A Dog's Life

Time to introduce Zeus, father to Roma and Juno, reluctant mate to Jorja (more about that later). His pedigree name is Carostar Castaway at Glenspey, and sometimes we wish he had been cast a bit further away than here.
He now lives with my mum and has a wonderful life ruling everyone with a muddy paw.

Zeus is eight in April and was our second Rough Collie and first show dog, and from the start had a mind of his own. The little things we laughed at as a pup came back to haunt us later on.
For instance, he didn't like the shiny floor at the vets and would have to be dragged to the consulting room on the doormat, or carried. Everyone smiled at him being towed along, but what we didn't realise at the time, was that he had decided he was never, ever going to walk on a shiny floor. He used to move through the shiny floored conservatory by leaping on to the chair and jumping down to the mat by the door. Not being completely stupid we did make him walk on the floor if we caught him, but he would then slink along with his belly inches from the floor.

So he grew up and at six months was taken along to his first small show, and as is usual with open shows held in the winter in this country it was held in a sports hall. Of course the floor positively shone it was so shiny and Zeus decided point blank he would rather suffer the consequences than put his snow white paw on that floor. So we carried him in and explained to him that he would be able to move on mats, he just had to walk up and down it twice, so the judge could see how he moved.
With plenty of bribes we got him moving slowly along the floor, then it was time for his class. We went to the end of the line and he inched slowly up the mat till it was his turn to shine. He stood beautifully for the judge to go over him, then we set off down the mat, well actually I set off down the mat Zeus didn't move a muscle. I went back and tried bribes, no way his eyes said, and just to make sure I understood, he slowly fell to the floor. Thank you, said the judge as I picked him up and carried him back to the mat.
There was no rosette for Zeus that day and even now he doesn't like shiny floors, although he did go on to win several rosettes, usually at Summer shows, on grass.