Chaser by John W. Pilley

Sally and I told her we were lucky her instincts were as strong as Puppy’s. After finally telling us about her good first year in grad school, Allyson bid Sally, me, and not least of all Puppy an affectionate farewell.
    Later that afternoon we had more excitement with an impromptu visit from Robin. Impatient to meet the puppy she had been hearing about for the past four weeks, and on a break between guiding white-water rafting trips, she had decided in characteristic fashion to drive all the way down from her home in the mountains of western North Carolina and surprise us. We gathered in the kitchen, giving Puppy lots of pets and soft words as we filled Robin in on events since our last conversation on the phone.
    Tanned and toned from her long hours on the river (she can beat most men in a push-up contest), Robin was standing at the sink drinking a cup of coffee. When she heard about the puppy and the Jeep Cherokee, she doubled over with laughter and almost dropped her cup.
    â€œYou’ve got to name her Chaser!” Robin said. Sally and I exchanged looks of instant approval and laughed along with Robin, marveling at how we could have missed the obvious. We said we wanted a name that reflected our puppy’s inner self, and all the time it was right there in her behavior. As Joseph Campbell, a big influence on me, might well have said, our puppy was a veritable avatar of chasing. I instantly imagined her chasing speech as well as sheep.
    Chaser felt like exactly the right name to me. But I wanted to be sure we all agreed. So as I always liked to do in class, I went around the room and asked for opinions.
    â€œSally, what do you think of the name Chaser?” I began.
    â€œI really like it.”
    â€œRobin, are you having any second thoughts?”
    â€œNo, Dad, I still like it. What do you think?”
    â€œWell, I really like it too. But we gotta call Debbie on this and see how she feels about it. Everybody’s gotta like it.
    â€œWhat do you think?” I said to the puppy as she brought a ball back to me. “How do you like the name Chaser? Should we call you Chaser?”
    The word “chaser” meant nothing to her, of course. It was just an utterance of ours with two linked sounds. But at least she didn’t find the sounds unpleasant, judging by her continued happy focus on play with the ball as we each tried out her prospective name. It seemed like a name she could learn to like.
    Before Robin left we called Debbie in Brooklyn, and the vote was unanimous. Our puppy was now Chaser.
    That evening Sally and I reminisced about how Robin and Debbie had named our dogs going back to Bimbo, the big German shepherd mix we got when they were in the middle of elementary school. Bimbo’s name fit his rambunctious yet goofy personality, which made him a great companion for Robin and Debbie in their adventures. After Bimbo came Yasha and Grindle, both perfect names in their own way. Yasha, half Border collie and half German shepherd, had the heart of a Cossack warrior chief and the temperament of an imperious virtuoso. Grindle was named ironically for Grendel in
Beowulf
, but creatively misspelled by me. In no way a monster, Grindle was a beautiful big purebred German shepherd with the softest of hearts who was fiercely devoted to the whole family, especially Sally.
    It was good to have our new family member’s name. But chasing the Jeep had excited her so much that I had to devise a lesson memorable enough to counteract it. We couldn’t risk another incident like the one we had just experienced.
    The speeding Jeep was a blessing in its way. It demonstrated without a doubt that Chaser had a strong herding drive. Herding is more than chasing, of course, but the underlying behavior for herding is chasing. Add chasing in a designated direction, and you begin to get the countless variations and possibilities that make up a working Border collie’s responsibilities and