This was the last dog in our family: A Bearded Collie (2003-2016) called 'Lasse'. He was our third Beardie (1st: Joscha (brown-white), he was poisoned
; 2nd: Titus (black-white). Lasse's colour is fawn-white. He was the one that was the most difficult to groom, because his undercoat was so thick, and after a walk with him, you had to pluck out all the sticky things like burrs, foxtails, weed seeds etc. (plus ticks), a sheer delight for the dog and us.
Beardies are herding dogs originally, no hunting instinct, which makes dog walking quite easy (exception: sirens of police and ambulance and such...) and still having the instinct to gather his human flock. He was my soul dog, maybe one day I will have the opportunity to own a dog again ... time will tell.
And now to something completely different: one of the most amazing pigeons I got acquainted with:
I have always been feeding birds. Then some of the so called "city pigeons" also discovered this food source - which gave me a lot of trouble. Anyways: I called this ash-red male "Prettybello" because I could not make a real choice between these two adjectives. He was the only pigeon that ever took food from my hand, from the first time on he landed on my window sill, and I think he must have known human care before. He was a real beauty (maybe a homer mix, if you look at his nose), strong, healthy, a wonderful character. One day, when he and his mate had taken their offspring to my place,the young one must have been attacked by a sparrow hawk (you could see the talon marks on his breast, the young one was in shock, too). Prettybello (not the female!) spent more than an hour to reassure his youngster, summoning him to come up to the roof (and I was relieved when I saw he could fly), always walking around him, never leaving him alone, such a tender parental care. - As I moved to another place some years ago, I don't know about his whereabouts, but he is a highly intelligent bird, and I don't have to worry much. But I miss this remarkable bird.