Family: Xenia, Nick, Sofia, Andrew & Nina Meyer
Pet: Cali
Age: Almost 4 years old
Breed: Border Collie
Adoption story: The kids had been begging for a dog for years and because I grew up with a dog that would get too tired on walks, we zeroed in on a more active breed– a border collie. We met Cali when she was a wee pup on a farm in Copperopolis, and as she got bigger, we questioned the idea of getting such an active dog. But she has added a fun dimension to our family and has won over our hearts with her patience, unconditional love, and plentiful quirks.
Likes: Cali loves to be the welcoming committee for our home and likes to give hugs to anyone walking through the door. A border collie hug is a real thing and makes even the toughest day a bit better! She also loves to herd her pack and check in on every member of the family, especially our cat. Cali also loves to hide her bones in our backyard. It’s a dead giveaway that she’s been at some digging when she comes back into the house with a dirty snout. She also thinks balloons and crayons are delicious; we have to hide those two things in our household.
Dislikes: Let’s just say that Cali tolerates being dressed up with flower leis, hats or glasses. However, the postal and delivery workers are complete offenders to the way Cali sees this world. It’s confusing: she’s the welcoming committee but they just walk away every single time. A few more dislikes that disrupt Cali’s worldview of the natural order of things: seeing other dogs on-leash when she’s on-leash, seeing dogs whose ears stick up, and cats out and about, other than our own cat.
Interesting facts: Cali has learned a few dog agility tricks and can clear hurdles that we set up for her in the yard. She is also a working dog and has made it her full on job to protect our persimmon tree from squirrels in the fall as the fruit begins to ripen. She will sit by the tree for hours at a time and heaven forbid a squirrel makes its way to the tree branches– she will alert the entire neighborhood with her barking! We found what we thought was the perfect solution to her barking at the squirrels– a bark collar which buzzes when she barks. The use of that collar lasted a few good weeks, until she figured out how to make another kind of wallow-y grunt that is equally loud but that does not set her collar off.
Anything else: We did not have a fence in our yard yet when Cali first joined our family. She figured out a way to open the side door to the house to let herself out and loved the game of “chase” around the neighborhood in those good ol’ days. We met a lot of neighbors and got to see their backyards thanks to those adventures.