Yes, yes, the NSA has some sophisticated gizmos that can capture my emails without my being any the wiser, but no software and no hardware, no matter how sophisticated, no matter how magical seeming, will ever equal the intelligence of a Border collie. I got my first Irish setter pup for my thirteenth birthday, and have been an Irish setter man ever since. Until now, when a Border collie pup came bounding into the family and turned it all around.

Not smart at all my handsome Irish setter
But if you want a dog I thought none better
When I was young we walked the fields together
It mattered not the season or the weather
There’s something ‘bout a boy, his dog, that others
Can see at once the two are just like brothers
I never thought another breed would jolt me
But now a little dog has got aholt me
A handsome, oh so playful Border collie
So smart you have to stop and say, by golly
This pup sure seems to know what I am thinking
He looks at me with eyes not hardly blinking
Intelligence lies deep within his breeding
I caught him with a book that he was reading
I cannot say he puzzled o’er the wording
But pictures tell a lot ‘bout sheep and herding
I thought he looked a little sad and wistful
I thought he yearned to grab a great big fistful
Of tiny sheep and herd them through the thistle
Obeying both his master and the whistle
That pierced the air and turned the bright’ning morn to
The scent of grass and work that he was born to