A black-and-white Border Collie dog and an orange tabby kitten in a home setting with light blue walls, cat litter, and grooming tools. 8:20
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Border collie saves her softest paw for a kitten

Jerry is four weeks old and has only just worked out how to push himself across the floor. Sola, the Border collie of the house, has made him her business. more

He has a corner of the room to himself, with a litter tray close by, and he doesn't stray far. Sola stops in to check on him. When she goes away, Jerry comes out to look for her.

Jerry, a small orange kitten with blue eyes, peeks out from behind a white object next to a wooden baseboard. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
When Sola wanders off, four-week-old Jerry comes out of his corner to look for her.

Sola has two settings: with anything small and young she waits for it to come to her, and even then she is visibly careful. With bigger creatures, her owner's word for it is ruthless. Tido, the other dog in the house, gets the side-eye and play so rough it looks like a fight. It isn't one. They're having the time of their lives, and Sola is gentle only with babies. She was gentle with Tido too, back when he was a puppy getting intensive tug-toy lessons.

Sola keeps a diary, in a manner of speaking. Five years into her stay on planet Earth, she has met some unusual fellas, among them a newbie who is barely a month old and always stuck in the corner. "I can't tell what he's planning," she writes, so she's usually the one to say hi first.

Saying hi to a ball of fluff takes care, since you must not smush it. Sola has a special paw for anyone under three months old and a very different one for old rascals like Tido, with nothing in between. She lifts a front paw and brings it down on the kitten in the lightest of taps. That paw is what the comments keep coming back to: a big dog who understands that a wrong touch could hurt a baby, and dials her strength down to match.

Jerry, a small orange kitten, sits by a wall and looks up at a white paw reaching down toward his head. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Sola lowers the paw she keeps for anyone under three months old.

The other trick is in the eyes. Jerry senses something, and that, Sola notes, is when you should quickly avert your eyeballs. A newcomer has to be shown three things: I'm harmless, I won't harm you, I'm only big in size. Silly Sola can't even make eye contact, which some viewers read as her way of saying there is no threat here.

Sola does get excited around him. She catches herself, though, and settles down before she gets close, as if she knows a rush would scare him. Jerry, meanwhile, has started washing himself in his corner. Four weeks old and already grooming. They grow up so fast.

A black-and-white Border Collie dog and an orange tabby kitten in a home setting with light blue walls, cat litter, and grooming tools. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Jerry is four weeks old and has only just worked out how to push himself across the floor.

Evenings belong to the walk. It opens with side-by-side walking practice and a few changes of direction, then the real game: zoomies are allowed only on the word go, and they stop on the word peekaboo, even at full tilt. Whatever else is moving around the neighborhood, Sola keeps her eyes on her owner. Focus is how she earns her freedom.

Windy, rainy weather suits her fine. The wind carries smells from farther away, and puddles turn up everywhere, and puddles are Sola's favorite thing. She comes home from what her diary files as a half-marathon, brings the outside smells in with her, and signs off: "Seems like planet Earth is still a great place to live in."

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