The evening of 7/12/06, just after I returned from Berkeley with a rescued intact male dog, I got a phone call from an owner seeking to surrender an intact female Bouvier to Rescue. Not the best news in the world for me , but not unmanageable. I did of course send out e-mail "help me" notices as soon as I got off the phone.
The situation is that the owners, a couple in their late 60s with major health issues, had in November been seeking a large dog to discourage the neighbor's horses from destroying their fencing. (Electrified fence wire would have solved that problem with far greater efficiency and with out adding the responsibility of caring for a dog.) they sawy an ad in the local "Gold Panner" paper "must find good home" for a purebred Bouvier female and a shepherd/Lab mix female, raised together since puppies and good buddies and must remain together" who were "good for keepind deer and gophers away". It turned out that the dogs' owner was a man now in prison (which automatically makes me suspect he might not be the most upstanding citizen, though I suppose he might have been imprisoned for buying pot for a loved friend or parent undergoing chemotherapy) and the advertiser was his girlfriend who considered even tossing a bag of food into the backyard to be more than she was willing to do. Both dogs were badly matted and obese and full of ticks. The adopters may have saved the life of the mixed breed bitch as she was showing partial paralysis of her rear end due to tick paralysis, cured by removal of the infecting ticks.
The mixed breed soon attached herself to the husband and became very bonded to him. The Bouvier showed many signs of especially high intelligence and problem solving , which as some of you realize is very much a two edged sword unless the owner is smarter and more cunning than the dog. The Bouv was described to me as being inclined to completely ignore the "Come" command.
Owners had gotten both dogs vaccinated for DHLP and Rabies and Rattlesnake, the last because they are in a high risk area. Indeed the Bouv got bitten, with no ill consequences , after the first shot but before the second of the two Rattelsnake vaccine doses. But they did NOT get either bitch spayed and claimed they "could not afford" to do so. (However I have provided them with some local low cost spay programs, and it sounds like they now intend to spay the mixed breed dog. I pointed out that whether or not a loose domesticated dog showed up to impregnate her, given where they live, sooner or later a coyote would do so. Also gave them information about pyometria as a major risk for middle-aged and older bitches, and asked if they'd rather pay to spay now when she was healthy or wait until it was an emergency and choose between double or triple cost versus letting her die. They are not bad people ; they are just stuck in the ethos of 50 years ago when few people spayed.)
The precipitating factor for surrendering this bitch was that after the couple's old horse died, they needed a way to keep their grass on their 20 acres under control and they chose to get some sheep. The Bouvier soon showed a determination to get in with the sheep and a great ability to circumvent the fencing to do so. When she got in with the sheep , she would round them up and hold them in a corner of the fence. Never maimed or killed any of them, though given enough unsupervised time with the sheep I would strongly bet that she would eventually start causing serious damage because herding instinct is simply modified predation instinct. Now you have heard the saying that "one man's trash is another man's treasure." Well , given this behavior with sheep , this dog would be a real treasure to anyone who wants to train her for herding properly and who either knows how to train or has a teacher who is a good trainer.
Oh yes, to make my life even less easy, the owners were unable or unwilling to bring the bitch to my home, but expected me to come to theirs, which was going to be difficult to find. Fortunately one of our Bouv club members who lives half an hour from the owners volunteered her home as a meeting place, so that is what we did.
 
The first few days here, Sweet Pea seemed rather depressed. Would not take treats from my hand and was not interested in eating regular food from her dish. When I started stuffing softened food into her mouth she decided it was pleasanter to eat on her own. I took her out for twice a day short walks and training sessions, and thus I found that she actually does know and respond to all the basic commands (at least on leash). She obeys Sit, Down, Come, Stay (at least briefly; I did not try longer periods), and she tends to walk along in heel position without being asked. So someone in the past must have put some serious effort into her training.
Because her owners had indicated she might be coming into heat any day now, and because I also had just taken in an intact male dog, I needed to get one or both altered as soon as possible. The earliest VMTH appointment was two weeks away, but I found out that my vet had decided to offer some rescue discounts. I booked the male immediately, but on exam it turned out that he also had a broken off fang that needed to be extracted and the key technician had to be away that day. So instead we decided to spay the bitch that day. The spay was uneventful and apparently she was not at this time actually in heat (or else my vet kindly chose to let me off the hook for the extra charge she makes for in heat or obese bitches). Getting her spayed was also essential to take advantage of our club Rescue Chair volunteering to foster this girl as soon as she had been altered. (She has an intact male at home and does not have separate facilities suitable for separating an estrus bitch from a lustful male.)
A few days after the spay , Sweet Pea was picked up by our Rescue Chair. The arrival of visitors was just what was needed to break her out of the lethargy she had displayed up until then. I am hoping that being fostered in a home where there are 4 humans and only 3 dogs will be more stimulating and rewarding to her than was my home with 7 dogs and only 1 human. Carol is thinking of changing her name to "Phoebe" .
 
(As an aside and as proof of the saying that "no good deed goes unpunished", I have heard that some members of the BCNC Board are annoyed that I was so quick to get this bitch spayed instead of trying to find out who her breeder might be and give the breeder oppertunity to take her back. Now given that the only person in positition to suppy information as to who the breeder might be is in prison and given that the bitch did not come with any kind of registration papers, pedigree, or origninal puppy sales contract, and given that she was not tattooed or microchipped, I really do not see how I was supposed to find the breeder. Nor can I see any legitimate reason for the breeder to want her back unspayed rather than spayed, for without proof of her identity via tattoo, microchip, noseprint, or DNA, it would be impossible for the breeder to show her or to breed her legitimately. (For all performance events, altered dogs are just as eligible as intact ones to compete, and often are at a performance advantage.) But to me the deciding factor would always be that in Rescue we have a committment to altering ALL rescued dogs before they are placed so that we do not have to deal with further generations of dogs needing to be rescued.)

 
If you are interested in meeting this cute and intelligent bitch, who is medium size, cropped and docked, gets along well with other dogs, and has great potential for herding, you should contact BCNC Rescue Chairperson, Carol McElheny at (916) 686-5650 home, (916) 875-6673 work, or cell phone (916) 591-6560 or e-mail her at < rngrs16n21@comcast.net >