Skye

Preconceptions are troublesome things – as much so with animals as with people. To hold one is to prejudice oneself, binding an idea before it has even been thought of. So it was with me and Skye. When she first entered our care I could feel her appeal writing itself. She is a Shepherd after all and so I assumed anxieties, I presumed cleverness, and I guessed at intensity (some – though certainly not me – may even presuppose seriousness). All the classic Shepherd hallmarks – and yet she has upended them, played with them and subverted them in turn. Skye is a Shepherd but, first and foremost, she is Skye – and I was wrong to mix those two things up.There are a few anxieties, true, but these are fleeting and quickly overcome by the application of my hand to her fur and, subsequently, her tongue to my face. She has cleverness too – but a ditsy, absent-minded kind; she’s the sort who could solve a complex mathematical equation and forget to turn the oven off within the span of a single mom...

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