Tippy, the Amazing Dog

Tippy, our 2 1/2 year-old Australian Shepherd/Lab mix, has been a wonderful dog from the beginning. She's really just a couch potato, but has also assigned herself the responsibility of official visitor greeter, intruder watch-dog and cat herder. Mostly, though she just wants to be wherever the people are. And if there is food being prepared in the kitchen, she stations herself strategically, cleaning up accidental spills. She's a delight and we love her intensely.

This past week we had some of my family visiting from out of state. My neice especially loved to visit the chicks in our spare room and would go upstairs multiple times a day to "say hi" to the chicks. With all of these visits, we had been checking on the chicks more often than usual. While preparing dinner one evening, I could hear Tippy loudly snuffing and whining upstairs (atypical behavior for her, especially since I was preparing food in the kitchen). I thought perhaps something was wrong with Erica's rabbit, James and asked Jim (HE) to go upstairs and see what was up with Tippy. James was fine, but one of the chicks had died. We were, of course, sad to lose a chick, but delighted to find that our dog had assigned herself another role--chick protector (through a closed door, no less)! I have no doubt that she will attempt to herd them once we get them out to the coop and free-ranging. At the very least, I'm sure she will be on alert for chicken predators. She's an amazing dog!