The Morning Drive

Not to disrespect the daffodil, but now we are TALKING!  I finished this rug, THE MORNING DRIVE when Diane Stoffel was here teaching class a couple of weeks ago.  The photo on top shows my rug, the one below is the original picture, taken by Heather DePra, of my son Will and his dog Pard, moving cattle a few years ago.

You can see Pard pretty well in the rug, he is just to the right off the rider.  You have to look really close in the original photo, Pard is so deep in the grass he is barely visible.

I really should tell you Pardner's story, it is a good one for sure.  Pard is about 15 years old now, but he came into our lives when he was about a year old or younger.  One of Will's Dad's friends called one day and said someone had tied a young border collie to a tree in his yard, left a bag of dog food and had driven away.  This man had dogs, so the person abandoning the young dog must have figured a dog lover would take care of the poor castoff.  Will's Dad took the dog in and of course, the next thing we knew, Will had taken on "Pard" as he called him, as a project.  Pard lived with us for a few years until Will went off on his own and was never anything but the best dog.  He rode everywhere with Will in his truck, and worked his heart out helping Will with his cattle.  Will says the only thing you could fault Pard on was that he had a soft mouth and nature, and would not be as tough on the cattle as some of his counterparts would be.  He was after all a Border Collie, bred to work sheep, probably a little more gently than was required with cattle.

Last year Pard developed a tumor on his leg.  It grew fast and was huge.  I always explain it to be the size of a dead chicken, hanging down so far it almost touched the ground.  Will was trying to wait till the end of fly season to have it removed, cause Pard lives outside at the ranch and Will is gone so much he couldn't just put him in the house and just leave.  So......of course, I volunteered to take care of Pard after his surgery, keep him at my house and let him recover.   Since we know Pard is at least 15 we were a little concerned about how he would make it thru the surgery, but he bounced back like a young dog.  His crate is in the rug store, and he immediately made friends with all the ladies and Blue, the Poodle.  Biscuit, our old lab did not take to him right away, but they tolerate each other now.  After a few weeks of healing, it was probably time for Pard to go back to the ranch, but winter was coming on and he loved his crate in the store and following Carl around the barn here.  And I hated to think of him living the hard life again at his age, even tho the veterinarian here told me he was in incredible shape for an old dog, great heart, teeth, weight etc.  So much for poor Pard, that hard ranch life will keep him alive longer that us softies.

I do have to report that my son Will was wrong about Pard being the perfect dog.  A few months ago, I was racing out of the house and forgot to lock the door on his crate.  I came back 45 minutes later to find every trash can in the store and house dumped over and trash everywhere.  There was no question who the culprit was....Pard had taken the best trash back to his crate with him and was sitting there smiling at me when I returned.  When I mentioned this to Will he said, "Oh, yeah, he does like the trash."  That my friends, is an understatement.

Talk soon,....

Janice