"The Tail of Two Border Collie Sisters - as told to Mom and Dad ...

A note from Dave and Sarah



Bella and Fiona are full blooded Border Collie puppies. They were born on July 4, 2009 in Modesto, California and given up for adoption to the Stanislaus County Animal Shelter.

Sarah and I made the difficult decision to put our beloved companion Sydney whom we raised and loved for the past fourteen years to sleep in May of this year (2009). A special thanks and mention goes out to the Mono Way Veterinary Hospital in Sonora, California for the care and compassion shown Sydney while facilitating his death as they did his life .... with dignity and professionalism.

Sydney was an Austalian Cattle dog mix also rescued from a shelter in Monterey County, California so many years ago.

We thought for some unknown reason that we could live "dogless" for awhile - that lasted five months when we realized that despite how full and seemingly complete our lives are, the space in our world vacated by Sydney left a void that we felt painfully on a daily basis ...
Little did we know.

While our intention was not to replace Sydney's personality (an impossible task), we decided to give another dog a chance at life it might never have .. when we saw these two little princesses at the animal shelter, we knew we had to adopt both so these littermates could share their lives and ours together.

Border Collies are highly intelligent and believed by many to be "the world's smartest breed of dog". Border Collies also only have two speeds - Sleeping and 80 miles per hour... (in between they learn foreign languages, table manners, calculus and logarithims, study American history and eat volumns of food to maintain energy levels.)

Members of the "herding class" of dogs, Border Collies are difficult at best for those without suffient time and space to devote to them.

We have included on this blog some links to Border Collie web pages for you to check our before you decide to rescue or purchase one of these magnificent animals.

Bella and Fiona will post here throughout their lives as time permits - we hope in this way to inform the gentle reader about Border Collies and in some small way allow our "girls" to return some of that in bred intellegence to all of us..

Please enjoy and should you have any questions about Bella and Fiona, or Border Collies in general, please drop us an email.

Be well -

Dave and Sarah
stefanies_dad@yahoo.com - stefanies_mom@yahoo.com

Thursday, November 5, 2009

"No No Bad Dog" game ...


Fiona here -

Mom and dad got home from work late and the "new kennel" we've been promised still isn't here yet.. Mom and Dad have given us the guest bathroom to stay in when they are at work but we're getting pretty tired of the four walls - so tired in fact that we've decided to chew on one of them to make a little more room.. Dad got pretty mad. We don't understand why we have to stay in this room during the day - we have plenty of food and water, we have toys and a nice bed to lay down on in here and we even go pottie in the bath tub (remember that those of you who want to visit and stay in the main house!!).

We think we should be able to roam the whole house - Mom and Dad both said "Don't think so!" when we suggested it.

So ..... Bella came up with the idea that tonight we would play a game!! We would wait for mom and dad to get home and then see who could get them to say "No! No Bad Dog!" the most.

We knew they were coming 'cause we can hear the Subaru coming down the gravel road and driveway in front of the big house. Mom came into the house first and Dad stayed outside taking off his boots. We timed our run for the door so that when Mom let us out we both ran out the front door and Bella grabbed one of Dad's boots running off into 'Sarah Wood' with it. Dad yelled "No No Bad Dog" - Bella -1 ... Fiona - 0.

On my way out the door I stopped to squat ("No No Bad Dog") and picked up one point from Mom.. Bella - 1 ... Fiona - 1.

Me and Bella ran and ran and ran around the front garden. We messed up the flowers and grape vines real good!! We even got two "No No Bad Dog's" from Mom and Dad. Bella - 2 ... Fiona - 2.

<<-- Here is a picture of the front yard we got to mess up! It was so much fun watching Mom try to sweep up the bark. It's even more fun listening to Dad say "Drop it!" when we grabbed his second boot and headed up the driveway with it. Dad ran after us - he is hilarious when he runs.. the harder he tried to catch us, the faster we ran. We got one "No No Bad Dog" outa him for this - We shared the point. Bella - 2.5 ... Fiona - 2.5 .

Mom said "House" a few times - now we know what this means but we didn't want to go in - we got Mom to say it a few more times and then we ran inside. Bella's feet were muddy so she hooked a left coming in the entryway and ran across Mom's white wool Karastan dining room carpet.. "No No Bad Dog!!" - Bella - 3.5 ... Fiona 2.5 .

Mom headed off to the shower and grumpy Dad tossed a cassorole into the microwave for dinner - while he was doing that I managed a pee in the kitchen ("No No Bad Dog!!") and then walked in it to the dining room ("No No Bad Dog!!") - remember that white carpet..?
Bella - 3.5 ... Fiona 4.5

By the time Mom got outa the shower Bella and I had managed to rack up another four points each.. Dad said it was the 'ruffest' evening yet with us.
We'll be good tomorrow ....

~ fiona

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Yosemite, California, United States
Just an ordinary guy in an abnormal world ..