Fate went to the vet today for her first visit there, to get her rabies shot and check in with Dr. Suzanne Fariello, who has been our vet now through many ups and downs – Rose, Izzy, Frieda, Lenore, Red and now, Fate. Fate charmed the place, her tail was wagging the minute she arrived and she loved Dr. Fariello. She didn’t seem to even notice her lyme and rabies shots, she is coming back in three weeks.
Dr. Fariello thought she was a great dog, strong-willed, smart, spirited and sweet. Fate is in love with the world, and the favor seems to be returned.
I forgot how much I love working with border collies and sheep, trusting the dog, my own feelings and instincts. It is a special thing, I am lucky to be able to do it.
This is the time to teach Fate that this isn’t a free-for-all chase, she has to do it with me, and she has to be focused and steady, as soon as she can be. She is till too young to expect too much. But she has astounded me.
She has learned “walk up,” which is walk up slowly to the sheep. Susie, usually a pliant creature, came out and challenge her, and then ran right over her. Fate dodged and circled her, got right up when knocked over, and got behind Susie and pushed her back into the flock. Like Red, she was appropriate, she has great poise for 14-week-old puppy.
After she worked, she goes right into the crate. She needs to absorb what she has done, internalize the lessons of the day, balance the intensity of sheepherding with the calming nature of the crate. A life in balance. Border collies can be made crazy so easily, Maria and I are very careful not to let that happen with Fate.
I have to make sure to move around a lot, a great deal of herding is helping the dog to balance me, if I move to the left, she will move to the right, if I move to the right, she will move to the left. That behavior has to be named and marked. It means I have to move quickly, and with border collie puppies, that is a change, even for younger people. Since I don’t have a training pen, I have to place myself carefully, and she has to lie down when asked.
I have never been big on people who are proud that they never change their minds. I change mine all of the time, I have never known a truly intelligent person who didn’t. I hear and see the slaves of the left and the right all of the time, people who are proud to cheapen their minds and intellect with simple-minded labels with pre-determined thinking, mostly so the media can make all life an argument and make some money distorting truth and reality.
I am happy to not be one of them.
So I have changed my mind. I do not have the heart – neither does Maria – to deny this amazing dog the opportunity to work with sheep, which she is very keen to do. We have started training, and have made the most miraculous progress in just a few days. She is working off leash for short periods, running with the sheep, testing them.
I work on sit downs and lie downs in the pasture, the beginning the process that will enable her to be calm, as Red is, and respond to me, even when she is in the herding fever. I am mixing that with free time where she can move, and I can move and the sheep can move, it is a ballet, we are all in it together.
It will take time and patience, and it will take trusting my own instincts, I believe in them, and they have worked well for me.
Red is, as always, an amazing and generous helper and teacher, he watches over the process but keeps his distance and gives Fate some freedom to move and work and learn. She got a bit crazy at the end, a reminder to me to keep our sessions short and focused. She has also begun obsessing on sheep droppings, as young border collies will when their drive is racheted up. You have to let them do it, they will grow out of it. If I yell at her, she will just get more aroused.
I keep a long lede on her for now, so that I can get my foot on it if she loses control, which will happen with young dogs. But I didn’t need it this morning.
The person who trained Red understood the importance of calm, and my herding instructor friends also emphasize the same thing. A border collie who cannot be calmed cannot, in my mind, be trusted to work with livestock of any kind. The biggest thing I have taught Fate so far is the lie down, it is the calming and control position, she is really getting it.
So a turning point, a joyous thing to see and be a part of. Sheep will not be Fate’s entire life, any more than they are Red’s entire life, but they will be a part of her life, as they are a part of hers. Border collies with a real job to do are happy dogs, and also good pets, I have found. It is a joy for me, great fun and a thing of deep meaning. After herding, she happily went off to Maria’s studio to be with her while she makes her art. A life in balance, as Red have, as I seek. I’ll keep you posted.
