On Monday, we hired a paint contractor to come in and paint three rooms for us. These rooms, the front room (living room), dining room, and master bedroom have very high ceilings and if it were not for that, I would be up there painting them. Since I love to paint, I have been painting the rooms in our house, but I’ve saved these rooms for last because I couldn’t figure out how I was going to paint them. The other day Charlie and I tried to set up a way that we could get up to the top of the high wall with a ladder and then both of us looked at it and said “We’ll fall, and if not us, we’ll drop the paint”, so we decided to call a contractor and hire someone just to paint. We’ll buy the paint, etc.
I took Sheila out for a walk this morning. We go to a park that is called “Open Space—Rice Canyon”. There is a small parking lot and then a dirt road that winds down through a canyon. On each side of the “canyon wall” are homes. So as you walk through the canyon you can look up and see the back yard of homes there. I was walking with Sheila one afternoon at 2:00 and looked up and saw a coyote walking along the back fence of one of the homes there. Of course, the first thing I thought was ‘If I had a cat or a small dog, there would be no way that either one would be out in my back yard!’ But, then people still let their cats and small dogs out at night and of course, the coyotes will get them.
None of the houses there have SOLID wood fences which would keep coyotes out if they were high enough. No, they all have to abide by the wonderful Home Owners’ Association (HOA) and so the fences are wrought iron and in the instance I saw, the fence was probably four feet high. Not really a problem for a coyote to jump if he saw a plump little cat or dog on the other side. I’ve lived in California long enough to know that if you let your cat or little dog out at night and it doesn’t come home, chances are, it won’t. The coyotes need to eat too. It is what it is.
When I was out with Sheila this morning, I started really watching her as she walked along. She is a cattle dog. They have darting eyes. They don’t miss any movements. She walks along and looks from side to side, back to her left and back to her right. Always looking. I’ve finally figured it out. She does not like to have anything behind her. She’s a herder. Things have to be in front of her. Charlie and I were trying to get her to stop looking behind her all the time as we walked along.
This morning I realized that she’s working when we go walking. Her charges should never be behind her. They should always be IN FRONT of her so she can see them and keep an eye on them and protect them. She’s responsible for them.
We called her “paranoid” because when she saw someone coming up behind, she would stop and no matter how we tried, she would not move along. When the person got in front, she was fine. The other morning, I was walking with her and a girl was running on the road behind us. Sheila stopped and refused to move. It made the girl nervous, so she stopped. I said “Come on by, she just doesn’t like someone behind her”. After the girl came by, Sheila was fine.
When we got Sheila, she was described as an Australian Cattle Dog by the shelter. We bought a DNA kit from PetSmart for $60. We swabbed her cheeks and sent it in. The report came back that her strongest ancestry was: Border Collie and Australian Shepherd.
The Border Collie part of her is “outgoing, friendly and affectionate with those with whom they are familiar” She is reserved with strangers. She is highly intelligent, very motivated, enjoys working, and becomes neurotic if not given enough to do. She has a very strong herding instinct which she uses to attempt to herd the cats.
The Australian Shepherd part of her is easy going and loves to play. She is a puppy at heart. She is intelligent, eager to please, and seems to sense what is expected of her. She is aggressive sometimes when she wants to “herd” the cats, but she is very gentle with us.
I looked up the Australia Cattle Dog because we had met so many people while we were out with Sheila and they would ask “Is that a Blue Heeler?”, which is an Australian Cattle Dog. We had no idea what a Blue Heeler was. So when we checked, it looked like Sheila was a Blue Heeler. She has dark black heels and I thought that was why they were called Blue Heelers. But, I’ve since read that they call them blue heelers because they nip at the cows heels. So, I don’t know what’s right. I do know that her coat is so black that it has a “blue” appearance in some lights and her heals are “blue”.
Also the description of the Cattle Dog says that they are not the kind of dogs who will lie around in the living room all day with just 15 minutes of exercise. Well, Sheila is a very lazy dog. She is happy to lie around in the living room and anywhere else all day long sleeping and if you try to make her go out into the yard, she will do everything she can to avoid it.
So I take her out each day and we walk for an hour. I’m sure she can’t wait to get home. I let her stop and sniff because it’s her walk too. I can’t remember the last time I went for a walk alone. Now I put my ipod on and off we go. She probably hears sounds that I don’t hear. She’s always looking left to right, over her shoulder............but, I look in the direction that she looks because I know......she sees everything.
More later.......
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