Barney the dog.......Barnabas

His birthday is unknown as he was rescued from the streets of a Missouri town.  He was not willing, I am sure, to be captured.  We adopted him seven years ago December 28th and various people believed he was seven months old at the time.  He was a thin young dog who has grown up to be such a great companion. 

Border collies are known for their black and white coloring, but as you do research you can find many a border collie out there with tan markings.  Genetically there can be a whole litter of black and white puppies and among the litter will be a tan one.  Dog books today are just now showing them as tan or red tan furred animals. The purists who talk about the tan or yellow collies state that the mother usually is a red tan dog to cause the genetics to work for tan dogs.

When we adopted him, the rescue group thought he was part sheltie just because of his coloration.  But as we studied and researched the breed we knew we had a border collie.  Of course the dog books say right away that you should not make them into house dogs.  Too late, he has been in since day one and he goes out and rants and raves at the neighbor's cats to get exercise.  Because of his fears, he at first thought we were going to hit him when we would raise our arm to pet him.  That is over with but he never would go with the frisbee training as he thought we were throwing things at him.  He will play ball in the house but outside he is too distracted to do so.

He still is scared of little girls carrying umbrellas, but he loves his neighbors three little girls.  He will sit down next to the fence and let them pet him for how ever long they want to before they get distracted. He does not like them riding bicycles.

He has his negatives but his positives have really out weighed them.  He is great friends with the little fuzz ball Button and the two of them are quite the pair.  Barney has taught Button how to bark at things outside and so you can see the little guy barking madly, really not knowing what it is that he is doing, but barking because that is what he is suppose to do.

Thanks for stopping by.......