I had so much fun telling you about our dogs in my “marriage advice column” that I decided I need to tell you more about our little workers. 

Jimmy is our youngest dog.  He’s only about a year old.  He’s one of the most athletic dogs I’ve seen.  He has a huge stride and can outrun our other dogs by a long shot.  He is wildly playful,

and also passionate about his job. 

He lives to work cows and although he isn’t exactly accomplished or refined yet,

(…umm wrong way Jimmy…)

 he knows that working cows is precisely what he was made to do. 

Jimmy actually has a namesake.  He was named after a cowboy friend of ours, Jimmy.   Jimmy (the person) grew up here in the county.  After high school, he moved away to be a cowboy on a very large ranch, the ZX.  A place where, as cowboys say, all they have to do is “pull leather and ride”.  (In cowboy terms this means they don’t have to build fence or do any other nasty job, they just pull leather -the cinches on their saddles- and ride their horses.)

Jimmy met his fiance while working on the ZX.  Shortly after their engagement, they moved back to the county and Jimmy started training horses.  We all fell in love with his sweet wife, Alexa.  A vet tech, she fit right in with all of us ladies, and we all had plans of lifelong happiness together. 

Despite our plans, Jimmy soon tired of training horses and he longed for long days in the saddle on the open range, out of the arena.  He longed to rope somethin’.  He longed to take Alexa back to the ZX.  So… off they rode.  Jimmy cowboys full time now and Alexa is expecting their first child.  A child that, unfortunately, I won’t be helping deliver.  Although we miss their sweet faces, Jimmy and Alexa have moved on with their lives and found happiness, without us, back at the ZX Ranch.

Anyway, after they moved, we got a puppy.  Buck pondered about what his name should be.  I wasn’t thrilled about having a puppy, so I gave little thought to what we would call the little flower- chewing, pooping- in- my- yard animal.  One day Buck came home from work and announced the puppy would be called Jimmy.   I lifted an eyebrow and cocked my head.  ”Jimmy?” I asked.  “Yep,” Buck said, “if he wants to chase cows half as much as Jimmy (the person) does, I’ll have one heck of a dog.”

… and so it was.  and so it is. 

Now if we could get our Jimmy to do some silver work like our friend Jimmy does, I’ll be totally thrilled.

***And since I stole the pictures of Jimmy and Alexa without any permission at all, I’ll go ahead and put a little sales pitch in for our friends and hope that makes up for using them to tell my story.  If you want some gorgeous silver work done-  bits, spurs, etc.  I can hook you up! Email me!

–Chelsea (chelsea@cowgirlclippings.com)