A Useful Dog

My standard for what makes a Border Collie, a good Border Collie, is "usefulness." To me, this doesn't mean my dog could do something if he had training, or a better handler, but that he will do it. Usefulness is the opposite concept to letting me down when we're out there working.

I know that many times it's my fault my dog can't do something, or doesn't know to do it, but there are other times when a dog should just be there, keeping contact but not making a mess, and that's all I need. I'm not trying to win the Bluegrass or Soldier Hollow here, just getting sheep from Point A to Point B.

Ted delights me more every day. I know, it's sort of reminding me of the coach who admonished his young athletes against showboating in the end zone: "Act like you've been there." It's still wonderful after so many disappointments, to have a youngster with all the pieces in the right place.

This morning we had a new experience. The newly weaned lambs took a field trip deep into the woods, probably after the poison ivy and other brushy leaves currently at their tasty, tender best. This would be okay with me, but the woods are outside the fence, with the paved state road bordering them, and after they browse their fill, the sheep tend to wander down to my landlord's beautifully landscaped small pond, drink, and then top off with a few of his wife's perennials for dessert.

Ted worked in the woods like there were no woods. He was fantastic (Ack. Act like you've been there.) level headed and found each lamb, plus made sure the mamas with younger lambs all came with as well (and weren't flustered).

The nice thing is that I think this may be the first time that these sheep haven't had the upper hand in the woods. They like to play games with my dogs, who all being hand-me-downs, or trained by me in - ahem - previous years, all have major weaknesses.

The other nice thing is that I think this was my big payoff for all the work we've been doing on fences, in corners, and in the lean-to. Weird pressure was always Ted's Achilles heel, and here it seemed like it was almost the opposite - he really seemed to relax and get into the "busy" nature of the job.

The only bad thing was that he was so "into" it that he was hard to stop and about 50% less obedient. He was handling things just fine on his own most of the time, but there were a couple times that if he had listened, I could have helped him a bit.

I think we'll do some putting sheep in woods on purpose, in the near future, and see what we can do about that last bit.