Are You Smarter Than a Border Collie? Hometown Festival

Reader Contribution by Mary carton
Published on June 27, 2011
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Patches continues to play the game who is smarter dog or human and so far the score is 3 to 1 in favor of Border Collie.   She has been getting out at night and waiting for me to let her back in when I leave for work. Border Collie one, human zero.  Actually it could easily be two to zip. After my last story in which I thought her dead, Mom and I trimmed her neck to make better contact with the collar.  She stayed in for a few days and was out again Thursday morning.  That afternoon after work, I tied her up and took off the fence collar and trimmed some more hair from her neck. She has to be tied up when I take the collar off as she knows the collar is to keep her in and she won’t let me put it back on her.

I put her collar back on and turned her loose.  She kept looking and smelling the hair on the ground for several minutes like she was going to cry. The next morning she was still at home and I thought yes, I win that one.  Just as I walked into the lab, my neighbor called and said she was out, but didn’t have time to stop and take her collar off and get her back in.  She must have tried to follow me to work. Miss Priss two, Mary zero.

When I got home from work she still wasn’t around the house. The morning storm had tripped the ground fault outlet, and if the fence is off, Patches is off.  A storm was brewing, so I kept calling her and then fed Blackie and Levi.  After the storm passed she was laying by the back door.  We went through the chaining up routine again, and I changed the battery in her collar and tighten it up just a tad and turned her loose.  I told her the kitchen was closed and gave all three a biscuit before closing down the garage door.  I felt so guilty not feeding her.  The next morning she was at home, and I gave all three a biscuit in order to ease the hunger pains.  While I worked in the yard she hardily let me out of her sight, and at lunch time she started camping out by her food bowl in the barn.  I fed them before leaving to help with the Helen Keller Festival and gave her a little extra. Sunday she was still at home. For now Border Collie three, human one.

Our animals have us trained so well, just think about it.  Even the little hummingbird with a brain the size of a pinhead has us humans trained well.  Those of us who put up feeders have similar stories of empty feeders, and the birds going from window to window looking for us to let us know they want something to eat, and we’ll go and put up a fresh feeder.  Several times I’ve tried to sit out on the screen porch with a cup of coffee reading the morning paper only to have a hummer flying back and forth fussing at me about an empty feeder until I get tired of the noise and put up a clean one. 

 Cats will come and meow at you until they get fed.  Some will only use their litter box once and if not cleaned promptly use the carpet somewhere in the house. Their human owners have learned to make sure that the box is kept clean.

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