The Care and Life of an Elderly Dog

Before we were even married, my hunt to find a border collie puppy to fulfill my husband's dream of owning one began. Always being big into rescue, my focus was mainly around shelters, rescues and the local animal control. Animal control had my name and request and a couple weeks before Christmas in 1996, they called me saying there was a litter of puppies who they were told were border collie mix. I told John and we drove down to check them out immediately. There were three puppies. Two puppies, a brown and white and a mostly white with black speckles jumped frantically in a 'pick-me, pick-me!' fashion against the gate. The third, a mostly black with white puppy sat near the back of the pen just observing us. John immediately picked the stoic pup because he felt she looked the most intelligent. We were told the next day was the last day for these puppies who were maybe 4-5 wks of age and they would be euthanized. We took Dixie and immediately called John's sister, who also wanted a border collie puppy. We told her we would take whatever puppies she didn't and rehome them. She went down and adopted the flashy white with black spots girl, who she named Alex. Sadly, the brown puppy had died due to a fall from the raised cement pen. We still kick ourselves for not taking all three home right away.

Some may say we saved Dixie's life when we adopted her from the local dog pound but she returned this favor, perhaps twice, in her lifetime.

Dixie was always super protective of children. I could draw a line in our dirt driveway and instruct our children not to ride their bikes past that point and Dixie would keep them behind it by gently herding them. It was fun to watch. We live on a gravel road surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods and very little traffic but a road is a road...

One day when Dixie was just two years old, I let her out to go potty. I was home alone and as I said, we pretty much live in the boonies. She came to the door and scratched so I figured she was done doing her business and opened the door to let her in. She wouldn't come in. She just ran off again. I left her outside with a "silly dog.." comment. She repeated this like four times before I put my shoes on to see where she kept running off to after scratching on the door. She led me to our pond where a speechless three-year-old little boy was standing waist deep holding his hands up in the air while Dixie tried unsuccessfully to 'herd' him out of the water. He simply didn't understand what she was trying to do and she was frantic! I scooped him out and tried to catch my breath. Where on earth did a toddler come from in the middle of the boonies?! I called my mom, who lived next door to see if she had company over who may be missing the boy. No company there. With some hunting, it was discovered he belonged to a couple who were visiting the cabin across the street, a cabin that was only a vacation cabin and not a full time residence. The little boy, Trevor, is now a healthy 17-year-old who often comes up to visit.

Another time, I had fallen asleep after being up a couple nights in a row delivering dairy goat babies. I was pasteurizing milk in a huge pot on the stove. It would take awhile to get all that milk warm so I had a seat in the living-room and fell asleep accidentally. The milk not only got warm, it began to burn. The entire house was black with smoke. Dixie woke me up and pulled me by the pant leg to the door. I got outside with her and after getting my bearings, looked up at the house. You couldn't see in the windows. I knew what I'd done and ran in to turn the stove off. The house was not on fire but it sure made a smokey mess. I opened the windows all the while, Dixie howling with angst that I went back inside. I ran back out to catch my breath as I watched black smoke billowing out the windows. Surely, this smoke would have killed us both had she not woken me up. A couple cars drove by. Nobody even slowed down. The smoke had to have been visible for miles.

Dixie has arthritis in both her hips as well as her shoulders and has dealt with that condition for many years.

We started out giving Dixie triple strength glucosomine, human grade. It helped but in time, it just didn't help her arthritis pain enough so we began giving her two of the triple strength glucosomine tablets every day. It did wonders for her, for a year more. We feared the worst when she had such an extremely hard time getting around due to her pain and stiffness.

We heard about a lady with a great dane who was in so much pain even vet prescribed arthritis medication was not enough for her dog and they almost had her euthanized. The Sam-E, a human grade natural supplement, had her feeling a lot better within just two days.

I rushed out and bought some for Dixie. It was a miracle! Within just two days (just as with the great dane), she was a brand new dog. She didn't walk like a young dog but you could tell she felt like one. Sam-E helps with both pain and mood. She had a spark in her eye again. Another year later and the Sam-E is still a God-send for her. However, the arthritis has still taken a physical toll on her. Her front shoulders jut out in odd ways and, at 16 years of age, her body just doesn't cooperate like it used to. She can still get up on the couch by herself during her good moments and that does our heart good. Not many 16 year old arthritic dogs could say the same!

Aside from a loving companion, Dixie also helped us on our farm.

We raised dairy goats, in which I used to milk and show at licensed ADGA shows. We also had a small herd of cattle. By this time, we also had two full-blooded border collies, a male named Tuff and a female named Zip. Tuff worked the cattle, namely the bull I wouldn't go near, and Zip and Dixie hung out with me and the goats. I had a mult-goat milking stanchion with a ramp going from one pen up onto the stanchion. I put an automatic milking machine on the goats as they ate their grain and then we moved them into a holding pen close by until everyone was milked. Zip learned on her own when the milking machine was done and would signal me excitedly so she could move them off the stanchion into the holding pen. Dixie took it upon herself to hold them in the holding pen so I never even had to close the pen door.

After seeing this evolve, we started playing more herding games. Dixie herded the goats by nipping at the back while Zip and Tuff worked the front ends of the animals. This told us Dixie was not border collie but, in fact, most likely australian shepherd. From her physical characteristics, we suspect she is mixed with labrador retriever. It doesn't really matter, she's gone over and beyond anything we could dream a dog would do for us and she's stolen our hearts forever.