My friend Amy and her red and white Kelpie, Sue moved the large flock of sheep across the field. A Kelpie is a herding breed developed in Australia. A sheepdog trial was taking place and it was Amy and Sues’ job to herd the sheep to where the participants would gather groups of the sheep for their turn in the trial. The sheepdog trials measure each team of handler and sheepdog for skill. Though the instinct is natural with the sheepdogs the practice and teamwork can be months and months of training. Of course the long farm days year in and out never really truly factor into the profitability of a farm’s bottom line. Sue and Amy have been at this herding thing of a while now and their gaining skill showed as the flock of mixed breed sheep moved slowly but surely up the large hill on the Finger Lake New York farm.
Border Collies and Kelpies were developed as a breed to work on farms for herding work. There were herding or multiskilled dogs before the Border Collie. But when the Border Collie was developed in the UK there was a need for highly skilled herding dogs to move, herd, sheep on large grass-based farms. Farm work, if you have never tried it, is hard with long hours and not much time off at all. The Border Collie, other herding breeds had to and still on farms today around the world be able with good spirits show up every day and get the job done. The Border Collie made or makes it possible to get sheep and other types of farm animals from pasture to pasture without trying to rely on a lot of human help which is less available and unaffordable as time goes on.
Tara went running around the edge of the large pond splashing all the way as if she was on an outrun to gather sheep. However, this was a goose control trip and our purpose was to keep wild geese away from a summer camp beach. The geese, a large flock of seventy-five were just offshore of that beech and stopped swimming when they saw Tara. I didn’t have to tell Tara where the geese were, she saw them and stopped on that camp beach fifty yards from me as if to say, “geese you better stop and turn around.” This had been a long summer day into the evening that started at 530 am and it was now getting dark at 830 pm. There were goose control visits in the morning to New York clients and then farm work and now in the late afternoon and evening goose control visits in Western Massachusetts. Tomorrow clients in Connecticut would be on the list. Tara had not worked all of that, we have six dogs after all, but I did.
I walked to the handler’s post on a Saturday afternoon of that sheepdog trial. Blade my five-year-old male Border Collie at my side. He is an athletic Border Collie with great enthusiasm and an ability to listen well to my commands. We have trained long and worked now years with sheep and our poultry and many many goose control trips. All that ability would come up zero if we do not work on our teamwork. Amy was under a tent busily tallying up scores, Sue asleep at her feet. Other participants, human and dog sat on the edge of the trial field out of that afternoon summer sun. As we reached the handler’s post in front of the judge’s tent, Blade saw the three sheep we would herd for our run. The three sheep were “being held”, up on that hill by a Border Collie and handler waiting for Blade to gather. I set Blade to my left and gave him a quite command to run out and gather those sheep. And off he went, happily doing what herding breeds do.