We're for dogs! - don't you just love this phrase? It's part of an advertisement here in Australia for pet care and dog food and, it is enunciated by some deep throated individual who sounds like Grampa Dog telling the world and indeed the next generation about their need to stand up for their rights in the "world of dog" with so many different breeds competing for the attention, food and love from the masses. This is coupled of course with all those other types of animals competing for the same attention from the same people, i.e. those awful cats, breeding rabbits, smelly guinea pigs etc. It is not always a dog's life - man's best friend has to sometimes recoqnise that he cannot be all things to all men although he sure likes to give it a good go!

While pondering on the "dog" and their many attributes, I got to thinking about the respective gifts each dog breed brings to the table . How the labrador because of it's innate intelligence and gentle nature is used as a "seeing eye" dog, the retriever for "retrieving", the beagle with it's highly tuned olfactory sense is used a "drug sniffer" and the list goes on. We used to have a mixed breed dog - combination of Tibetan Terrier and Shitzu - a sweet woolly little number called "Polly" who loved the telephone; and whenever it rang she was always first there barking loudly at it and I swear if she could have picked it up she would have answered it for me. And if,for some reason, I didn't hear the phone ringing she would come and tell me. She really was some smart little girl.

Which brings me to a story about an Australian Kelpie. (an Australian sheep dog) which occurred when my husband was living in Melbourne some 15 years ago. He went to a friend's house where he attended a chldren's birthday party with the average age of the guests being about five. There were about 20 children enjoying this party plus one Kelpie.

As usual the noise outside was high with laughter, screaming and running around - lots of fun being had by all - including by the parents who were inside enjoying the adult version of the party with a little libation and loud talking. Suddenly it became apparent that there was no noise wafting in from outside. Were the children all right? No noise! - were they actually still in the garden? Had they made good their escape over the fence while their parents' attention being focused elsewhere?

As one, all the parents rushed outside to check on their little darlings to find......that the brilliant and bored kelpie had , as was inherent to her breed, rounded up all the children and herded them all into the far corner of the garden where she was waiting patiently for further orders as to what race to push them into or indeed what truck to load them onto.........Well it seems to me that you can take the dog out of the paddock but not the paddock out of the dog!

copyright: a.a.gallagher 2009

Another story my husband told me occurred when he was about 15 years old and helping out on a property called "Kurrajong Park" in Bogan Gate, NSW. Seems that the owner of the property said "saddle up your horse and go bring in that mob of sheep" - that mob of sheep numbering some 500 to 1,000 in total. So John goes off to saddle up George, his horse - while the property owner sends his red Kelpie - Lassie - to start the job.

John, his horse saddled up, rides down to start the job to find that this dog has nearly completed the task! already has all the sheep moved half way up the paddock to a job nearly completed....such brilliant animals!