It finally happened – Echo finally when in to heat so the logistics were put in to play last week. If all goes well we should have puppies by Thanksgiving. Friday morning I got up and headed to Pacifica. After an uneventfully long trip down there we arrived around 6pm. Linda has a few call ducks at her place so we put Echo on ducks for the first time. She did great and Linda said she should have kept her!
Saturday morning we were up and headed out to work goats and sheep with Echo’s first rendezvous with Piper scheduled for mid-day.
Linda worked Echo’s mother, Lacey,
and Grandmother, Minka.
They both did great and were a pleasure to watch. Lacey is 11 and Minka is 15;
Minka would have worked all day even though her body was not moving as good as it used to.
I was very proud at how well Echo worked
and Linda says she is just like her brother Cody.
We met up with Piper and his mom in Half Moon Bay. Piper is a very handsome, small, very black bi-black sheltie and Echo liked him. Their first meeting went very well; two more to go.
Linda took me to this GREAT BBQ place in Pacifica for lunch. I got a pulled pork sandwich with Mac and Cheese as my side. The sandwich was HUGE and could have easily been split between two people but I ate the whole thing; it was SO good! We spent a wonderful afternoon watching herding and puppy videos. For dinner they went and got pizza and it was wonderful. I could be very happy in Pacifica if it was not for San Francisco traffic and earthquakes. Linda and her family were amazing hosts and made me and my blue girls feel very welcome.
I decided to save my vacation days for when the puppies are here and left for home Sunday morning with just Kant. It was so hard to leave without Echo.
We had another uneventful, long trip home and I only cried most of the way. I know it is just a very short week in her long life but I miss that little blue girl. I did not leave until we had made plans on when and where to meet to get Echo.
Last week on Tuesday I met with the couple that wanted to adopt Whisper, because Anne was on the East Coast. I had been fostering Whisper for the past few weeks. They drove up from Medford and spent a lot of time with Whisper and seemed like the perfect people for the shy BC. But I had my first foster dog adoption failure. I got an e-mail from them on Friday, yes just 3 days after having this dog that both Anne and I told them would take weeks if not months of work to get her comfortable in a new home, wanting to know when I would be go by their way so they knew how much time they had to decide if they were going to keep her. I tried to talk them in to keep her for at least a week before making that decision but that did not work. I got a call from them on Sunday that they were desperate for me to pick her up. So I did! I am not sure what their expectations were but they did not even give Whisper a chance to settle in; it took her at least a week to leave her “safe” place under my dining room table. I was happy to pick her up. We stopped in Rice Hill for ice cream and I did not know if Whisper would be relaxed enough to eat it or if she would even like so I got her and Kant a single scoop in a dish with an extra dish. I split it between the two and gave Whisper hers first, it was almost gone before I got around the van to give Kant hers, I guess she liked it! As soon as we got back to the house and let her outside she got the zoomies, my iPhone was in the van and by the time I got it and got in the backyard she was done. A little while later I saw her start up again and this time Kant was playing with her and I was able to catch it on video.
When I picked Whisper up the person that met me said she did not know how Whisper would ever get adopted as I was walking away. I left her question unanswered but thought about it on the way home. It is very easy to answer – Anne has been doing this for years with an amazing number of dogs each year if she did not think Whisper was ready to be adopted she would not have put her on the website and I trust Anne’s judgment 200%. Whisper is super sweet, funny, and is not a fear biter; she is quiet, gets along great with other dogs, and has never had an accident in my house. Yes she is very shy of new people and situations, does not like loud noises or thunder, and will probably never be an agility dog or do anything else that requires formal training but she walks great on a leash, is running loose on a long line at the dog park, and is a GREAT house dog. So yes she is adoptable to the right house and theirs was not it but the right one is out there and Whisper will find it. Check out the Pacific Northwest Border Collie rescue to see more about Whisper and other wonderful BCs looking for forever homes -
Thank you Anne for doing such a great job with a not great situation, you are a saint!
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