Gus adores Red, he follows him around, climbs on him, watches him, showers him with kisses. Red pays almost no attention to Gus, but is invariably patient around him, he is never short-tempered or bullying to him. He just endures Gus patiently. I think Gus wants to be Red when he grows up.
I’m used to seeing my clothes on Maria. Over the years, she has taken socks, nightshirts, T-shirts, jeans, shirts, hats, everything but underwear. And the strange thing is that it all looks good on her. The other day, she wore my big blue summer hat. I’ve come to understand that once Maria “borrows” some of my clothing (she is opposed to asking) it usually drifts away and is never seen again, except on her.
This is a very small price to pay for being married to her, and it sometimes makes for very stylish mixes of clothes, and is good for portraits. I took this one with my new Achromat lens.
I call it Triangle Herding for lack of a better term, the herding purists and snobs will melt down over this, I imagine. The three dogs have embraced this new pattern in the morning, Red on point, Fate off to the left and Gus on the right flank. The sheep seem to be fine with it, but the only dog who really seems to be herding is Red, as usual.
Still, it’s a new way to think of herding, and the idea that a Boston Terrier could participate is appealing. Farmers with BT’s tell me they love to work be out with the animal. Fate mostly loves to run circles around the sheep, Gus stares at them and then eats revolting things on the ground.
Red is his professional, focused and very cool self, if he is bothered by any of this, it never shows. Gus by now has befriended most of the sheep and the are happy to hang out with him. Once in awhile he tries to run alongside Fate or Gus, and he does hold his own.
For a small dog, Gus has plenty of stamina. I’d love to take all three dogs to a herding demonstration and watch the shock and awe. Maybe we can do this at the Open House right after the belly dancing. You may not ever see it elsewhere, and there might be good reasons for that.
Our sheepherding just keeps getting stranger and stranger. This morning, Gus decided to run with the sheep rather than try to herd them. He did well, kept up and ran with them right out of the pasture and into the pole barn. Maybe he is thinking about being a sheep rather than a dog. Nothing would surprise me at this point.
