When Gus arrived, Fate was eclipsed a bit, he was a puppy and cute and lively and he drew my attention as a writing subject and also as a photographic subject. A number of blog readers complained loudly that they weren’t seeing enough of Fate, and I replied grumpily that I didn’t take orders for photos, they came naturally and as a matter of course.

I imagine when the new puppy comes, Fate and Red will both be eclipsed for awhile again, new puppies are irresistible as a dog writer and dog lover.

Fate, evolving as a sweet and loving creature as she matures, is having her 15 minutes of fame again. She is a wonderful dog, full of the joy of life. A border collie trainer visiting the farm this week told me that Fate did not  have the nip and badger instincts of the working border collie, some dogs are just too nice for it, he said, and he said he didn’t think anyone could have trained her to herd sheep the way Red does.

I don’t have any regrets about my decisions about Fate, but it was good to hear. He agreed that it would have been easy to damage the spirit of a dog like Fate, had she been pressed too hard to do something she really can’t do. I guess we’ll never know.

If you want to make Fate squirm with joy and excitement, you can say “sheep” or you can say “let’s go and see Bob at the dump.” She is crazy about Bob at the dump. He returns the favor.

When he sees Fate, he grabs some biscuits from the box on the table where he collects the trash fees and heads for the car. Sometimes he brings her a donut. They talk and love one another for awhile, and then he returns a few minutes later with another biscuit. This is true love, and always a beauty to see.

Bob is one of those good and generous men with a big heart, for people and animals. Since my open  heart surgery, which he heard about somehow, he has never let me carry a garbage can from the car to the trash bin. If I try, whining that I can do it, he simply comes up and take it out of my hand and shakes his head. “No,” he says, “you can’t, not here.”

I’ve never been able to lift a trash can when Bob is on duty, and Fate has never failed to get a biscuit while Bob is on duty.

I am often reminded why I love living in rural American, and why I love my small town. Bob is one of the reasons why. Here, community lives, and it means something.

For a month or so, it’s Fate’s moment again. She will always have a good life, but she will not always be the center of attention.