How I got into this whole sheepdog thing

It started with my coworker, S. She said, "paige, hey, so I went sheepherding with my dog" and I couldn't believe it! In Orange County, no less. She had seen it on "The Dog Whisperer". She said I should take LT and I did. LT ... well, I thought she was amazing. Now I know it was just a bunch of chasing--but still. LT has a ton of prey drive. So I took lessons for a little while at one place and then I realized that I wasn't actually learning anything. I looked around and found my current trainer. We worked together for awhile and LT had tons of prey drive but not so much "listen to mom" drive and when we put rules on the game, she didn't want to play.

I cried.

But I was hooked. This was something that suited me and I really enjoyed it. If I can't have a horse, this is the next best thing.

So I made up my mind and kept my eye out for a border collie--casually, of course.

And Soda fell in my lap.

Let me just say, all the years I've been at the shelter and we've had like, 3 possibly purebred border collies. One only had one eye and that was many years ago, and one was a complete spaz and then there was Soda. Relinquished by her owner and she came at just the right time.

I took her out to my trainers to see if she would be interested in sheep at all and at first she just stood there. I just stood there, in the deep mud and drizzle and waited. And waited. And she was scared of the sheep. Then my trainer brought in one of her dogs to let Soda watch and I will never forget this for the rest of my life:

Soda's eyes lit up, and I read her mind. It was "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU COULD DO THAT!" and that was all it took. She wasn't the keenest dog in the world but she definitely thought it was fun. She barked and ran around and put all the sheep in a corner and barked and then she circled them with her tail down and I thought "okay--we'll give this a go".

I had to move out of my situation and change a lot of things but it's been an awesome series of "oh, hey!".