Happy Birthday Jake!

First of all I want to thank you all so much for your lovely comments on my last, long overdue post💖

Today is Jake's unofficial 14th birthday. 

I don't know if I have ever shared the story of us acquiring Jake. Over 13 years ago one of the members of my dog club posted about a border collie looking for a new home.  This woman's brother had found Jake on a popular dirt biking mountain, hiding under a bush.  I don't know what kind of attempts he made to find Jake's owner, but hopefully he did some.  Since the brother couldn't keep Jake because of the dogs he already had, he ended up giving him to a friend of his sister's, who had one big dog.  Turns out he didn't really work out for her either, she said she wanted him to be an inside dog, and he didn't want to be, and that he kept pooping behind the couch when she did bring him in.  

At this point we just had Calli the yellow Lab, and I was realizing that she really wasn't turning out to be the agility dog that I wanted, so I was on the lookout for another dog, and was considering a border collie or cross.  I had enquired about a border collie at a local rescue and had also brought a border collie cross home from a local shelter, on a trial basis, for a few days.  That one turned out to be a chicken killer, thank goodness wasn't successful, but he tried his darnedest.  So the decision was made to take him back, and I did shed a tear or three when I handed him over.

So then Jake showed up.  We went to see him and it was love at first sight.  I did say though that I had to test him on the chickens.  The woman brought him over a few days later.  I put him on leash, we walked into the chicken field, he showed some interest, I made a negative sound in my throat, he sat by my side.  Winner!!  

And lo and behold, he didn't mind coming in the house at all.  I think he had two accidents in the house in the first few days, and never a one since.

I took him to the vet and asked what age he thought Jake was.  The vet guessed about 10 months, and  a friend I had who worked for animal control guessed 6 months, so I decided to split the difference and call him 8 months old the day he came to stay here, which makes his unofficial birthday August 21st.

He honestly is the best dog.  

His health is still pretty good.  He is fed a raw food diet.  His weight has remained the same over the years.  He has a bit of stiffness, and certainly doesn't have the endurance he used to have, but I'm feeding him Golden Paste, which has amazing anecdotal evidence of being very helpful with the inflammation of arthritis.  He hasn't had any vaccinations in years. No flea treatments, no heart worm (not an issue here anyway, but some vets used to push it), we don't use any chemicals here so his exposure to harmful 'stuff' would be minimal.  Of course genetics also has a huge role to play, and since we know none of that, it's just a crap shoot in that department.

He did have one scary incident a few weeks ago.  Larry got up in the early hours of the morning, and Jake was circling to the right.  To make a long story short, when we got him outside and moving in a straight line, we determined that he had no sight in his left eye.  I'm assuming that was causing the right circling.  We brought him back into the house, and went back to bed, as he seemed okay other than the eyesight.  A few hours later when I got up to feed him, I could tell right away that he was back to normal.  When I tested his eyesight, yes, he was seeing out of that left eye.  Very weird.  I did take him to the vet who tested his eyes and said everything seemed as it should be.  He had no explanation for what happened.  He said the sudden loss of sight could be explained by a detached retina, but they don't just reattach themselves, so that didn't explain why he could suddenly see again.  My first thought was a stroke, although the vet did say they are very rare in dogs.  Maybe it was a small TIA. Hopefully it won't happen again.

So here's some random photos, mostly from the last few years. 

Jake has been the only dog to have his own chair.  I love his eyes in this photo.

He has co-piloted a Land Rover

Posed on rocks by the Okanagan River.  This has been the screen saver on the desktop for a long time

Posed in the snow

 Brought us toys/balls to throw, billions of times

Modelled

Climbed to the tops of mountains

Laid on the lawn

Stood in the water waiting for the ball/toy to be thrown

Won lots of ribbons in agility

And was in the first place position on the podium twice, at the BC/Yukon agility championships, plus several other times in lower placings 

Such a good boy!

Cuddled in a chair with a new toy

 For a short while his doggy family increased.

And he had to unwillingly share his toys with a pesky puppy.  He does not like puppies, but he does like to play with them when they grow up.  He is particularly fond of extra large dogs.

Don't you dare give those scraps to anyone but ME!

Been on an unplanned walkabout when we had to wait for the car to be repaired on a road trip.

Climbed more mountains

It was windy on this one.

Checked out the beaver tree, which fell down this past winter.

Will you please open this gate?

Loved water as a medium to fetch toys out of.

Posed under THE tree down over our driveway from last winter's ice storm.  

Checked for critters hiding in the hollow stump

And these days, he does an awful lot of this.

He has always been an 'enjoy the outside' kind of dog.  He will hang out under the rhododendron bush when it's raining and sometimes has to be convinced it's nicer inside. Once he is in, he seems happy to be there.

💕💕💕 Happy Birthday dear red dog.  💕💕💕