Ms. Pearl, Half a Retriever, Goes All The Way

Ms. Pearl is half Labrador retriever and half Australian shepherd, which means she has excellent retrieving abilities and spends much of her time, when there are guests, shepherding them, imploring everyone to please, please stick together.

Besides retrieving birds, she also retrieves her collar. Every evening before bedtime Tom removes the collar and gives M.P. a highly appreciated neck rub with many doggy groans of pleasure. He tosses the collar to the floor of the upstairs bedroom where it rests until I step on it in the dark and move it out of the way.

In the morning, we used to say, "Go get your collar," and off she would go, up the stairs, to find it. Nowadays, all Tom has to do is brush his own neck and Ms. P remembers what that means, usually, and goes up the stairs to do her retrieving thing.

And she tosses it to Tom.

Wild Eyed

The collar is lovingly placed upon her long Australian Shepherd neck. There are pets and many compliments.

Then there is some roughhousing and a treat.

Sometimes Ms. Pearl doesn't want to climb the stairs to get her collar, and stalls, rolling on the floor, groaning, sitting at the bottom of the stairs and not moving.

But she eventually realizes the collar is upstairs and it's the ticket for Going Outside.

Where FUN and EXPLORING await.

Pin It