My Gypsy By Cathy Ledbetter
As I sit here staring at the screen trying to work out what to write about, my border collie, Gypsy, comes up and puts her head on my lap. This morning, like every morning for probably a year or more, I wake up and wonder if she is still with us.
Gypsy is fifteen years old and has lived on a ranch nearly her whole life. She has been able to stay in the house but has not been anything close to a lap dog. She has been to the vet several times to have wounds stitched up and be treated for a rattlesnake bite. She disappears and comes back to the house covered in leaves and stickers, and with greenbriar vines trailing behind her. She goes for wades and swims in one pond or another and comes back muddy.
I say “nearly her whole life” because Gypsy started out as my daughter’s dog while she was in college. For most of the first year, my daughter lived in a rented house with a big back yard, so Gypsy ran and ran and ran until she had made a rut around the inside perimeter of the fence. One time she buried a galvanized water pan so thoroughly it took them a while to find it. She chewed up the rungs on a chair. Then my daughter moved into an apartment and discovered that Gypsy was potty- shy— she would not “go” while she was on a leash and someone could see her but would save it for the privacy of the house. So she came to live with me.
One thing about aging is Gypsy does not range as far anymore. She used to go a half mile up the road and chase the feral cats who lived up there. Or she would go a mile in the other direction and visit the man who owned that ranch at the time. Eventually he started calling me to ask if she could spend the night with him and she would sleep on the foot of his bed. He would bring her home on his Gator the next morning. One time she went home with a man from Rising Star who was working on the ranch across the road. She was gone for three days when his daughter thought to check her tags, called the vet to find out who she belonged to, and called me. He brought her back the next Monday morning.
Gypsy does not try to round up cows anymore but she would have you know she is not retired. Several time a day she goes out and thoroughly investigates the ranch headquarters area. And she loves to go out with me to help with whatever I am doing. She gets so excited when we walk to the mailbox that she will bounce the whole way down there like a young dog, until she finds something that needs investigating.
Here she is again, giving me that border collie stare, telling me it is time for me to get up and go get her breakfast and arthritis medicine. If I sit here another few minutes, she will start barking at me. I love my bossy little old lady. Spring-CreekArtsGuild@gmail.com