My Pup's Growing Up

Don’t mind me, I need to gush about my Border Collie puppy for a moment.

I am so proud of this little pup. Pepper worked for the first time last week. She’s a natural. She quickly learned that her instincts are useful for moving cows across the landscape.  While she’s still picking up on the formal commands, she isn’t hesitant to chase down a calf or bark at a pair that paused to graze. 

Pepper was born last June. Last May, during a chat over Coors Banquets with her mom’s owner, the same man who sold me my first horse, I mentioned how Dan and I were passively looking for an unspayed female collie to join our pack. Stash, a collie Dan’s had for four years, is a total stud and a fantastic cow dog. He’s easy to please, quick to learn, a natural herder, and has a great composition. We’ve been hoping to breed him sometime in the near future. 

“Well, you’re welcome to any pup Josie has,” the rancher told us. “And you can have first dibs on any females.”

Josie’s one of his go-to cow dogs. He bred her to a working blue merle Border Collie living on the eastern side of Gunnison. Both dogs have had impressive careers, and these pups were intended to be no different.

I told him I’d love to pick a female out of the litter. Just a few days later, on June 15th, Josie’s pups arrived. There was only one female in the litter of five pups; a beautiful red and white little potato. And she was ours. 

Shortly after her eyes opened, Pepper’s personality opened up, too. She was independent, aloof, a freakin’ boss ass lady who beat up her rowdy brothers and then ditched them to go do her own thing. Between gnawing on rubber balls and splashing all the water out of her bowl, she was a very self-occupied little pup. She made eye contact with you and was alert in your presence. I took these as signs of a great future working dog. 

Left: Pepper when she was a few days old. Right: Pepper at seven weeks with her mom, Josie, in the background.

Pepper still carries these personality traits with her today. She’s perfectly happy to play with a ball on her own, endure a short training session, wrestle with other dogs, or snuggle on the couch with her people. 

When playing at home, she tends to follow our oldest collie, Doc, around. The string goes like this: Rosie, the shepherd mix, runs around with a ball. Stash chases her. Doc chases Stash, Pepper chases Doc, and Red, our fourth collie, chases Pepper. Watching their antics is like observing a game of Snake in my backyard. Rosie is so happy to be chased, and the others are thrilled to be chasing. It’s a fun dynamic. 

From left to right: Red, Pepper, Doc, Stash, and Rosie. The puppy train.

Because this collie string almost always plays in this exact order, we decided to pair Pepper with Doc for her first go at moving cows. And yes, we referred to them as Dr. Pepper.

We adopted Doc from another local ranch last summer. Doc’s a seasoned veteran who only sometimes shows his age; it’s safe to assume he’s around 10 years old. He gets that we’re a team and we’re moving cows in a specific direction and they should all stay in a cohesive herd. Only sometimes is his brain off in Old Dog Land (a beautiful place, I’m sure). 

Pepper’s brain is sometimes in Young Dog Land, a different, more distracting, yet equally beautiful place. On her first day at work, sure, her attention was diverted by a few flushing sparrows and squeaky chipmunks. But, most of the time, she was busy impressing the hell out of me.  

She trotted directly behind my horse. She’d pop out, running after Doc, and run towards cattle in an arching fashion to point them back towards the herd. She came when called almost immediately every time, even if she was broke out in a dead run at a calf. “Pep-per, come!” I’d yell in the tone I always call her back to me at home, and I saw her ears perk up from 100 yards away, her head swivel, and her hind end flip around to sprint back towards me. 

You are doing it, you did it! You can do it! You can do anything! I thought, my heart soaring as her foxlike body burst in and out of the sage.

What a joy. Being on my own horse and watching my puppy work for the first time was priceless. I beamed, thinking this must be at least a little like what it feels like watching your kid ride their bike for the first time. It’s risky, they could get hurt, but the chances of that are low and the odds of building their confidence are much higher.

I can’t wait to watch her work again and again and again.

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As the editor in chief of an upland bird hunting magazine, I hear countless stories about someone’s puppy’s first point, first retrieve, first hunt, first this, first that. I grew up with dogs, yes, so I can relate, sure. It’s awesome when your dog does what you trained it to do willingly. But until watching Pepper herd the other day, I never successfully internalized that a partnership with a working dog is infinitely more rewarding than your family’s Pomeranian learning “sit.” 

I rely on this dog to get a job done, to not injure or harass the herd, to not get herself stomped to death. She has responsibilities she didn’t ask for and can’t comprehend the way a human would. To have a willing, working partner in another species is a profound thing, especially when you were an integral part of that dog’s puppyhood. 

Pepper after her second day at work.

Even more important than a hunter’s bird dog is a range rider’s cow dog. It’s worth remembering that bird hunting is not the freezer-filling activity big game hunting is, and bird hunters, although important to hunting license sales and the broader outdoor community for countless reasons, are recreationists. Their livelihoods don’t depend on the birds they bring home. Legally, they cannot. The days of commercial market hunting for upland birds and waterfowl are over. (However, there is an argument to be made for professional bird hunting guides who do rely on their bird dogs to have successful careers. But that’s a whole ‘nother modern way of profiting off wildlife.)

Look, I really don’t want to bash bird hunters here. I am one, too, and while I don’t have a bird dog (yet), it’s a priority for me in the next few years. To put it simply, I just really love animals. I want to work with animals, be around them, observe them, use them to get tasks done more efficiently, have fun with them. If there’s a way to become more involved with domestic animals and wildlife, I’m all about it, especially when both can be done simultaneously, like when hunting birds. 

But there’s just something about putting in an honest day’s work with your horse and your dog. Ironically, it feels very human.