In the car, Fate is the navigator. She puts her front paws up on the console and studies the road intently, looking for light and movement. She never takes her eyes off the road.Once in awhile, she will lean over and lick Maria or me on the ear or nose, then resume her work.

We just got a dog gate for the rear part of the SUV, we can put her back there on long trips, or when she needs to be left alone.

Fate is very serious about her work, although she plays just as hard.

I love the work ethic of the border collie, Maria says it’s because I am just the same way. So is she. I suppose that’s why we love Fate. When I wrote about getting a dog, someone on Facebook messaged me and warned about an older person getting a border collie. They were on every list of dogs older people shouldn’t get.

I can understand that a border collie may not be a good candidate for an assisted care facility or condo, but that’s the danger of generalizations. Our farm is just right for Fate, and for Red.

That’s the problem with old talk, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We love Fate, she is the perfect dog for us (and Maria is much younger than I am). If anything, she inspires me to move, think, be busy, be active, work hard. She doesn’t drain  me, she makes me younger and healthier.

I do know people who will not buy a sheep or dog once they are 65 or 70, they reason it would be unfair if they died before the animal. I don’t subscribe to that kind of thinking. I know many animals who are very happily re-homed after their owners die, animals are adaptable, just look at all of the successful rescues and adoptions that occur every day.

My neighbor up the road has a border collie he got after his cousin, a dairy farmer, died on his tractor. The dog went right to work in a couple of days on the new farm, the two are like an old married couple. I tend not to listen to people suggesting how I might shrink my life.

We project our own frailty and neuroses onto our animals, we forget how much simpler and healthier they are than us. I will not stop living a life as fully as possible until I have no choice, and I am far from that. Fate has enriched my life, as all of my animals have, and I hope I return the favor. I can’t think of a quicker way to wither than to stop living fully.

Fate and Maria and I are in sync, I admit it is perhaps because all three of us are crazy in similar ways.

I have learned to never do old talk. It isn’t funny, it isn’t usually true, it isn’t healthy.