A limerick a week #147

They’re barking mad! 

It’s not long now before we pick up a new addition to the family, an eight week old Border Collie pup (subject to a vet check, of course). We’ve whittled down a long list of possible names and the favoured one right now is ‘Callie’ (we’re getting a girl) which is short for ‘Bordeaux Callie’.

The ‘Bordeaux’ bit was an afterthought and only included because it’s the sort of play-on-words that amuses me. Firstborn added to it by suggesting ‘Brigitte Bordeaux’, which also amused me, but if I’m calling for a dog across parkland I think ‘Callie’ will suffice.

No! It’s Bordeaux CALLIE😁

I’ve been told that owning a Border Collie will be challenging and I should have gone for a labrador (yawn!), but I’ve known a couple of them in my time and neither was as challenging as is often stated. Mind you, here’s what the YourPureBredDog website says about the breed…

“One of the most intelligent of all breeds, the Border Collie is also one of the most challenging to live with.”

“His superior intellect, combined with his intensity and obsessive zeal for working, are his most impressive features – and also the ones that make him unsuitable for most homes.”

“Without physical and mental stimulation, Border Collies become hyperactive and will drive you up the wall with obsessive and destructive behaviors as they seek creative outlets for their physical and mental energy.”

“High intelligence does mean they learn very quickly – but that includes learning how to do anything they set their minds to. They are master escape artists who can virtually pick the lock on your gate.”

“You must stay one step ahead of this challenging breed, and most households are simply not up to the task.”

“Well”, he says confidently, “we’ll see, won’t we?”. Here’s the limerick:

They said ’twas the ultimate folly,
And asked had he gone off his trolley,
When he let them all know
He was shortly to go
And bring home a young Border Collie!

Postscript 1: Such is the way of the world these days, that I thought that I should Google ‘Bordeaux Callie’ just to make sure the name had no unsavoury connotations. I didn’t find an exact match, but apparently Callie Bordeaux was the name of a character played by Lindsay Wagner in a TV movie from 1981 called ‘Callie & Son’. “No”, I’d never heard of it either. Anyway, it’s good to know that our pup’s name won’t be conflated with that of a courtesan from a French city!

Postscript 2: Although we are buying a pup from a registered breeder, we are doing so only after trying for a young rescue collie. There were some around, but they were either taken very quickly (I missed out on two of them by fractions – I had real chemistry with one of them, Polly) or they were completely off the wall having not been socialised properly and requiring a very experienced owner with lots of land!