livestock guardian dog – Page 5 – Wool Stone & Prairie

Joy is in Process

February 26, 2019

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.

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On Warmer Days

February 23, 2019

On warmer days Oakley finds a place on higher ground; the flock is just over our shoulder feeding on hay.

On warmer days I sit and watch him watch, being there but not with him. A small moment of life well enjoyed by both of us I think. I love watching the dogs in this way of not being together all the time. Such moments are everything and more to me because of the intangible gift they give and I always breath a little lighter afterward.

Winter season in saskatchewan gets a pretty bad rap because it is so brutally cold but it is also brutally beautiful.

I catch myself stewing about the sheep and dogs, wondering if they are bedded well enough and did they stay out the wind or did they move. Has the wind changed direction again. Allen repeatedly assures me they are fine. How quickly I forget how often all the critters have handled each season for what it is.

Recently the yearlings have really taken to playing, especially on the warmer days, and thus give me a regular reminder.

Last evening I watched them race up and down a hill, bucking and kicking just like young lambs do during lambing time. To see them acting so freely tells me Allen is right, they are doing just fine and taking the cold as it comes because that is what they know to do. Witnessing them adjust so readily makes me thankful to be raising sheep.

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I Stayed With The Stillness

November 15, 2018

I’m pretty comfortable being in my prairie space, but there are occasions when I feel that spine tingling, heightened awareness of being a solo individual in a very vast space. This is a photo from such a moment.

dog photography — Stay With The Stillness

I was kneeling on a hilltop, taking photos of the ewes who just a moment prior to this photo were thick in those trees and venturing across the interior space of the abandoned yard – a space they have not been into before. It’s lightly foggy and any sound of sheep milling about is muffled. The ewes on the closest edge were knee deep in tall, golden coloured grasses and I loved the look of them against the naked trees in the soft air. I used one of these photos in the last post.

one photo, another, and another, one more, but then the ewes are on alert and filing out of the trees with quick purpose, the animals at the rear running to not be left behind as their mates pour out of there and move into the open space of the pasture.

None of the guardian dogs alert but Oakley rises and walks toward to investigate. It is very quiet and spine tingling still. I have a moment of tug-o-war; stay with the stillness, take the photo, or rise, call the dog, take the ewes lead and leave.

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