Border Collie is now 13!
I'm sorry. No photos, even though I did take some. I'm too much of a coward to post photos. But I wanted to share my dog's birthday milestone anyway. 
Today, April 25th, she turned 13 years old. It's weird to me that she really is that old. It still feels like I only just got her as a nine week old puppy (despite the physical differences of puppy and senior doggy citizen). This year to celebrate (for my benefit, not hers), I bought a couple types of chewies (rawhide and something resembling a bully stick) from Petco and two new toys (a pink rubber octopus and a green Hol-EE Roller ball). She thought the chews were awesome and had to defend them from one of my cats who also thought they were awesome. As for they toys, she still only sniffs the octopus, but I'm gonna get her playing with that sucker somehow. It took fifteen or twenty minutes for her to decide the Hol-EE Roller ball was an actual ball to play with (but only to catch! She won't fetch it).
I also took some photos of her around the house now that she's all officially 13 and everything. A few of the photos were of her balancing the new pink octopus on her head. I'm pretty sure she thought it was stupid, but she is very patient with the stupid things I ask her to do (anthropomorphizing and all, but it's fun to say). Last year I got her to pose in a cardboard box for her 12th birthday photos.
So, my little (harhar, not really. She's a bigger sized Border Collie) partner in crime is 13. Wow. How time flies!
Today, April 25th, she turned 13 years old. It's weird to me that she really is that old. It still feels like I only just got her as a nine week old puppy (despite the physical differences of puppy and senior doggy citizen). This year to celebrate (for my benefit, not hers), I bought a couple types of chewies (rawhide and something resembling a bully stick) from Petco and two new toys (a pink rubber octopus and a green Hol-EE Roller ball). She thought the chews were awesome and had to defend them from one of my cats who also thought they were awesome. As for they toys, she still only sniffs the octopus, but I'm gonna get her playing with that sucker somehow. It took fifteen or twenty minutes for her to decide the Hol-EE Roller ball was an actual ball to play with (but only to catch! She won't fetch it).
I also took some photos of her around the house now that she's all officially 13 and everything. A few of the photos were of her balancing the new pink octopus on her head. I'm pretty sure she thought it was stupid, but she is very patient with the stupid things I ask her to do (anthropomorphizing and all, but it's fun to say). Last year I got her to pose in a cardboard box for her 12th birthday photos.
So, my little (harhar, not really. She's a bigger sized Border Collie) partner in crime is 13. Wow. How time flies!
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I had a BC named Frisky who lived to about age 14. He originally belonged to my sister. I took him in when she couldn't keep him any longer. Anyhow, here is my story of how I learned he was really a BC. One day, shortly after I had taken him in, we went to the local wildlife park area near my house. We were just entering the park area and I noticed a couple of our neighbors walking toward us on the path with their two very large yellow hunting labs. I wasn't quite sure how Frisky would react to the new dogs. Well, he spotted them, did an immediate drop and crawl, and fixated on them with the "BC eye". He stayed in that position until they were about 10 feet from us. I got him to sit up and explained to the neighbors that Frisky thought the labs were "woolies" (sheep). Meanwhile, I was having a hard time keeping a straight face. I have never laughed so hard at a dog's antics as I did that day. I think he may have originally been a stray from a local ranch. My sister and her family had gotten Frisky from the local shelter several years earlier.
I raise a glass for the good old dogs!
Ironically she has never showed much herding instinct with other dogs. Cars (this took forever to get under control), skateboards, and cats are another matter, though. Oh, and opossums. She herds my cats away from her food dish, and she likes her herd the resident neighborhood opossum around the backyard. The opossum just trundles along like there isn't a psycho Border Collie following his every move. And the several times we've come within a few feet of deer she pays them no attention. As far as sheep go? I never realized I could take her places to go herding until she was ten or eleven, and I kind of figured she was too old (but maybe she isn't...or wasn't?). There is a house not too far from me that has had sheep and/or llamas in the past. I haven't seen them recently, but I think that is because the fence on the field near the road is broken? Anyway, I walked Amy by there a few times when the sheep were nearby and she thought the cars were way more interesting. Granted, the sheep just stood there grazing, so... *shrug*
Again, I apologize for no pictures (I agree, it would be more fun to see them), but I'm a coward about sharing them. And...I don't actually have an account on a site where I could upload them (and I feel odd about doing that for the time being). Just imagine a black and white Border Collie with a wavy coat, split face, and what initially looks like no ears (usually they look like the ears in the first photo of this greyhound: http://www.dogsblog.com/hugo-8/ ). Her ears do go into airplane mode when she's excited. And one ear will go prick if you scratch just the right spot on her chest.
Who knows, maybe someday I'll finally feel comfortable uploading and posting photos. Until then, sorry!
Our old dog Dink lived to 16 maybe your senior dog will too. hehe