2 Crazy Dogs

This past weekend, my wife Cherise and I went to a sheep dog trial in Crawford, Texas, famous site of war protesters who do not realize that George W. Bush no longer lives there and is no longer President. We had observed an SDT before (that’s “Sheep-dog trial” to you city folk), but this time Cherise would be participating for the first time.

 Alas, it would not be with one of our own dogs. Shiner, the more promising prospect of the two, was still in Doggy Boot Camp as he had been for the last month or so, learning that herding sheep involved more than spontaneously charging in and scattering them in different directions. (He does learn how to do it properly every week, but fails to retain the memory over a weekend of what I can only assume is intense partying.)

 Mallory made the trip with us, but was simply there to do what she does best: Look pretty and whore for attention. Her interest in sheep is limited to mainly getting out of their way when they do something she doesn’t expect, such as move from a stationary position.

 Instead, Cherise worked with one of the dogs owned by her herding instructor, Michele. Michele is the instructor, not the dog. The dog’s name is Spot (AKA Spotty, Potty, Spot-Spot, and Spot-a-bot). She is a smallish red and white border collie with a strong prey drive and several baffling emotional issues. In other words, a typical BC.

 Spot wouldn’t work for anyone but Michele until Cherise came along, so Michele loaned her the dog for the trial. Cherise brought Spot home for a few days so they could bond, and thus we briefly knew once again the joys of having a new border collie in the house.

 One thing needs to be made clear: Working border collies are not pets. They are intense creatures that roam around the house restlessly, inspecting every nook and cranny while pausing at random intervals to stare at the cats, wondering if they taste like chicken. Spot had to be watched closely. The cats, lulled into a false sense of security by being around other border collies for several years, had to be watched closely. Lastly, we had to watch our own behavior closely, as walking too close to Spot with a vacuum cleaner or a lawn mower set off her “cyborg” alarm and caused her to defend her territory appropriately.

 The morning of the trial, we arrived at Crawford to find the morning overcast and more briskly cold than expected. What struck us immediately was the state of the facilities…or I should say, “facility”: a single port-a-potty for the fifty-plus people attending the trial.

 Just on the other side of the port-a-potty was a common area that bordered the two fields that were to be used for the trial. I called this the Field of Poo, a veritable mine field of fecal matter from every species of animal imaginable. I recognized the efforts of sheep, cattle, and horses, the latter of which appeared to subsist primarily on a diet of Beef-a-Roni.

 The scatological portion of the blog entry is now over.

 The trial made use of hair sheep rather than the traditional wool-bearing kind. Other than providing dogs with something to herd, I don’t really see the point of hair sheep. I can’t imagine what their course, nappy hair would be used for, other than stupendously hideous wigs. Supposedly these sheep are raised as a source of mutton, but the market for mutton is clearly not that great, judging from the noticeable dearth in supermarket meat sections. I would imagine more people walk around with toupees made from sheep hair than voluntarily consume mutton.

 An event such as this, with most participants originating from rural areas, allows me to see Texas as I imagine most non-Texans do, with a plethora of cowboy hats, southern drawls, and generous consumption of tobacco products. These people were serious about the competition, and generally adhered to an attitude about dog training quite different from the one Cherise and I had embraced since we started taking in border collies. Metaphorically speaking, the stick is used far more often than the carrot. While we, for the most part, focus on encouraging the behaviors we want, most herding folk prefer to discourage the behaviors they don’t want. Although this approach is not consistent with the normal treatment of our dogs, border collies are a resilient breed, and they seem to suffer no lasting ill effects from taking an occasional tongue-lashing during a herding session.

 While waiting for Cherise to begin her trial, and while Cherise observed Michele competing with her own pack of dogs, I stayed in the car reading a book on software architecture that I’ve been trying to finish for a year or so. For the most part, it was peaceful, the tranquility being interrupted only by the far-off sound of herding whistles and of Michele yelling at her dogs. This was punctuated by an occasional free-for-all among the penned and tied-up dogs all around me, who would launch into a spontaneous canine flash-mob of sorts when one of them spotted a bug and they would all break into a chorus of uproarious barking and howling.

 Finally, it was close to time for Cherise and Spot to do their thing. I set up a chair in a strategic spot, armed with a video camera, and prepared to capture the moment for posterity.

 It didn’t start well. The truck pulling the trailer full of sheep pulled away prematurely, and Cherise and Spot found themselves at the post with no sheep to herd. After the communication snafu was cleared up and the sheep were finally in position, Cherise gave a subtle nod to Spot, and she was on her way.

There are certain things I understand about herding, and certain things I don’t. I know that the dog must first circle around behind the sheep in a maneuver called the “outrun”, then must do other things that seem to lead to the sheep being enclosed in a pen. What happens in between is a little fuzzy to me.

 The different levels of competition are a little bewildering to me, as well. Cherise was competing in the “Novice” class, which seemed clear enough, but there were also “Ranch”, “Open”, and “Nursery” classes. Add to this the complication that, although Cherise was a novice, Spot was not. Because of this she was not truly competing, but was in the “exhibition” category. The judges kept score, but only for the purpose of demonstrating how badly she would have lost if she had actually been competing.

 Back at the exhibition, Cherise was having a little trouble getting Spot to listen to her. After all, Spot had done trials before, and Cherise was a rank amateur. “Just chill, I got this,” Spot seemed to say. After a while, though, Cherise managed to make her voice scary enough to motivate Spot to follow directions, just in time for the clock to run out. With no sheep having been penned, Cherise and Spot left the post and made their way ignominiously off the field.

 The video seemed to indicate that Cherise had done pretty well, although my poor camera skills obscured some of the action. When the scores were posted, though, we were disappointed. She had ten points taken off for being unable to pen the sheep, but also lost nine points for her “fetch”. Had I not lost Spot with the video camera while filming the outrun, I would have been able to judge better how the fetch had gone, as well as perhaps been able to determine what a “fetch” was. However, I couldn’t imagine what possibly could have gone wrong during those few seconds to justify a nine-point penalty, short of the deaths of several onlookers.

 The completion of Cherise’s trial would have signaled the end of the day had I been in charge of the itinerary, but I had no illusions in that regard. While Cherise observed the rest of Michele’s trials, I occupied my time by reading, napping, and bumming around with Mallory. The latter endeavor probably drew a few stares from the seasoned dog handlers, as we were frequently seen watching the trials with me sitting in one folding chair and Mallory relaxing in the other, tongue hanging out in happy leisure.

 It was during one of these sessions that a small group of sheep ran by us, having just been dismissed from the previous trial. For some reason these sheep were in the habit of leaving the field by bounding enthusiastically across the Field of Poo like a gaggle of nappy-haired gazelles. When Mallory saw this spectacle, she immediately burst into action by turning away from them and furiously licking my arm.

 In the afternoon the sun came out and it got quite warm. After a while I was aware I had stayed out in the sun too long. My dermatologist would have killed me if he knew how irresponsibly I was being, which is one reason I avoid my dermatologist like the plague. I returned to our car and stayed there the rest of the afternoon, until finally even Cherise had had enough and we returned to the city.

 It was an interesting experience, all in all. Perhaps Cherise didn’t take the herding world by storm. Maybe Mallory didn’t win any awards, or even participate in any way. And, maybe I didn’t pay any attention to the vast majority of what went on that day. Nevertheless, it was a dramatic departure from our usual weekend routine, which rarely involves moving more than thirty feet from our bed.

 In case you are tempted to read some sexual innuendo into that last sentence, don’t bother.