LGD Rule Breaking

livestock guardian dog on winter prairie

This past year has been one of breaking rules and of reiterating how little I know guardian dogs.

Every day, twice a day, I head out for a walk with the Kelpies. Six of them zipping here and there. Cajun, now the eldest dog on the place, doing his usual stint of barking as we pass through the yard. These days two big white dogs also join us, one a guardian dog drop out and one a guardian dog juvenile delinquent under restricted duty. They too are full of energy as walks have become a regular thing for them.

As we leave the yard proper and head down the grid road, our sole walking path at this point in the winter, a third white dog blows in from the rear. Birdie, popping out from around back to join us. The first couple times she did so I sent her back to her flock but I didn’t keep it up. It’s late winter, the work load for the guardian dogs is pretty light right now.

livestock guardian dogs playing in snow

So we look like quite the sight me and my pack of herding dogs and guardian dogs, heading for a walk in the still full winter, prairie landscape. This breaks all the rules I established for guardian dogs when I started out in this sheepish venture. I’m not sure if it speaks to our growth and willingness to bend or something of the opposite – a caving in of sorts, a realization that rules are not nature’s way anyway. And just when you think you know something another dog comes along to show you differently.

I have to say I love walking with the big dogs; their way of silently padding along beside me, easily keeping pace. Then moving off to the ditches to investigate and play and mark territory. Then back up beside me for a few paces again. Their energy is big and yet so different from the Kelpies. It brings up a strong desire for a large sight hound type dog again. A type of dog I foresee having if ever there are less sheep (and less other dogs) here one day.

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The Flow of A Flock

Creating the flow, or going with the flow, or even watching it, there is a soul satisfying feeling in the flowing movement of a large bunch of animals traveling. I’m positive some intangible asset we intuitively recognize resides there.

Before the flow happens though there is a great deal of effort and energy into starting it, into convincing the animals to go somewhere not where they currently are when they have little notion of why they should.

It’s all very much like living every day life. The amount of effort to start a blog post is far larger than the effort that exists when the flow begins and when the flow is carrying you. Same with a piece of artwork. The seed of an idea is planted far easier than the actual first step that takes so much energy and trust.

And in the event that you are brand new to a task, or have not done a task for some time, the flow can be rocky and hard to feel until we learn again to relax into it and trust the overtaking energy of flow will carry us where we need to go.

I think this is what animals know, certainly it is what sheep know. This is why they are so routine and so comfortable with every day, never panicking that there isn’t more to life than what is present.

Moving Them Home
38 inches wide x 18 inches tall
100% wool including fibres from Rambouillet, Clun Forest, Merino and Corriedale sheep.

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Joy is in Process

Australian Kelpie stock dogs

The other day I took Coyote Mic around back to bring wether lambs into the building. I returned to the house, put Mic inside and took BlackJack and Copo out. BlackJack and I worked the lambs inside the building until they settled a bit. Then I swapped dogs again and did some training on Copo, the greenhorn. Using the experienced dog to bring training lambs in, working the semi-experienced dog to settle the training lambs, and then working the greenhorn dog, just means one has too many dogs.

I recall having to move the first hundred odd sheep and using my first border collie to do so. Oh, how little we knew and how elated we were at the try. Every accomplishment we had with that first flock was a small miracle because when we stepped out to do it we didn’t know how these things got done. There was no experienced dog to use, nor any experienced handler, nor any experienced sheep for that matter. We didn’t know what we didn’t know and the mere try was success. And amazingly, within that unknowing was the joy of the process. And even if we didn’t manage to get the particular task done or it went all the way south, we always ended up where we needed to be.

Fast forward several years; when I work the dogs I find myself regularly doing a mental check up, not necessarily looking for anything joyful but looking for meaning, value and understanding, all of which equates to a sense of well being, a sense of internal joy – for them and for me. When working that first dog I wasn’t aware enough to recognize that finding joy in the process was something to strive for. Nowadays we’re all looking for it, needing to be reminded to slow down enough to be able to enjoy the process.

I hope this post serves as one reminder for today.

livestock guardian dog

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