Shepherd In Autumn

The moment our guests departed yesterday, the weather changed from stupefying heat to autumnal splendor: bright blue skies, cool breezes, low humidity. The kind of weather that makes a dog prick his ears, point his nose into the wind and put on sudden bursts of speed.

Wolfie is participating in a herding demonstration today, somewhere in the Adirondacks, about two hours from here. I am not feeling well, so my saintly spouse volunteered to drive him to the event. I stayed behind with the girl dogs. Bisou, who thought she should have gone along, is lying morosely by the back door, watching the frogs; Lexi is stretched out on her spot between living room and kitchen and thinking about the next meal.

At the demonstration, Wolfie will work the sheep under the direction of his herding teacher. She will introduce him to the crowd as a dog of East German descent, which accounts for the herding instincts running in his blood (Shepherds from American lines are practically never used in herding). She will mention that despite his fierce looks he is gentle as a dove; that he has never even tried to hurt a sheep; that in fact his owner (moi) uses him to help her catch errant hens. She will emphasize that Wolfie's disconcerting habit of "air snapping"--opening his jaws wide and clicking his big white teeth--is an expression of joy and excitement, not a sign of impending carnage.

Then she will put Wolfie on a sit-stay several yards from the sheep and walk away from him, with the sheep following her. At one point she will say "walk up!" and Wolfie will trot (not too fast, I hope) towards the rear of the herd, close enough to the sheep to keep them moving, but not so close that they scatter. This is the part that Wolfie does well, having figured out that he must control his pace to keep the herd together.

After dog and sheep have walked around the ring a few times, the instructor will say "go by!" meaning that Wolfie must circle the sheep in a clockwise direction. Wolfie does that really well, too. He's a "go by" kind of dog.

But eventually she will command "away to me!" and he will have to circle in a counterclockwise direction--or, as the witches call it, "widdershins." And unless a miracle happens, Wolfie will try to do a "go by" instead. Or he will look away and pretend he hasn't heard. Or, heaven forfend, he will pick up a mouthful of sheep poop and eat it. It will probably take several commands--perhaps even a shake of the stone-filled soda bottle--to get him to do a proper "away to me."

I have a little theory about Wolfie's preference for the clockwise direction, known as "go by" in herding terms, "deosil" in witchspeak. In the Wiccan tradition, "deosil" is the positive direction, the direction of growth and abundance. "Widdershins"--"away to me" in sheepspeak--is the direction of negativity, hindrance, and opposition (don't ask how I know this). I believe that Wolfie senses this, and being of a sunny disposition, opts for deosil every time.

Regardless, I hope Wolfie acquits himself honorably, pleases his teacher, and doesn't horrify urban spectators by eating sheep poop. But those are human wishes. From Wolfie's point of view, short of being kicked in the eye by a sheep, practically nothing can go wrong. Cool weather, a car trip, and sheep to boss around--what more could any dog ask for?

Master Class

A shepherdess from Nebraska came to teach at my herding instructor's place today. Not a powdered-wig-and-roses, Watteau-style shepherdess, but a white-haired, weathered-faced lady with a gravelly voice and a herding resume as long as Wolfie's tail.

After eight lessons, I must confess I still have little idea of what herding is about. It involves too many moving parts—the sheep, the dog, the instructor, and my own clueless body. My difficulty comes from the fact that, by the time we analyze who did what and who went where, everybody is in a different place and doing something else.

The basic premise of herding is that a good dog already knows what to do—you just need to give him a little guidance. That is certainly true in Wolfie's case. I've been told over and over that he has a superb inborn sense of how to handle sheep. It's the “little guidance” from me that is the problem.

Take today. The sheep are in a corner of the pen. Wolfie is on a down-stay in front of them as the guru from Nebraska explains some finer point to my instructor and me. The guru is barely even facing Wolfie, but at one point she interrupts herself: “You see that? He just got the sheep to turn.” Wolfie is still lying down, he's done nothing that I can tell, but by golly, suddenly the sheep are facing the other way. “He didn't want them to go in THAT direction,” the guru explains, “so he just moved his head a little.”

My dog moving his head a little, six sheep changing direction—this is the new planet on which I am learning to tread.

Sometimes during a lesson my teacher takes over, and then I can see him--my own Wolfie whom a raised from a floppy-eared pup--serious and determined, working those sheep, putting them where they need to be.

What have I done to deserve his? I fed him well, loved him dearly, took him to obedience classes which he found a little boring and did not excel in. But obedience is a long way from herding, where he's thinking on his own, making decisions, acting responsibly. I don't know where Wolfie gets what my father used to call (relating to violin playing) his “conditions,” the sense of tone and timing that cannot be taught.

I lean on the fence, just another stage mother. How did I end up with this herding dog? I was only looking for a pet—a smart pet, of course, but just a pet...

A sheep breaks away and Wolfie firmly leads it back. Good boy!

By the time the hour is over, he's shooting me looks. I can tell that he's mentally exhausted, like a teenager who's just taken the SATs. “Let's get in the car!” I don't have to say it twice. Panting, he lies down in the back of the Subaru, then naps most of the day at home. But for the rest of the day he sticks close to me, lies down at my feet, looks me in the eye. “Thanks,” I can hear him saying, “thanks for letting me do that thing with the sheep.”

The Wolf In The Sheep Fold

Today I took Wolfie for a “herding instinct” evaluation.

I did this because his intensity around the goats has been driving me crazy, and I wanted to find out whether he was just harassing them or trying to be of help.

By “intensity” I mean that when I have the goats out of the pen, he keeps his eyes on them every second. If one of the three gets separated from the others, he lunges after her. And when I'm trying to get the goats either out of or into the pen I have to tie him to a tree because he simply will not hold a stay. Even when the goats are in the pen and I'm, say, weeding the garden, he will lie down next to the fence, and stare at them for hours.

Also, there is the little spot on his front leg. This little spot serves as a barometer of Wolfie's state of mind. When he is bored or frustrated, he chews on it. When he is fulfilled, he ignores it. I've been noticing that on days when I don't take him out with the goats, the little spot gets chewed on.

I felt a bit silly making the evaluation appointment, since German Shepherds are not highly regarded in herding circles these days, despite their having been bred to do just that.
Driving to the farm this morning several dire scenarios ran through my head: of Wolfie killing a sheep; or yanking the trainer's arm out of its socket as she tried to restrain him; or otherwise disgracing himself and me.

The trainer put him on a long line and led him into a pen that held three big, savvy-looking sheep. Then for the next several minutes she gave him permission to do exactly what I'd been trying to stop him from doing at home: run after the sheep. Not an uncontrolled run, of course. She would let him go, then have him stop and sit, then tell him to “walk up” to the sheep. And sure enough, pretty soon he had the sheep bunched into a corner, whereupon he lay down and stared at them, saying “Sheep, don't you dare move from where I've put you!”

The trainer turned to me and explained that, true to his heritage, his instinct runs more to “tending” (keeping the sheep together in one place) than to “herding” (moving the sheep thither and yon). And immediately a vision swam into my head of myself sitting in our field playing the recorder, while Wolfie keeps track of the goats.

Apparently that vision may come true some day. According to the trainer Wolfie has the right amount of drive, the responsiveness to commands, and the basic instinct to do what needs to be done. I must say that I have never, in two years of obedience and agility training, seen him as serious and focused as he was in that pen with the sheep. I could see his brain working as he absorbed this new reality, in which he gets to do what he desperately wants to do as long as he observes the rules. That look on his face was completely thrilling to me.

So Wolfie and I will do some homework with our goats this week, and go to our first herding lesson next week. He will get the mental and physical workout that he craves. The goats will get protection. As for me, I will eventually get to say those quaint commands I've always wondered about: “away to me!” and “come by!” Some day I may even have a shepherd's crook.