ONE BRISK FALL MORNING I found myself standing in the sheep pen with a fiberglass staff, yelling commands at a young sheepdog. I stood there under the red maple, watching my confused sheep circle in panic from the little black-and-brown dog turning them around the pen. I suddenly realized how absurd the training session was. I had only been involved in the world of border collies for a few months, after all. I’d been diligent, sure: attending trials, training sessions, and lectures. I’d read books, visited farms, helped at novice practice sessions — but now I was standing in a pen with my own sheep and my own sheepdog, trying to remember how to go about this.
In the haze of the confusion, though, there was also real joy. Ever since I’d first learned to knit, I had secretly wanted my own fiber animals. When I finally took the plunge and started homesteading, I bought, raised, bred, sheared, spun, and knit from my own small herd of Angora rabbits. But sheep are the ultimate homesteading beasts. You can eat a sheep, milk a sheep, or wear a sheep. This was an animal that made you everything from roast, to ricotta, to rag-wool socks.
The more I learned about them, the more I made them a part of my life. I stopped buying polar fleece and switched to wool instead. My dogs ate lamb-based dog food. I went to restaurants with lamb on the menu; bought sheep cheese, fleeces to spin, yarns, and books. When I started to eat meat again — after almost a decade of vegetarianism — it was pastured lamb that first passed my lips. I was becoming a hard-core advocate of the ovine marketplace. I did this because I wanted to support the product I would be producing on my own land someday. Helping the sheep industry was helping myself, along with all the other shepherds who were trying to make a go of it.
Deciding to dedicate myself to the noble hogget meant I had to face some pretty harsh realities, though:
1. I couldn’t run a sheep farm by myself.
2. I’m single.
3. I needed a border collie.
I could be a shepherd if I only had some help. A good, dependable working dog was just what I needed — an animal that moved sheep, kept them at bay when I was pouring grain, separated sick ewes from the flock so that I could administer medications, watched and protected the herd. Having a sheepdog was about so much more than herding sheep; it meant the freedom to farm as a single woman. Yes, I only had three bum sheep and a rented backyard, but getting a young dog trained and started would mean that when I was ready to buy a farm and start working my own flock, I would be prepared. I needed this dog to become the farmer I wanted to be.
And so there was Sarah, a started dog versed in basic herding. She was around a year old, and already herding dozens of sheep a day on a small farm in upstate New York. A member and trainer I had met through NEBCA had been working with her. She had come to the trainer’s farm as a reject. An elderly gentleman had bought her as a puppy from a working-dog kennel, thinking they would live out their days together on some rural property upstate. But he became ill and had to move back with family near the city. Now this farm pup was being raised in Manhattan — total sensory overload for a dog bred to focus on one intense job at a time. Predictably, the confined spaces, high stress, and family life proved too much for the little girl. The family sent her away to a shelter: sadly, the fate of many pet border collies whose owners think they’re getting a cute and cuddly family dog but end up with a puppy that circles their children’s playgroup like a land shark. Border collies, especially ones bred from strong herding lines, are not golden retrievers.
So Sarah was sent to a shelter, discovered by local border collie–rescue activists, then sent to Barb and Bernie Armata’s farm, which is where I met her. She was in her glory, smiling and panting, working a large herd of Scottish blackface sheep every day. Her character review was stunning, her demeanor calm; she was a love bug and already tuned to the work I needed to be done.
I felt prepared to take this step. For months I had been immersed in this world. The trainers and club members knew me and understood my tenacity and willingness to dive headfirst into this lifestyle. So many of them had once been in the same position, just starting out with a few sheep and looking for a working dog. So when I put out the word to the border collie community that I was looking for a “started” dog (meaning a young dog with some professional training under her belt — in other words, a puppy I couldn’t screw up), I heard back from Barb and Bernie. They thought that this ex-city-livin’ farm girl might be a good match for their ex-city-livin’ farm dog. We chatted over e-mail and sent photos back and forth. Sarah was a tricolor rough coat and small — only about thirty-five pounds. But like most working border collies, she wasn’t bred to meet a physical breed standard; she was bred to herd sheep. She was floppy-eared and scrappy, and her coat, while technically rough, was only an inch or two long. She was the picture of a farm dog to me, though, and had that bit of wildness in her eyes. So I made arrangements to meet up with Barb and Bernie at the Fall Foliage Sheepdog Trial in Cooperstown, New York. I could hardly wait to meet the dog in the photographs.
I had friends visiting from Pennsylvania the weekend of the trial. They were coming up to Vermont during peak foliage time to see the farm, have a small vacation, play some music (they’re both fiddlers as well), and join me for my three-hour pilgrimage to Border Collie Mecca. I explained to them that this was one of the most prestigious trials in the Northeast, and people would be competing from across the East Coast and Canada. They were sweet and polite about it, and more than willing to tag along, but clearly my enthusiasm wasn’t contagious. They did know about the potential farm dog, though, and were as excited to meet her as I was.
So the three of us drove south to Cooperstown, with Jazz and Annie along for the ride. Our little caravan of dogs and ladies rolled through the autumn glory of the Hudson Valley, and we found ourselves being bowled over by it. The entire Northeast was at its most colorful, but traveling only three hours south, I could see how much louder the color became. Vermont was looking good, but New York was putting on a fireworks display. The sight of it lifted my spirits even higher.
We arrived at the trial fields around ten in the morning and set up our camp of folding chairs by the gate near the starting post. That sounds more exciting than it is, actually. The starting post is not some latched series of gates that release a pack of sheepdogs, like at the Kentucky Derby. It’s simply a white post, maybe five feet high. It marked the starting point for all dogs being put through their paces. While my friends went about setting up their chairs and backpacks for optimal sun and comfort, I was scanning the crowds for Barb and Sarah. I could not wait to meet this dog.
I finally found Barb talking with some other trainers near the main tent. We shook hands, and Barb told me that Sarah was over near her car and went to get her. When she returned, it was with a long thin lead of braided leather attached to a little sprite wagging her tail. Barb handed me the lead, and I knelt down to meet Sarah. She paid some attention to me but kept darting her head back to the right. She was fixated on the sheep. At the time I took this as a great sign, but in retrospect I should have understood the warning. She was intense. She was a working dog through and through. New people, a crowd, cars, trucks, hot-dog stands … she didn’t care. Sarah wanted one thing in this whole world, and it was covered in wool on the other side of the fence. I had signed up for a herding dog, and this was it.
We spent the trial together, and for the first time in all my herding club adventures, I had a dog with me. I saw a well-known trainer I had spoken with at a few events. He knew I was hurting for a dog, and bad. When he came upon the happy couple of girls smiling in the early-afternoon sun, he called over, “Jenna, you got your dog, huh?” We parted, and as I walked away with the little black dog by my side, I felt different, better. Having a few sheep in the backyard was one thing. Having a sheepdog meant I was serious about this sheepherding business.
A few weekends later I drove back to Barb and Bernie’s farm to pick up Sarah for good. It was a rainy day. It was also the open house for Barb’s new venture, a top-of-the-line boarding facility for dogs. Barb was living the dream: she was finding a way to make shepherding on her farm a full-time job. Bringing the business of people and their pets to her home would provide a paycheck and the peace of mind of being near the flock.
Sarah and I stood together in the corner of her office, among the crowd of people there to see the kennels. Barb showed me where to sign the papers, then took us out to a small training field with a few quiet sheep. She handed me the staff and showed me how to use it to signal to Sarah and keep the sheep between us. I was walking backward while the flock charged toward me, with Sarah weaving and darting on the far side of the ewes. The lesson was short but good. I understood my job, mostly, and Sarah seemed to know what was going on. (I realized any sheepherding lessons would be more for me than for her.)
As we were getting ready to drive back to Sandgate, she sat calmly at the end of her leash and seemed to catalog everything going on around her. After some well-wishing and waves good-bye, I pulled out of the driveway as a shepherd with her collie. Sarah was in a crate in the back of the station wagon. I was unsure of how she’d be in the car (I was told she wasn’t fond of them), and to avoid the risk of a freak-out on the New York Thruway, I kept her boxed.
Once home at the cabin, she made herself comfortable on the couch with me, and we ended our exciting day by watching a movie rented from the NEBCA library, A Year of the Working Sheepdog. It was a documentary about a working farm in North Devon and the dogs that kept the show running. I watched it, amazed. The shepherd in the film, David Kennard, was a true farmer, a pro. I was a kid who’d just gotten her first tricycle and was watching the Tour de France. I sighed, happy. In the morning we’d work those three sheep in the backyard like Barb had showed us. But that first night was just about scratching ears and letting Sarah know she was home. She slept well and deep, and I had my collie. We had both come quite far. Devon would come another day.
The next morning, and the mornings thereafter, were not anything like the documentary about well-trained dogs on open moors. My three sheep loathed and reacted violently to being herded. I had been warned that the only sheep to get should be dog-broke, meaning “used to working with a border collie.” Mine were more interested in breaking dogs. Maude stamped her feet, then sprinted into the fences in a panic. Marvin glared at the little black dog as though she’d just killed his fiancée. Sal looked at us, then the fence, then us again and hopped the fence like a friggin’ white-tailed deer. He happily munched grass on the opposite side of the pen while Maude and Marvin dealt with the wolf.
Eventually, we’d get to a place where Sarah was moving them and I was on the opposite side of Sarah. We’d do this maybe fifteen minutes a morning in our small training space. I was constantly worried she’d get hurt, but Sarah didn’t seem to mind the fuss. When the sheep and I were panting, I’d scoop her up and say “That’ll do,” and we’d go inside. Those short sessions were never enough for the young dog. She’d bark at the door while I was in the shower or making dinner. She needed to be outside more than Jazz and Annie and I were used to.
For a few weeks we kept up the training outside, until one morning Marvin taught me a lesson I still remember, and limp on, to this day. Sarah and I were working in the pen, moving the sheep and trying to balance the flock between us, when, somehow, Sarah found herself in the corner of the pen near the gate. Marvin saw the bane of his existence trapped and acted fast. I was three steps away from the scene and rushed to break up what I knew was about to happen. Marvin reared up, lowered his massive skull, and was about to head-butt the small dog with all the force he could muster, ending the reign of terror NOW. Seeing what could be the death of my new dog, I threw my body between them and felt the force of the blow hit the right side of my right knee with a bullet of pain and a crack so loud I screamed. It was broken, I thought. It had to be. Using what wits I had left, I screamed at Marvin to back up and scooped up Sarah, hobbled out of the pen, slammed the gate behind us, and blacked out.
I woke up with Sarah sitting next to me, unconcerned, eating a stick. I tried to move and couldn’t. I started crying. All I could think was “Everything my mother ever told me was right.” I was taking on too much. I shouldn’t be alone out here. I would get hurt if I wasn’t careful. I should be married. I should be dating. I should wear lipstick. … I army-crawled back to the house and realized that work started in half an hour. I called my boss, wailing into the phone about God knows what, and (I think) explained I’d be late.
It took a few weeks of walking with a cane to recover from the torn muscle. And a few months for me to actually bend and move my knee like a normal person. But it did heal. And while it did, neither Sarah nor I dared herd my anarchist sheep. I didn’t know what to do now. I had the wrong sheep. Should I sell them and get new ones? Should I add two old sheep-dogged ewes and buy more hay? Would my landlord allow that? Did she even know about Sarah? I hadn’t told her, but I worried my neighbor might.
As her one outlet for spending energy disappeared, Sarah became nervous. Without sheep to herd, she had no purpose. She was once again a skittish pet without a job. She started nipping at me when I walked across the room, occasionally really biting into me. I’d yelp and correct her but blamed myself for the poor behavior. After all, if I had proper sheep, I wouldn’t be limping around a bored and nervous dog.
My heels were not the only things Sarah bit. She snapped at a friend’s kid who ran past her swiftly and then at the father when he did the same. They were both very calm about it, but I could tell it was more than a love nip. Then one day at a bookstore in town, she went too far and bit the leg of a passing staffperson. I had been bringing her into the bookstore for weeks, using the dog-friendly place as a training and socialization area, and she had never acted like this before. The person whirled around and screamed at me in front of everyone in the packed store, using many choice words and threatening to sue. I broke down in tears, apologizing, terrified of an actual lawsuit. I worked it out with the store manager but was never allowed to bring Sarah anywhere near the place ever again.
Then the final and most serious infraction occurred, at my parents’ house over Thanksgiving. Sarah ran across the kitchen floor and bit my father in the leg. My dad cried out. I once again scooped her up and apologized. My father demanded that she stay in my bedroom for the rest of the visit. We had young children coming the following day and couldn’t risk one getting hurt. My stomach felt as if it was filled with concrete, and panic began to set in. I knew what I had to do. I had to take Sarah back to Barb. I couldn’t contain her, and now she had hurt four people. She could no longer be my dog.
Crying the entire ride, I drove the four of us north. Jazz was asleep in the backseat, Annie was curled up in the passenger seat as usual, and Sarah was in her crate in the back. I pulled up to Barb’s farm and instantly lost it when I saw her. I knew, and she knew, that I had messed up. The dog needed work, and a real flock, and someone with the time and patience to train her and show her how to live in the world. I was not the person Barb or I had thought I could be. I knew handing back that dog was giving up on an animal. I felt like I’d failed the club, the trainer, and my destiny. Barb assured me that Sarah would be fine and would be placed on a working farm without children; I didn’t have to worry about her. But I did and couldn’t stop crying. Relinquishing a dog, for any reason, is admitting you’ve made a mistake that you aren’t able to fix. Now she’d have to find yet another home.
I thought I was going to be her savior, and she would be my shepherd. I thought we’d be at the post, side by side, at sheepdog trials. In some way I thought she could train me to the work that seemed so right. Instead, I’d given her eight hours of solitude each day, three crummy sheep, a near-death experience, and two apathetic canine roommates. I’d failed her.
I drove home to the cabin with just two dogs. When I got back to the farm, I put the sheepdog videos in the cupboard. I was not who I thought I could be. Not yet.