Thinking about and talking about goats today brought to mind perhaps the finest and best trained Border Collie that ever lived. Rennie was her name. She belonged to my brother Kenny. He got her at about 6 months old when he was a freshman in high school. He raised her and trained her.

She was good working goats or cattle, as long as Kenny was there to give her commands. He got her to the point that he could walk out of the door at the house and tell her to go get the goats. The goats were always housed in our upper pasture, away from the lake. There were a couple of hundred head running on about 175 acres. Once he would command her to go, he could go back in the house and do whatever young boys did back in the house (I’m betting he was talking to some girl on the phone)

After a bit he would go out side and she would have the whole herd calmly waiting there in the pasture by the house. They had a remarkable connection.

When he left for college in the fall of “68”, Rennie was lost. I think Kenny was lost too. She would follow him out the gate at the highway and would mostly stay there all week until he returned the next Friday night. He could see that she was losing weight. After a few weeks, in the fall of “68” he knew it was best for her to go elsewhere.

Loftin Meredith helped broker a deal that sent her to an old gentlemen that was running the Hickory Pass Ranch, Lewis Rhoades. Now you may think my story here is tooting the Kenny / Rennie horn a little to much but here’s what I can tell you:

Mr. Rhoades traded Loftin 4 registered Angus heifers, valued at $375 each for Rennie. In turn Kenny received $1,500 for that dog. This was in 1968. That will tell you a little bit about what the quality of that dog was.

Kenny said it took Mr. Rhoades about two months to win her over, but once he did, he felt very good about the trade.

Kenny heard that she was poisoned by a neighbor some time later in her life. He said the last time he ever saw her was at Jr. Bowles’s Gulf Station in Marble Falls.

While the money was some part of the deal, it was more important to Kenny that she would go live with someone that could let her do what she did best, gather livestock.

When I sent the story to Kenny today about the Lacy Dogs, he sent this note back to me.

Rennie was a very special dog to me from High School. She was my first Border Collie that sold in 1968 for $1500. A lot of money at that time. She was not the best dog I ever had. It was a dog I got from Glenn. A “yellow” lacy! His name was “Dusty”. He was so dedicated he gave his life trying to push a wild Tiger striped cow out of some high Blood Weeds in Georgetown. He had a heat stroke and died that night. Very good dog.