When my husband goes fishing with his buddy Paul, Joy and I always do something together. The other morning we headed to the beach despite the rising temps in the Spring of Southwest Florida, when the heat and humidity swell and make life quite uncomfortable until we head back North.

To get to the part of the beach where dogs are allowed on leash, it takes about 20 mins to get there. After dropping off the boys, we were there by 9:15 and as soon as you hit the beach, you can feel the ocean breeze which makes the heat seem a bit more tolerable. Still, Joy is chocolate brown and white and she is just like me. We get hot quickly and although I put 40 minutes in the meter we only lasted 30. It was a nice 30 minutes though.

Most Border Collies love to get into the water. Not Joy. She will stick her paws in the ocean with encouragement, but she won’t swim. She loves to get in the shower and be clean but her adversity to getting wet in any other manner is deep rooted, I think, because of being born into a horrific Amish puppy mill situation, where little wire cages, as small as chicken coops, were stacked floor to ceiling, which means getting peed and pooped on was the disgusting norm.Thankfully she was rescued by a small (but mighty) rescue called Indian Summers Border Collie Rescue.

We adopted Joy on May 11th, 2012, which was the day before Mother’s day that year. She was just going to turn 2. A friend, looking at some Facebook pictures I posted of Joy, the other day, commented that I am such a good mother. As a woman whose children have four legs, not two, I have prided myself on being a great mom to the many fur kids that God has put me in charge of in the course of my life.

Joy is exceptional and so easy to love because she is so loving. She is so very grateful for her life, which is pretty exciting. She gets to live in two states and never has to put up with winter.

As her birthday nears, I am equally grateful for the opportunity to be her mom.Not just anyone could have filled this role how Joy needs it to be. I have to credit Victoria Summers, the founder of Indian Summers Border Collie Rescue, with that “thing” that tells her heart and then her head, “yeah this person is the best one for this dog.”

She was right and thanks to that intuition, Joy has the best family for her and she is the greatest girl for us, especially me. Mom. Dog Walker. Adventure Seeker. Playmate. Comfort and Love Giver and everything in between.