The Genesis of Dog Number Three

As it turned out, Nik didn’t quite have the uhmm, aptitude for herding sheep. Oh, he could get behind them and bring them back but his idea of getting behind them was to go through them first, scatter them, put them back together and then bring them to me.

I tried, my mentors tried, all to no avail. I had such confidence in him that Louise, one of my mentors, and I even made a bet that he would be able to run an open course by the time he turned ten. I was so wrong. Nik now enjoys life as a pet. A great big, pain in the butt, goofball pet. It was easier for both of us if I retired him before we started. In retrospect, the only thing that gave me any hope with him was the fact that he would lie down and call off sheep.

Somewhere between starting and retiring Nik, Andrea, another of my mentors, mentioned a dog for sale. A two year old “started” dog, named Data.

Let me go back a bit to introduce you to Andrea and Louise. I had met Louise and Andrea at a sheepdog trial in Palmerston, ON. Louise and I became fast friends and to this day, she is still one of my best friends and mentors. Louise has a wonderful bitch named Clare. From the moment I met Clare I knew I wanted a daughter from her. Data was Clare’s brother. Anyway, when Andrea mentioned Data to me, I was adamant that I neither needed nor wanted another dog. After all, I still held hope for Nik. Andrea was adamant that I did need another dog, a real dog. So adamant was she, that Andrea recruited Louise to the cause. Between the two of them, Andrea in her way, and Louise in hers, they convinced me to at least meet Data. It was a five-hour drive to Michigan where Data lived. Barely a year ago, there was no way I would drive an hour to ‘cure’ Spike, and now I was going to drive five hours just to meet a dog, in a pickup truck that I had purchased just for the dogs. My how things had changed for me in just a year.