My first meeting with Amanda

Amanda came into my life purely by chance.  I had another dog at that time, named Seamus.  Seamus was a wonderful dog, but due to the very long hours I was at the office, became very lonely while I was away.  I had began thinking of getting another dog.  I was talking about this with a coworker named Kathy, when she mentioned that there was a dog in the yard of the house she and her husband just bought.  The dog was a collie, but it was in bad shape.  The previous owner had intended to drop the dog off at the pound, on hearing this Kathy told the owner to leave the dog in the yard, and that she would find the dog a home, or keep her herself.  Kathy asked me if I thought a collie would work for me, telling me she was young, only about a year old.  I didn't see why not.  She told me to drive by her new house and have a look at the dog.   If I liked the dog, I could pick it up the next day.  It was a fine, clear spring day in Knoxville, Tennessee and I resolved to see the dog that day.  After work was finished, I drove over to Kathy's new house and pulled up in front of the yard.  I wondered if I had arrived at the right place, because all I saw was what appeared to be a golden retriever in the yard.  I called the dog over, and realized that was the collie, but her coat was covered in dreadlocks and caked with the orange Tennessee mud.  "Come here, girl!'  I said.  The dog sauntered over to the chain-link fence where I was standing and reared up, plunking her paws on the top of the low fence.  She had the most gently friendly look, as her tail swished back and forth.  I petted the gritty hair on her head, which was thin and narrow and obviously a collie's head.  "You'll do just fine." I told her and made the decision right there to adopt her.  I picked her up the next day and immediately gave her a good bath and a lot of combing and brushing.  Under all the tangles and grit, there was an absolutely beautiful collie.  She was the sweetest, gentlest dog I have ever met or had.   She was a great companion for Seamus.  I've had thirteen years and untold joys with her and I have never regretted it.

Herding Cattle

Amanda had been with me about two years, so she was three years old when two of the most extraordinary days of her and my life occurred.  It was late spring and the temperatures were getting warm during the days.  I lived with my wife in a subdivision of townhouses located out in the country, surrounded by rolling hills of forest and farmlands.  Because there was no yard to speak of, I had taken to walking Amanda several times a day.  While the yards were very small, there was a lot of open areas in the subdivision, composed of great clearings of grassy pasture.   This one sunny morning we set out down the street, Amanda next to me on her lead.  When we got to the open areas, I normally let off-leash to putter around.  This particular morning was different.  Cows.  There were cows everywhere.  I looked south toward the main road  and saw that the farmer's fence had collapsed and the cows were steeping over it and crossing the road into the subdivision and the fresh grass of our open areas.  Amanda was focused on the cows, but was not tugging or barking, so I decided with her gentle nature in mind to let her off the leash.  What followed was nothing short of extraordinary, I have never seen anything like it since either.  Upon getting off the leash, Amanda snapped into almost a robotic mode, with her head down and looking at the ground.  It was queer to watch, until I realized what was going on.  Slowly and calmly, she was waling the perimeter of the heard of cows, but slowly she was tightening the perimeter.  She moved back and forth and back and forth, never running, and no sudden moves.  Slowly, the cows began to congregate together and moved closer to the RV corral, a large fenced in area where the residents could store trailers, RVs and boats without parking them on the street.  Slowly and deliberately Amanda moved the cows closer together and into the corral.  Quite amazing to me.  As far as I know Amanda had never had any training at all, I think this behavior was hard-wired into her.  One could think it was just a fluke, except the next day as we set out on our walk, there were the cows again.  Once again, Amanda very deliberately herded the cows into the RV corral, with not so much as a charge or a bark, but by simply walking around in just the right places.  That evening the farmer fixed the fence and there were never any cattle in our open areas again.

Moving to California

When Amanda was about five, we moved from Knoxville, Tennessee to Burlingame, California - about eight miles south of San Francisco.  My father flew out to help finish packing and loading the big truck.  There was so much stuff that I needed to rent a small trailer for my Mazda pickup and packed both the pickup and the trailer too.  We set off for California a week before Halloween in 1998, Amanda and I in the big truck and my Dad following behind in the Mazda.  I had wondered how Amanda would react to being on the road, but I had nothing to worry about.  She was quite content to sit on bench seat and look out the passenger window at the scenery going by.  She got plenty of breaks, because the truck had a small gas tank and so we had to stop about every 1 1/2 hours for gas.  Amanda has stepped foot in Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and finally California.  She would walk around and do her business, then sit in the truck and look out the window, occasionally napping.  We checked into cheap motels that the AAA book said allowed pets along the way.  Every night was the same for Amanda.  We would check in and feed her.  She would eat her food and drink a lot of water (she got bottled water in a bowl when we were on the road) then plop down and go to sleep.  Dad and I would go out to get some dinner.  We'd let Amanda out when we got back and then she would sleep quietly with us until it was time to set off again the next day.  With her easy going nature, it was easy for her to travel with us.  One particular stop was funny.  We had stopped in a town just outside Amarillo, Texas for gas.  This was mostly one of those gas-station-and-not-much-else kind of interstate towns.  The wind was whipping really hard, to the point it was hard to walk in it.  That part of the country is just very flat with endless grassy plains extending in all directions - nothing to attenuate the wind.  Amanda the wind distinctly annoying, and mostly walked on the side of the truck that shielded her from the wind.  When she did venture out the wind took her coat and blew it exactly ninety degrees perpendicular from normal - it whipped out sideways.  The wind was so string it looked like gravity had shifted.  It was a funny sight, one I will never forget.  We arrived safely in California on Halloween in 1998 and Amanda settled into the Burlingame house that we'd rented.  That was her last cross-country trip, and I think she enjoyed it very much.

We all love you Amanda... rest in peace.