I have, as many of you have noticed, been knocked off my pins by Red, shocked and challenged and awakened by him. I have always been drawn to the mysticism of animals, and Red is a mythic dog in many ways. The photos don’t create that, they sometimes capture it.

I was a bit in shock losing Rose and Izzy within a few months of one another, and I really had no idea how I might find another dog. I began e-mailing some well-known breeders and friends in the border collie world and I got an e-mail from Karen Thompson of Thompson’s Border Collies reminding me that she had helped me train Rose in Pennsylvania a few years ago. Karen is a person of faith and she told me she had a wonderful dog, a big red dog, who had been taken from Ireland and brought to the United States and had been working as a demonstration dog on her farm. God wanted him to go to me, she said, and this took me aback, but when you know Karen you know this is very real, very genuine.

I think Red is one of those spirit dogs I write about all the time, one of those magical helpers Joseph Campbell wrote that lucky people encounter on the Hero’s Journey. I have been waiting for him, he has been waiting for me, I think. We do compliment and complete one another. This is a dog that can walk by my side through life, in work. He brings me more deeply into the natural world through his herding work, he inspires my photography and writing, he accompanies me on the daily driving that is a part of my life. He goes everywhere, stays by my side, greets everyone gently and lovingly. It is surreal, in that I feel he has been here my whole life, yet he has only been here a week-and-a-half. He will take me places.