If you are a newspaper editor and looking for a dog, I wouldn’t advise an Australian Shepherd.
You get pushed and pulled in the newsroom all day and come home at night to a really professional herder who thinks head games are fun.
If you are feeling a little ragged, as I sometimes am after 39 years of newspaper life, maybe you should go for a less intense Lab or Golden Retriever.
Cooper moved in here 7 years ago from the Eastside Animal Shelter. Actually, they called him an “Aussie X,” so I’m not entirely sure of his pedigree. The shelter didn’t look very homey, but I got the feeling that he might have had a tech or two wrapped around his paw there. Maybe it’s the X part that that gets me.
Out here at dreamranch, he’s still trying to convince me that shading up is the better part of hiking and that playing with the neighbor’s dog, in her toy-filled, grassy yard, is preferable to accompanying just me, day after day, on the rocky trails of our foothills domain. Meanwhile, on visits down the road, he’s developed a quick, sidewise glance toward the neighbor’s garage that suggests he would prefer to ride rather than walk home.
Of course, I would not trade in my guy for any other. I’m just trying to keep him from knowing that. And clearly losing. 
dream ranch 