Maggie Turns One

The fluffy six-week-old border collie that I brought home last December 14 is a year old now. The picture at right shows her before she was officially mine. I wrote the check a few minutes after the picture was taken.

When I got her, I was still mourning my old border collie, Abby, who died a year earlier. Maggie had some big paw-prints to fill. When I went to the Parkers' farm in Bedford to look at puppies, a border collie who looked like Abby bounded to my car and greeted me warmly. I knew then that I had to have a pup from this dog. And I got one.

Maggie was the easiest pup we've ever brought into the house. She was quiet the first night (and for all nights thereafter) and was easy to housebreak. She never chewed up anything that wasn't hers. From the first, she knew she was my dog.

I should have known, since she was the biggest in the litter and had huge feet, that she'd grow up to be a big dog. And she has.

Maggie is a smart—maybe too smart, independent, and take-charge kind of dog. She loves water, be it in bathtubs, creeks, or puddles. We had to add a tub to the kennel so she can soak whenever she wants to. She spends her days in the kennel and her nights in the house, where she is the official guard dog. At night, Maggie and I walk in the dark and savor the silence.

The picture below was taken last month. The look in her eyes is her "guard dog" look—the piercing stare that gives border collies power over lesser creatures.

And to border collies, every other creature is a lesser creature.