After lengthy time off to recover from an injury this young dog is on the alert more so than usual.
He has been off duty due to injury for the past seven weeks. He missed the entire lambing season. While he was healing he resided at the yard/in the house with us. He joined the Kelpies and me for daily exercise and we began to joke that he was becoming a good farm dog. My plan was to return him to work at the end of this week and supervise his first couple hours with the flock and the other dogs. Instead he left during a walk one morning (something he had not done on all the previous walks), jumped two fences and returned himself to work.
After a lengthy time off he still knows where he belongs and with whom and he just wants to be there. I wish to have his level of assurance about knowing where he belongs and what he is meant to do.
I’ve been trying to find that confident assurance with my creative pursuits. My studio time this week involved more photography related work than artwork as I scoured through thousands of photos and tried to shape my thoughts around what it looks like to hang out one’s shingle and BE Photographer. There should be something to mark it as official, something to give me the concrete assurance I am looking for and there just isn’t. Like all other aspects of life the thing we look hardest for lies within, not without.
Fittingly enough, I also came across this quote in my journal: “Better to move forward and figure it out than to stand still and believe you know the right answer.” Seth Godin.
I don’t know what Being Photographer looks like yet, but I do know I’ve been standing still for a long time, afraid to take any ownership of the title. Stepping up to own that photographer is entirely possible feels uncertain but yet it holds the right amount of knowing that photography appeals very strongly to me, that it always has.
This week required sorting a few Clun Forest types from the flock for private sale. Allen is away the whole week so the task fell solely to myself and the Kelpies. I decided to sort a sub-group and then let the individual pick the few sheep from the smaller group rather than trying to pick a handful from several hundred.
Coyote Mic was my choice of dogs for gathering out on pasture and getting them home. We headed out in the morning and came upon the flock still loosely gathered and not yet headed off for grazing. We both started at the rear of the group and just our presence there started the flock moving off from us. We pressed on them a bit and then retreated, letting them string out. I figured I could split the group while out on pasture and just take a portion of them home to sort further.
We start with a beautiful and frost covered morning.
Back on the Ranger I moved up to the midst of the column of sheep and split the bunch. I took the front bunch further along and figured the ewes left behind would slow up and stay put. Not a chance. They came along behind us. I put Mic on the ground again and we attempted to encourage the rear bunch to turn around and go back. They went far and wide around us and sped up to catch the front group. It twigged on me that the ewes figured this was a pasture move; no one was going to be left behind.
So instead, we took the whole bunch to the gate and once there I just let what I thought was a reasonable number go through then stepped in a cut the rest off. Those not allowed through the gate were dumbfounded! Having Mic on board allowed me to get through the gate without more streaming out. The ewes let out were already moving well ahead and beginning to spread out, exploring the new-old pasture. Mic and I picked them up and took them the rest of the way home. At the yard we turned them into the barn paddock and from there Mic handled bringing them up the hill to the building with ease.
At the yard. Mic bringing the group up the last hill to the building. Rams in an adjacent pasture look on.
Typically the hardest part of flock work is getting all the sheep into our alleyway along the building. Perhaps it was the lesser number that made it seem easy this time. I was pleased, Mic was pleased – and she sure there was a lot more work to be done, and slipped under the gate in an attempt to convince me to let her have at it.
Turning sheep into the alleyway alongside the building.
I was tempted, but really wanted to give this job to BlackJack. He’s been getting a fair number of the ranch jobs this summer and while he completely made a mess of one or two of them, he also stepped up in unexpected circumstances. BlackJack is a pup out of BJ and like his mom he works tight and is more than willing to come forward and force.
Our raceway is located inside the building while the wider alley leading up to it is located on the outside. The outside alleyway curves around the end of the building, enters at the back and narrows into the raceway. This means that when I have to run the sort gate located along the raceway there is no way to see out or manage what’s going on in the alleyway. It means I have to leave the dogs to work as they will, and rely on their work.
When I work right alongside the dogs I bring an expectation of how the work should go and how the dog should carry out the work. This expectation stems from a learned, stereotypical approach to working border collie and kelpie type stock dogs. When being directed on how to do the job the training the dog has is heavily relied on and can often override his default approach to the work. The expectation presses on the dog somewhat even when I determine to not let it. But I’ve had enough of these solo work situations now to appreciate there is a difference. When I’m not directly alongside the dog yet in need of the help, the expectations are not adhered to – indeed, the lack of them is not even seen/known. Now the dog works in his default fashion with whatever training he’s had to aid him and I have to trust that. The job has been set up but no one is telling him how to do it. This latter situation is much more like working with another person. Here’s the important distinction about our work this time around – BlackJack didn’t do every thing perfectly, I didn’t do everything perfectly – far from it in fact. But BlackJack and I got through that job together and we got through it honestly, and I was so genuinely pleased to have the dogs help on a big job and he was so pleased to have helped. I knew it and he knew it, and that type of knowing transcends expectations.
There are some moments you don’t want to come to an end. That was the case on this particular afternoon when I spotted Birdie sitting so stately on a hilltop (and I was nearby enough with the camera). She sat there for some time, glancing around, watching the horizon. When she was satisfied she rose and made her way back toward the sheep. Who knows at what particular point a guardian dog is satisfied but when they decide they are, they get on with it and go.
I think I could spend a lifetime moving from moment to moment of being with dogs but not influencing them. Of observing what they’re up to rather than interacting with them all the time. Birdie knew I was there, but having been raised with sheep and not with me she makes decisions on the level of interaction and most times wants none. The Kelpies of course are so vastly different. I can rarely get a moment of being with them without influencing them. As a result of living together and of their bred-for purpose, they are tuned into what I do, and I to what they do.
I used to feel poorly that the guardian dogs did not get loads of attention and interaction with us but now I recognize that attention and life with people is not automatically a superior life. They have a life with a pack they can understand, they carry out their purpose daily. I could argue that the Kelpies are worse off with having to navigate my inconsistencies and misunderstandings and while my Kelpies have a work load they were bred for, they still only fulfill that purpose when I need it.
Yet when it comes full circle I wouldn’t wish for it be that much different. So maybe it just boils down to how extremely fortunate we are to have this life with dogs of such varying purpose and function. And so maybe I’ll stick to feeling grateful for both types of dogs because even though it’s been aggravatingly frustrating and brutally painful at times, my life is certainly richer with them in it and all I can hope for is that the reverse holds true for them.
