Sam

Sam is an eight-year old Border Collie who is becoming a grumpy old man. I must admit though, my wife and I are mostly to blame. You see, he's had a very difficult life.

It all started about eight years ago - coincidence. We went to visit my aunt and uncle for a couple of weeks holiday. Actually we went to spend a couple of weeks at their cottage on the Trent River. They were breeders of Border Collies and we knew that they had a litter in residence at the time. However, having a 120-pound German Shepherd/Husky cross named Taz, we were adamant that we were not going home with a puppy!

So, when we got Sam home . . .

Yeah. When we saw him, we just couldn't say no. And it seemed that he took a liking to us as well, even big ol' Taz.

So, it began. You see, his troubles started with the training.

Oh, not his training. He learned very quickly. House training was a breeze. In addition he easily learned to come, sit, stay, lay down, play dead, roll over and shake a paw (the right paw with the command 'shake' and the left paw when asked 'Are you a boy scout?'). The problem, leading to the eight-years of frustration causing him to be a grumpy old man, is the fact that he's smarter than we are, and our training has been a terrible burden on him.

Now I know, you're saying that we shouldn't blame ourselves, but a few weeks ago we discovered the awful truth. My wife had 7 or 8 ladies in visiting. A couple of these ladies, sisters, were friends from her school days and two of the other ladies were their mother and aunt, who are in their eighties. Well within maybe fifteen minute, he had everyone playing with him, crawling around on the floor fetching his toys from under the furniture and throwing them for him to catch or chase.

I feel so ashamed! It's taken eight years for us to be trained to the same level.