RYE RESCUES:

A special thanks to Christine Siller, executive director of the Rye Nature Center, for sharing her family’s rescue story.

A special thanks to Christine Siller, executive director of the Rye Nature Center, for sharing her family’s rescue story.

Inviting an Australian cattle dog into your suburban life means that you are willing to exercise as much as the dog requires and up for a battle of the wits. Cattle dogs are a breed of working dog whose energy, athleticism, and intelligence must be contended with on an hourly basis. If you are not the proprietor of a cattle ranch, living with a cattle dog can be a huge undertaking. Think long daily runs, hours in the park waiting for the right mix of dogs to show up so yours can get her herding fix, and a steady investment in chew toys and bones. The author of Proverbs who wrote, “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” must have owned a cattle dog.

My son, Wes, and I adopted our cattle dog, Dixie, last May. We walked into the New Rochelle Humane Society as soon as it opened that morning. Wes had been eager to get another dog since we’d had to put our beloved Lucy, a Border Collie/Husky mix, down six months earlier.

Dixie was the first dog he saw in the shelter that morning, and she and Wes became fast friends. She was the right amount of affection (she climbed on his lap and licked his face) and playfulness (she followed him energetically around the agility course, she retrieved a ball). She was quiet and didn’t incessantly bark at everything that moved (the one nonnegotiable trait I require in a dog). She was super-cute looking with a super-cute name. The only catch? The little index card stating her breed. Recalling my early years with Lucy, I knew it would be a lot of work raising a young working dog again.

Most dog owners in Rye do a tremendous amount of research before they choose a breed, as they should; it’s a huge commitment and picking a pet that doesn’t fit into your lifestyle can make that lifestyle pure hell. I am not like most people in Rye, so I did zero research on cattle dogs. However, we are an active family, so I knew we could keep Dixie well exercised. But occupying an intelligent dog’s mind is harder than throwing a ball for an hour.

Fortunately, I can take Dixie to work with me (at the Rye Nature Center) and though she is not herding livestock, she is occupied by the daily activity and sounds around my office. Though I don’t ever let her run the grounds (it’s a wildlife sanctuary so dogs are not allowed on the trails), she is happy following me around, greeting visitors and, when granted permission, cleaning the preschoolers’ lunch scraps off the floor.

Dixie’s obedience is astounding. I am often asked how I trained her and the answer is that I didn’t. I just thought I had been blessed by the dog gods, but, according to Stanley Coren’s “The Intelligence of Dogs”, cattle dogs come in tenth when ranked by obedience command trainability. Dixie’s just that smart, and that devoted. She follows me so closely I have tripped over her.

When I am having a bad parenting moment, I have let it slip out to my son that the dog listens and obeys better than he does.   

Although she is a lot of work, adopting Dixie for Wes was one of the best decisions I have made as a parent. He loves her with a level of affection only reserved for boys towards their dogs. His awe of and devotion to her cuteness, energy, exuberance for every day, walk, and morsel is a powerful thing to witness, as is his frustration with her after she’s gotten bored and eaten his bike helmet.

Growing up with dogs teaches you so much about how to handle life’s ups and downs, gains and losses, and why putting things away is so important. Shortly after we brought Dixie home, Wes and I both recognized we still missed Lucy and that the loss doesn’t go away easily.  If we didn’t understand it before, we realized then that real love and friendship isn’t easily replaceable or replicable; we also realized that Lucy would have wanted us to enjoy our new dog.  

Having dogs has taught Wes that in life you can only move forward. And I am teaching him that moving on in life is much better and easier if you do it with a dog by your side.

If you are considering opening your home and heart to a pet, I highly recommend visiting the New Rochelle Humane Society, or the SPCA in Briarcliff. There are so many interesting breeds there. Chances are you too will get as lucky as we did and walk out of the shelter with the “world’s greatest dog.”

If you have a rescue story to share, contact at RyeRescues@ gmail.com.