, not so funny hahaha. Watching her dig for this chipmunk was amusing though.

One of the "funny" things about her is that she's afraid of gun shots and fire works, and anything else that sounds remotely like either. Recently she decided that thunder fits in that category. Usually she runs to the house as fast as she can when she hears one of those scary noises. This summer she decided that fire works were actually things to chase, even though she's terrified. That seems strange to me, but it's true. When she's finally finished chasing them, she runs inside and hides in the basement or her bed.
One evening a couple of weeks ago, Katie was asking to go out. It was around 10:30 PM. She ran out the door, hackles up, and started to growl and bark. She ran to the barn and back growling and barking furiously. Just then I heard a sound like something heavy and metal falling or being knocked over (I thought). I told Dan that Katie was really mad at something that was outside. I was sure there was something there that wasn't supposed to be. Dan then thought he heard a gun shot. He decided that whatever it was that was out there had just been shot at by a neighbor. He got on his bicycle to find out what it was, and my sister and 12 yo daughter followed him. The girls started to get a bit scared as they were heading down the neighbor's long driveway because everything was so quiet except for Dan's whistling. As Dan approached their house he called out, "J______! J______ ?!" Just then the other neighbors shot off some more fire works. Needless to say, the trio of curious folks headed to neighbor number one's house quietly turned around and came home. Katie was busy thinking she was chasing the fireworks out of our yard. When they all got back to the house we had a good laugh! But Katie hid in her bed, completely tired out from all her hard work defending us from the big bad fire crackers!

She also chases large birds "out of our yard" as they fly over. The birds are just minding their own business. They certainly don't think they're being chased, but Katie is so pleased with herself when she's "chased" them to the edge of our property. I do feel that the chickens are safe from any large birds who might be hunting them with Katie out there though.

The cool thing about Katie (well, one of them anyway) is that she's never chased any of the chickens. She has occasionally helped us herd them. She's even herded them on her own on occasion. At one point she decided that they shouldn't go onto the drive way, so she would herd them back into the grass whenever they did.
A couple of years ago we had our chickens free ranging and they decided they'd rather lay their eggs in the raspberries than the nest boxes. Once in a while Katie would come to us with an egg in her mouth and gently lay it at our feet. She never broke any, and she would even show us where they were!

Now that's a cool dog! "Funny", yes, but way cool!

3 comments:

  1. I think you might be able to hire Katie out come fall and hawk season. We could station her in our poultry pasture and she could keep the hawks from swooping down and taking one of our chickens for dinner!

    Cute post!

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  2. I love Katie! That is so funny about "chasing them to the property line" while they are flying LOL! I just love the neurotic behavior of Border Collies and Australian Shepherds, I've always owned 1 or 2 of either kind. I think their personalities suit our family wonderfully, although they are definitely not for the inactive person! We have a pup that is half Aussie, half Jack Russell and she seems to have inherited the Jack Russell traits of chasing to kill and digging, but our other dog Marley is 100% Aussie and is wonderful with small animals. Mama Dove has her baby inside my little fenced in garden and lately baby is able to jump on top of the split rail fence and if the little dog is out there Marley will run around the fence like mad until the little baby dove goes back into the garden for safety! Marley used to have chickens at the farm we "rescued" her from (bad farmer) so I feel bad she doesn't have any chickens right now!

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  3. I think Marley is VERY cute! Our next door neighbors have and Aussie. She's awesome, and hasn't ever bothered the chickens. Her owner used to take her to sheep trials in Canada. He passed away about 5 years ago, and I think she's pretty bored now. She's getting kind if old and slow though, so maybe she's content just laying around...

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