Day: May 25, 2015

(Above: Fate loves to run alongside Red when he does his outruns around the sheep.)

I’ve been writing about dogs a long time, and I know when the natives are getting curious, even restless. I am getting a lot of polite questions about why Fate is not going to be trained to herd sheep,  since she has so much instinct and drive. (I see people are wary of offering me advice, but are legitimately interested.) I think they are fair questions, they deserve some answers.

First off, we don’t need two herding dogs here, this is Red’s turf and terrain and he handles it beautifully. We only have seven sheep, I don’t think I need to subject them to two dogs and twice as much herding. Herding is not fun for the sheep, it is fun for people and sometimes, for dogs, depending on the people.

Secondly, Fate is a family dog, but is Maria’s dog already in much the same way Red is mostly my dog, but also a family dog. Red follows me everywhere, Fate follows Maria everywhere. Maria is becoming her work, just as Red’s is me (and sheep too).  All day, as Maria goes into her studio, Fate sits alongside of her as good working dogs do, and is silent and quiet while she works – an astonishing thing to see in a young border collie puppy with so much energy.

She is walked in the morning, then two or three more times during the day – we have lots of trails and woods around. She chases the ball, runs after Red and plays with him, and is exhausted by dusk, which is saying something with this dog.

Thirdly, it is very difficult to train a border collie well to herd sheep. Lots of people – I was one of them – like to get border collies and do a lot of chatter about stockdogs and herding, but it takes a long time, and a tremendous amount of know how and energy to teach a border collie how to herd sheep properly. I often go to homes and some farms where crazy, over-hyped and poorly trained border collies are herding chickens, goats, anything that moves, the dogs are often out of control with no recalls or commands that work.

They are not cute, just very often emotionalized and sometimes encouraged to be nuts.

So why get another border collie?

Because it is a wonderful choice for us, plenty of room for them to run and explore. Border collies do not have to have sheep to be content, they do have to have activity and proper training, or they will make life miserable for the people who get them impulsively. Fate’s energy is being re-directed, which is important. If we took her out to sheep every day, that would be difficult for her, but border collies can learn agility or frisbees or therapy work or hiking and be just as engaged and healthy – sometimes more so. Izzy loved his therapy work, he had little interest in chasing sheep around in the hot sun.

The truth is, it is very easy to make a border collie crazy, it is very difficult to show them how to be sane and focused. Red is a wonderful dog, in part because he was mostly trained when he came to me, and by professionals. The work I did with him was important but minor. The people who bred and trained Red know what they were doing.

I’ve trained several border collies well – Rose was a triumph – and I am learning a lot about it, but Maria is an artist, she doesn’t write about dogs or other animals for a living, she doesn’t want to go through the very grueling and painstaking process of training a border collie to herd sheep. Very few people do, and even fewer do it well. It takes a long time, a staggering amount of patience, and often quite a bit of money.

We are on a good track with Fate. Maria and Fate have already bonded, they take long walks in the woods, tire each other out.  She loves to ride in the car, has already been to a dozen places, she loves people and handles noise and crowds. Fate comes into Maria’s studio and chews bones or sleeps by her feet, this is an immeasurable gift to Maria, a companion – and sometimes, inspiration –  in her long hours in the studio. And Fate gets all the exercise and attention and stimulation she needs and more.

Maria is perfect for border collie training – she is clear, patient and determined.

Fate’s life would be thrown off balance if she started working sheep, she would focus on little else, sit by the door waiting to work, her prey drive would be jacked up, she might well get hyper and aroused. And Maria’s life would surely be thrown off balance, she loves making art and I believe Fate has already sensed this – just as Red is so quiet and close when I write.

So that’s the answer. Fate doesn’t need sheep to be happy and healthy, Maria doesn’t need sheepherding to have the life she wants with a dog. It is absolutely true that people with nothing for them to do ought not think about border collies, they most often regret it. But their work does not have to be sheep. There just has to be work.

Over the next few months, if Fate isn’t brought to sheep, she will establish other patterns of behavior, but it will be balanced. In six months, she will not be much interested. You can turn a border collie into an addict in a minute, that’s not my idea of good training. Fate is the right dog for us, we both love her. I think border collies are the most messed-up dog of any breed I know, I have messed up a couple myself. That will not happen with Fate.

Maria turned to me this morning, her eyes were filled with tears, I asked her what the matter was.

I have something to tell you, she said, it is hard, I am ashamed to say it.

She told me what she had to say, it was not shameful or awful, it was very human, the old thoughts of a child who had been treated badly. I could see on her face how hard it was to tell me those thoughts, how heavy was the load she had been carrying all of her life.

I was proud of her and grateful that we had the trust between us that made it safe for her, I have told her some of the things I was deeply ashamed of, things, I had never told anyone.

One of the stones we carry on our backs is the idea that we and our stories are shameful, that others are better than us, purer, less tormented, that we alone have great secrets to bear. We are taught all of our lives to hide our stories and our secrets, to feel ashamed, to fear what others think of us.

I learned some time ago that everyone in the world has a harder life than I do, has suffered more. We all carry our secrets. To me, the measure of love, of friendship, is trust. Maria has seen me at my very worst, seen me when I would not permit anyone to see me, when no one else could see me.

Many people run and hide from that kind of shame, but the blessed are encouraged by the angels to  take the things they are most ashamed of and bring them into the open. I do that here sometimes, with therapists sometimes, with Maria often.

Mara was shaken by the stories she told me, watching carefully for signs of disapproval and disgust. I felt none of those things, I was overwhelmed by respect for her strength and honesty. It was a difficult thing for her to share.   It told me much about her life that this is what she expected when she told the truth, became authentic. I told her that her stories were powerful, I thanked her for trusting me, I told her this was the road to personhood to authenticity.

There is not one single human being reading this who does not carry shame and fear deeply inside of them, who has not hidden their worst moments and feelings away. I am here to tell you to share them, to bring them into the open, the prophets were right, the confessional is cleansing, truth is the path to rebirth and redemption, but everyone does not need a priest. A lover is good, so is a friend. I have confessed my shame to dogs and donkeys, written it on my blog, danced around it in my memoirs.

When I can look the world in the eye and say to anyone, this is the worst of me, this is the best of me, then I will be close to my destination, my quest to be authentic.

The She-Devil was out in the back yard and the white hen hopped over the fence to join her. The She-Devil watched quietly for awhile, five or six minutes, then got up and stalked the white hen, giving her the eye. The White Hen headed for the fence and hopped over. The She-Devil was surprised and disappointed. (She could easily have gone after the hen, but did not, just wanted to herd her a bit.) I told her the hen was not a sheep, she needs to find something better to do.

I love my town, Cambridge, N.Y., it offers community and pride. The people here are not all alike, are not always nice, do not always see the world in the same way. But just about everyone comes out to nod and wave to the veterans on Memorial day.

I love my country, but am sometimes sad to live in a country that loves war so much, and where angry old men send idealistic young ones off to die and be maimed. I think if the old men had to go, peace would triumph quickly.  I am never sure how to honor the veterans, I’m not into 21-gun salutes, I like to pause and look in their faces and eyes, I see them in the parades and Red and I see them in therapy work.

There is a special look on their faces, a mixture of sadness and weariness, you see it in veterans of almost every age. I cannot imagine going away to engage in combat, I cannot really grasp what it must be like.  I have read a thousand books about it, but cannot pretend that I can really imagine it or understand it. That would be insulting to the people who do know. Memorial Day makes me think of peace, of empathy and compassion. The Native-Americans claim that the message of the horses is to remind us that we are at a crossroads, we shall either live in harmony or perish together, one way or another.

Violence seems to live and endure in the human genome, but so does peace and love.

The cynical say that we will either find a way to kill one another or, failing that, destroy Mother Earth. I am no Dystopian, I believe in hope and the triumph of the better side of the human spirit. So I always nod my head in gratitude for the veterans and hope that future generations will not have any veterans’ to see.