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Lady goes to work as town barker photo by Drew Fleming Pete Vorbeck and Lady Butte Falls Public Works shop gives lost lass a job By Melissa Martin BUTTE FALLS � This new town employee doesn�t need insurance, retirement or overtime. She doesn�t even need a paycheck. All she asks for is food and water, a roof over her head and a pat on the back now and then. Lady, an Australian shepherd, is the new addition at the Butte Falls Public Works shop and sewage treatment plant. Her job is protecting the shop from thieves who siphon gasoline from town vehicles. "The last time someone tried to get gasoline, she barked and scared them off," says Pete Vorbeck, the public works assistant who hired Lady. The public works shop has fallen prey to vandalism several times. Thieves took a $2,000 water pump and young vandals stole test tubes from the site�s laboratory, despite the barbed, chain-link fence that surrounds the property. But that was before Lady arrived about three months ago. Vorbeck first spotted the stray eating grass and leaves and living on Mill Creek at the town�s namesake Falls Park. Lady may have been dropped off by a city-dweller, Vorbeck believes. The next time he saw Lady, she was locked up in "doggy jail" at the town marshal�s office. He rescued her and brought her to the public works shop. "I started training her and walked her around the property so she would know her territory," he says. At first, Lady was afraid of Vorbeck and cowered to his touch. But she soon learned to trust humans again and began to stand by her post, sounding the alarm when trouble loomed. "A neighbor complained because she was barking all night," Vorbeck says. And Lady has been full of surprises. About two weeks ago, the staff arrived at work to find Lady with a litter of eight pups. How a dog from across this logging town managed to squeeze through the fence and get to Lady, the public works staff will never know. "I spent a day going around the fence repairing it to make sure she wouldn�t get out," Vorbeck says. But the owner of the canine father has promised to take the pups off the town�s hands as soon as they are weaned. In the meantime, Lady and the tramps stay warm and dry in a carpeted, designer dog house built by local craftsman Terry Shultz. The dog house has a porch with gingerbread trim, a metal roof and a dome skylight. And once the pups are off her hands, Lady can concentrate on guarding the town shop and the wastewater plant that serves 190 customers in Butte Falls. "She has a job now," Vorbeck says. Reach reporter Melissa Martin at 776-4497, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.