I have  been tootling around the Southwest Desert area for a lot of my life and other than an occasional checkpoint along I-5 in California, I don't recall much Border Patrol activity.  But this last trip we made we saw a lot of checkpoints, observation points, and patrols.  On I-8 between El Centro and Yuma there was a checkpoint that had several patrol cars, a mobile guard shack, and concrete barriers.  A couple of the Patrol SUVs were marked as K-9 units and there were sandwich boards bearing the warning "Working Dogs".  As I was creeping forward waiting my turn to proclaim my citizenship, my silly side was wondering what  work the dogs were doing.  How do dogs "sniff out" illegals?  Are they trained to identify the particular tang generated by chilis and frioles sweating out caused by riding in a closed up van across miles of desert in the blazing sun?  And isn't that just a tad racist?  A very unique method of profiling.  There must be some sort of EEO issue here. 

I know that a lot of the dogs are trained to sniff out drugs and they are amazing at that chore.  I am not sure if they are attack- trained, too;  but they can  find drugs that have been hidden in some unbelievable places.  However,  in the scope of the working world of dogs, Border Patrol sniffing seems to be a pretty easy gig.  Guard dogs, police dogs, and scout dogs all seem to have a riskier, more demanding job. 

The hardest working dogs I ever met were cattle dogs, Australian Shepherds, that belonged to my step-grandpa, Archie.  When Grandma married Archie, he was the assistant foreman on the Monte Vista Ranch, one of the biggest in California.  The dogs, named Pancho and Cisco, were identical, at least to me.  They were father and son but I could never tell them apart and couldn't keep it straight which was the dad and which was the son.  They worked as a team;  they could control a huge herd, just the two of them.  They were constantly in motion, a couple of blue-gray blurs yelping and nipping and moving the cows wherever Archie told them to.  Pancho and Cisco were Grandpa's dogs;  they always watched him, even when they were hundreds of yards away, and they always understood what he wanted them to do and they always did it.  A word of praise and occasional ruffling of their ears was all they seemed to need.  The few times I got close to them they ignored me, would accept a pet or a pat, but they weren't interested in a little boy's affections. 

I watched once when Archie brought a huge bull up to the main barn to load into a truck.  The bull had been out in the fields and was very ill-mannered;  he repeatedly chased cowboys on foot to the fence.  Archie whistled up the dogs and sicced them on the bull.  They went right to work on that bull.  One (Pancho? Cisco?) would run in front of the bull, yapping and yipping.  The bull would lower its big head and charge the little dog.  The other dog (Pancho?  Cisco?) had laid back and then rushed up beside the bull and jumped up and drove his paws into the space behind the bull's ears (If you ever saw the old Disney movie, "Old Yeller", that had a sequence where the dog did that very maneuver).  His weight and momentum drove the bull's face into the dirt, breaking his charge and almost bowling him over.  The enraged bull would whirl around, forgetting the yapping annoyance in front, determined to deal with the attacker from behind.  Then the dogs would change roles, the rear dog running and yapping, the bull charging, and the original front dog becoming the rear dog; breaking the bull's charge.  They would keep at it for several rotations until the bull would finally give up, front feet splayed, head down, drooling and slobbering, and allow a cowboy to snap on a line and lead him to the stock trailer.  The dogs would find a patch of shade and lay there panting, tongues lolling out the sides of their mouths, absolutely grinning with pride.  They never begged for food, sat up cutely with their front paws in a prayerful mode, or did tricks for a treat.  They just did what their instincts led them to do, and looked to Archie for approval...that was reward enough.

Officer Gonzales stooped to look into the car and ask if we were American citizens.  I resisted the urge to say, "Si, Senor!" and just affirmed that we were.  He waved us on with a "Have a Nice Day" and that was it.  As we accelerated away from the checkpoint I scanned the desert on both sides of the road without seeing any sign of Border Agents, working dogs, or illegals.  I amused myself for the next several miles with visions of Pancho and Cisco flashing around the sandy hills, yapping and nipping at the heels of a huge herd of illegals, pushing them back to the south.