Blog

Torrie was the only female from the Max and Little Miss litter that brought us Coal. Angela was determined to keep a female from this cross. Little Miss was getting up in years and another litter wasn’t in the cards so destiny selected Torrie to be our girl or, more specifically, Angela’s girl.  Some dogs are easy to gush over.  For example, we could tell you how brilliant, well-mannered, and impressive Ren is for hours.  Torrie, on the other hand, is a piece of work.  There is awesome and there is “really Torrie?” in the same unassuming package. Torrie is a beautifully put together little girl with little being the optimal word.  Everything fits together in proportion, but she is the smallest Aussie we have ever owned.  It is not uncommon for her to be smaller than “miniatures” we happen to meet.  And, no, she is not a miniature. She simply forgot to grow.

She is also the second toughest Aussie we own at the moment (second only to her brother) when facing an angry bull.  She knows she is the boss when it comes to stock and she moves with her Grandma Gypsy‘s speed and agility.  No field is too big, no chute too small, and no turn to fast for her. She’ll hit both heads and heals and has a good sense of group. But she does love to find any excuse to nip (usually nip and duck) so you may have to remind her to not be annoying. (She argues that the sheep might turn if she didn’t tell them them to keep going.) On the other hand, she is a dream at holding a newly purchased flock in a makeshift pen without a latching gate while you try single-handedly to deworm, vaccinate, and sort them while they are trying to vacate for the great wide open. She also has never been too cold, too wet, or too hot to work stock.  We’ve always paused on the sweltering Arkansas summer days because we or the cattle weren’t up to anymore long before she was flagging. You have to appreciate a dog with work ethic, particularly considering she was usually travelling from Iowa where the summer heat and humidity are much easier to take.
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Torrie is not a social butterfly. She is great around elderly, wheelchairs, walkers, and even stoically accepts strange children that chase her down screeching “doggie!” while we take walks.  (She does give Angela the “please make them go away” face.) But she isn’t a fan of crowds or strange adults and is very much a “one-person” dog.  She is the most unlikely of any of our dogs to take instructions from strangers.  Most of the “really Torrie?” moments arise from combining this distrust of strangers with a strong dose of her Grandma Mischief‘s stubbornness and independence.  She calmly reasons out that most of the world are idiots so why should she listen to them?  That being said, we dabble in agility, rally, and tracking, and I’m convinced she would title in all three if Angela would ever get her to some competitions. (We did make it to one rally competition where Torrie did much better than Angela. Torrie can fortunately read the instructions and tell her left from right while Angela can’t.)

​So what is Torrie like? She combines Mischief’s conformational correctness, stubbornness, independence, and stoic mindset with Gypsy’s speed, agility, brains, work-ethic (on stock particularly), and target-driven approach. She’s also little, slow to warm to strangers, and convinced that squirrels are throwing nut-nukes from above as the first step in their planned apocalypse. Really Torrie?