As we've been pondering Cain and Abel, we've had daily reminders of brotherly behavior from our recent canine guests here on the farm.  Inoli and Bhalu are brothers (litter mates, we presume).  From first sight, one would recognize them as a pair in which one brother had received all the blessings.

About the time we were coming to terms with the loss of Chevy the civil defense dog and our feline companions Whenny Penny Woo and Helen Belen, we were offered the opportunity to provide a temporary home for two Australian shepherds.  We googled Australian shepherds and learned that they are highly intelligent animals.  Because they are bred to work as herd dogs, the web page suggested that they need to be given games to play, or (they warn ominously) they will invent games of their own.  When Jim described the breed and their behavior to our farmy friend Erin, she replied, "Oh yes, they are 'shadow dogs', they want to be your shadow wherever you go."

Physically, Inoli and Bhalu have the appearance of a cross between a border collie (the black and white herding dogs of BABE fame), and Australian cattle dogs (sometimes known as blue heelers).  They are a little stockier that the border collie and taller than the cattle dog.

In general terms they are black and white, with patchy intermingling on their backs, and white "socks" covering their paws.  Upon closer examination, their coats are more elaborate, the inside of their legs being tan, and the black is flecked and undercoated with mahogany.  It wasn't until the first rains of fall, when their feet were washed on the wet grass, that we noticed that their toes are an adorable bright pink.

The contrasts between Bhalu and Inoli are fuel for endless fascination and amusement.  Bhalu was clearly the "Abel" brother who received all the blessings.

The name for Bhalu and Inoli's coloring is called "blue merl", and while the "blue" in animal coats has always looked gray, to us, Bhalu's coloration gives an inkling of the name's significance.  The light patches on Bhalu's back are actually a pale gray with a blue cast, perhaps a couple shades lighter and a shade bluer than battle ship gray.  His coat is about an inch and a half long and silky smooth, and he gazes at us from bright walnut brown eyes, accented by a tiny tan patch above each eye.

Inoli is a couple inches smaller than Bhalu, in both length and height.  One can imagine that Inoli was the runt of the litter.  His coat is short and coarse and his patches of black and gray are indistinct in color and pattern.  One of his white "socks" is a knee sock, while the others are anklets.  But the place where Inoli really missed the blessing was in his eyes.  You see, Inoli was born without tear ducts, so despite diligent use of various medications, the whites and rims of his eyes are always blood shot.  The mucus that would be washed away with tears collects along his eyelids in a yellowish green crust.

Two media images come to mind when looking into the face of Inoli.  When he approaches to lick your face, his eyes remind us of the smiling wise of Yoda, welcoming Luke Skywalker, but when he is about to rip a tennis ball from the jaws of Bhalu, he is more reminiscent of Gollum, protecting his "precious."

Since we have reduced Inoli to a couple of popular images, perhaps we should do the same for Bhalu.  Bhalu reminds us more of actor/sports star Mark Harmon, for besides his charming good looks, and steel gray locks, Bhalu is the quintessential graceful athlete.

You see, the game that the brothers' owners chose to keep them entertained was "fetch the tennis ball," and Bhalu is a master.  When the brothers first came to the farm, the game was played with a "chucker," which the anthropologically trained owners referred to as an atlatl for tennis balls.  Played this way, forty-nine out of fifty balls "chucked" would be fetched by Bhalu.  On a short high throw, Bhalu jumps and catches the ball out of the air with a "POP!" that sounds like a hard ball hitting a fielder's glove.  On a high bounce, he leaps into the air, catching the ball at the top of it's arc.  When chasing a grounder, he runs full tilt and then skids to a stop in order to snatch it up.  He can run full tilt toward a fence and stop in time to avoid hitting it.  Inoli, on the other hand ran headlong into the side of a plow once, chasing a ball at dusk.

Bhalu's grace, by the way, extends beyond the playing field to the potty field.  When Bhalu concludes making a "solid" deposit, he scratches at the ground, as many dogs do, but at the end of the scratch, he extends one leg backward and stretches it out into a perfect arabesque, and then thrusts it, as if to shake any trace of the deposit from it.

But back to the game.

Inoli didn't seem to mind that Bhalu got the ball forty-nine times out of fifty.  The game seemed to work like this, Bhalu chased the ball and Inoli chased Bhalu.  Inoli would bark twice when he'd confirmed that Bhalu had the ball, and then would escort the ball and Bhalu back to the thrower with his tongue hanging long, as if he was returning from an arduous mission.  Bhalu had a way of flinging the ball at the thrower's feet, and the cycle was repeated. . . until that fiftieth throw, when by some fluke, Inoli got the ball.

At this point all hell would break loose.  Inoli's hackles would go up and he would salivate as he squeezed the ball in his jaws several times.  Bhalu chases him around barking in his face, as if to say, "Give it back!"  Inoli would run around for  a while, and then calmly lay down continuing to chew the ball, while Bhalu barks and looks to the thrower for support.  The owners called this Inoli's victory lap and note that Inoli would often chew the ball in half.

Now, in hindsight,  this version of the game worked pretty well.  Bhalu burned up energy chasing the ball, and Inoli burned up energy chasing Bhalu.  And as we were about to learn, burning up energy was a big part of the point.

Initially, we spent lots of time with "the boys", as we've come to call them, but eventually, duty took us away for the better part of a day.  On our return, we found Inoli outside the fence of of the fenced kennel area, while Bhalu remained inside barking at him.  Inoli had invented his own game, called "dig out of the kennel."  It was late, so Jim filled the hole with large rocks, stuck a six by six beam on each side of the kennel fence where the hole was, and went to bed.  We awoke to discover the next morning that Inoli had pulled the inside six by six away from the fence, pulled out all the rocks, and then pushed the other six by six outward.  This time Bhalu joined him in the escape.  We eventually solved the escape problem by wiring the six by sixes to the fence.

As an added precaution, we decided to close the boys inside the granary adjacent to the kennel.  The following morning, we found a three foot chunk ripped off of the historic pocket door between the granary and the kennel.  Although we weren't there to see the crime, we have always assumed that it was the work of Inoli.  The mark of Cain is indelible.