Character Analysis
Rex, a chubby collie whose preferred hair product was fresh cow manure, was a farm dog through and through. His chapter is a little different from the other dogs' in that Paulsen uses Rex to stand in for all the farm dogs he's ever worked with.
They are all in my memory, a host of them from farms I worked on when I was a boy. They all seemed to be some kind of collie cross with longish hair and bright eyes and all seemed to be named Rex or King or Spot or Lad or Jim. (5.1)
As a teen, Paulsen spent most summers working on farms, so he knew a lot of collies like Rex.
Paulsen's portrait of Rex is not about this individual dog's personality so much as the type of work that dogs like Rex do (and Paulsen's admiration for their service). He also values their friendship.
You could talk to them and they would listen. I'd tell them of my dreams, my problems—endless talk of girls—as I sat there in the hot sun chewing on a straw, ruffling a dog's ears and watching the combine rumble around the golden field. (5.4)
In other words, they made really good sounding boards.
Work-Life Balance
Rex was never Paulsen's dog; he belonged to a farm where Paulsen worked. One rainy day he tailed Rex during the dog's "rounds" because he was curious about how dogs like Rex occupy their time. He quickly learned that Rex did more in a single day than most humans could accomplish in a week.
His chores included herding cows, checking the integrity of the chicken coop, looking in on all the other animals, and babysitting the farmer's human children. He never stopped.
What Paulsen most admired was the way in which Rex mixed work and play. Watching the dog patiently herd the cows, he observed,
There was business in it, of course—it was work, and important—but there was affection as well. Rex obviously liked the cows and when Warren told me that Rex slept with them in the winter, curling up next to a cow in the barn to stay warm and cozy, I could see why when Rex looked at them it was with more than business in his eyes. (5.13)
Similarly, watching the farmer's young daughters was a combination of business and pleasure:
He didn't just sit with them, or doze by them, or stand near them. He literally watched them. He played with them as well, but he was truly working the whole time and his eyes rarely left them. (5.32)
The children's mother even refers to the dog as a "nanny" (5.33).
"It never really ended. I thought that with his rounds done, he would relax. Instead he started over," Paulsen writes (5.19). By the end of the day, Paulsen was so impressed that he "would not have been surprised to hear that Rex had learned to read" (5.28).
Seriously, this dog never took a break. Farm life sounds hard, but rewarding, and Rex himself seemed like a good friend to have, cow manure hair gel and all.