See that dog with me below? That was Rosie. I wrote about her in my January 2003 column. We discovered she had cancer when
she was 9, but thanks to two colleagues who are also my friends, Dr. Jim Felts and Dr. Alice Villalobos, Rosie lived three
more years, with a good quality of life until her last days.
Robert M. Miller, DVM
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Except for the first dog my wife and I got as newlyweds, all of our dogs have been Australian shepherds of the same bloodline.
That first dog, Wendy, was a former patient in Arizona. She was an Australian shepherd-English shepherd cross. Both breeds
are misnomers because both are American stock dogs. The Australian shepherd descended from herding dogs in the Basque region,
between France and Spain. They came to California from Australia with Basque herders and shiploads of sheep after the discovery
of gold in the mid-19th century.
In practice, I was always amused by clients who owned Australian shepherds and gave them names like Dingo or Outback. They
were so disappointed to learn the breed originated in the United States.
I remember a visiting Australian colleague being shocked when she asked what kind of dogs I had in my car and I answered,
"Australian shepherds." She indignantly replied, "They're what? There's no such thing!"
The Australians have great stock dogs of their own, such as the kelpie and the Queensland—or blue—heeler. Of course, now we
have kelpies and heelers in the U.S., and Australia finally has Australian shepherds.
Actually, there are only two kinds of stock dogs in the world: border collies and all the rest. The border collie is unquestionably
the most intelligent breed and the best of all stock dogs. But border collies' work ethic is so intense that many of them
are not ideal family dogs. That's why I have Australian shepherds.
After Wendy, I got my first purebred Australian shepherd from a colleague, retired veterinarian Weldon Heard of Roseburg,
Ore. Molly was the best dog I ever owned. Mentally and physically, she was free of faults. Perfect in every way, she lived
to 15, leaving us with two of her pups. Of course, they too passed on long ago. We have a lot of dogs buried in our pasture.
Dr. Heard's dogs, the Flintridge bloodline, are the only dogs we have owned since we got Molly. The more Flintridge in them,
the better they were. Those with less Flintridge breeding were still good dogs, but the great dogs we have owned were those
with the most Flintridge breeding. Thank you, Dr. Heard!
After Rosie died, we drove a thousand miles to replace her with Daisy (pictured above). You can see by this photograph how
similar she looks to her predecessor. Of course, no two dogs are ever alike, and she is quite different from Rosie. Our other
dog, Sugar Bear (we did not name her), visibly mourned Rosie's death. That ended when we brought the new pup home. Daisy filled
the gap in all our hearts.
As a practitioner, I observed many times that although I like most dogs, there isn't one in a thousand that I want in my home.
I have been blessed by having good dogs all of my life.
Editors' note: Read Dr. Miller's January 2003 column about Rosie at
http://www.vetmedpub.com/Rosie.
Robert M. Miller, DVM, is an author and a cartoonist, speaker, and Veterinary Medicine Practitioner Advisory Board member from Thousand Oaks, Calif. His thoughts in "Mind Over Miller" are drawn from 32 years
as a mixed-animal practitioner. Visit his Web site at
http://www.robertmmiller.com/.
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