There is nothing – absolutely nothing – that I love more than when somebody calls for help with sheep or cows or goats that have broken loose. Rose did scores of emergency visits, and Red is starting to get his own calls. Today it was from our friend Jenna Woginrich calling on behalf of the people at the huge Common Sense Farm, a religious community on the edge of Cambridge. Jenna texted me, her border collie Gibson was injured, she said, the farm’s sheep were running amok around the farm.

Nobody needs to say more to me. I yelled “let’s go to work,” Red came tearing out and into the car, I grabbed my camera and we took off for Common Sense Farm, about two miles down the road. Everybody looked a little fried, a wild dog had shown up, along with the police, and the sheep had been running everywhere, lots of long tongues. The people at Common Sense were beginning to get things under control, they had the ram on a halter when we arrived, the others were running around, they were not dog broke so did not know just what to do around Red. And they had a long ways to go to get to the shade tree.

Red didn’t skip a beat, he corralled the two stragglers, butted heads with the ram, and started marching them towards the shade tree where they had a portable fence ready to set up. Red just put pressure on the ewes to keep walking in a straight line, he sensed where we were going, when one of the sheep broke off, he got around them and kept them together. When they got to the shade tree, he lay down and kept them in place until the fence was up.

I knew we were in good shape when I saw that the ram was on a hallter, because sheep hate to be separated from one another, and as long as the ram was moving in the right direction, it would be simpler, if not simple, to keep them moving towards him. The ram had no choice, he was being pulled, the sheep did – they refer any option other than the dog bearing down on them. When we got to the shade tree, Red swung around and kept them still.

It was a textbook case of good border collie work, it is inspiring to watch Red figure things out, and it makes me rethink sending all of the sheep away (Maria was already rethinking it.) It is such a special gift Red has, it would be a shame not to use it regularly. One of the people at Common Sense said the community doesn’t believe in having dogs or “useless” pets, (they have two donkeys who work in the fields) but I pointed out that Red was the most useful creature present, and they agreed.

Red loved it, he ended up butting heads with the ram again and he took a couple of direct hits – this ram, Cloud, was from Jenna’s farm and she was proud of him when I told her how he was protecting his girls. I loved it, too, it is one of those things that makes my life here special. We have done emergency herding for cows, goats, and sheep. Rose got paid $10 for a visit, she had earned $340 when she died. I haven’t charged for Red yet.

I’ll put a few photos up on Facebook, it was a great adventure all around.