My sister chose an Australian Cattle Dog - Kelpie cross out of a puppy mill when she was 10. Cinder was skittish and deathly afraid of boots. She hated my father, who fed her every day, and barked at him whenever he was standing. She would let him scratch her ears when he was seated. My father was her designated enemy; by the time my sister was 28 Cinder stopped growling at him when he fed her heart pills.

Cinder would leap fences as if they weren't there. There was probably two feet of air between her and a 5' fence. Cinder enjoyed leaving about 4am and going to see how many papers she could find. She would bring them back with her. For about a two month period our back yard usually had five or six of the day's newspapers scattered about. Normal families would chain up a dog like this. We were not normal.

We got another dog. Half Australian Shepherd, half St. Bernard. When we got him his name was Walter; for reasons unknown to me we changed it to Boris. Boris started out as a good dog. Cinder fixed that. She liked to coax Boris out to steal newspapers with her. My father electrified the fence so that Boris couldn't jump it. This discouraged Cinder from going out on her own. But the electric fence would often break down and the dogs would go on walkabout.

Cinder never bit anyone. She would convince Boris to do it. He was a generally-nice dog but when she barked, he barked. People would ask "what a lovely dog - does he bite?" and we'd have to say "technically, yes." "Anyone?" "mostly old ladies and small children." "...badly?" "one lady needed 28 stitches." To this day I do not understand why animal control didn't make us put the pair of them down.

Cinder loved my sister unconditionally, and hated my father (when he was standing) with an untempered passion borne of unknown traumas. Both of them could respond to commands. Boris, when alone, would gleefully sit, heel, beg, you name it. Cinder would do it for treats. No treats? No come. So if Boris was with Cinder, he wouldn't respond to commands without treats either.

She's the only Australian Cattle Dog I've ever known. She definitely had brains. However, she had no honor. Nelson Bolt will probably be a great dog so long as you internalize that he's looking out for number one.