Sheepishdogs

Oh where to begin….

Our herding day began with our morning walk.  And then, our human insisted on brushing both of us.  I mean you can’t have two ragged looking sheepdogs going to meet sheep.  As if the sheep would care.

It was overcast when we left home and quite cool, and when we arrived at the farm, which was about an hour away, there was a fine mist in the air.  The test was running ahead of schedule – so the instructor asked my human if she wanted to bring us in early.  Sure!  So she ran to get Frodo– while I stayed in a crate in the car.  Frodo was all excited getting out of the car.  He didn’t know why, but he was.  As soon as he got to the gate of the pen with the sheep, the rain became more heavy.  Well we all know how much Frodo LOVES the rain.  Not.  His enthusiasm for getting out of the car was suddenly completely dampened.  Literally.  He took a few passes at the sheep, and then proceeded to pee on almost every fence post.  The only thing he didn’t do was eat sheep poop.  At one point, his enthusiasm returned – when he saw some Border Collies returning from the field.  Now THOSE guys got his attention.  But otherwise, he wandered around the pen.  He had a big poop himself.  He was deaf to his own name.  In short, he failed.

Despite this inauspicious start, my human’s spirits were not dampened. Frodo had been on sheep several times before, years ago – and as my human recalls, it took a while for him to become interested.  So 15 minutes went by very quickly.  She wasn’t surprised at the result.

But my human had high hopes for me.  I mean, I am interested in ALL forms of wildlife – cats, birds, porcupines, rabbits, squirrels.   My human just KNEW I would be interested in sheep.  How could I not?

I approached the pen with my nose to the ground and ears up.  They opened the gate, and I walked in on leash.  I didn’t see the sheep at first but then as I started to walk across the pen I spotted them.  And I stopped in my tracks.  And I almost assumed a tiny crouch.  The instructor said “ahhhh!”  After my brother’s performance, he wasn’t expecting much.  So for a fleeting second at the very start of my 15 minutes, I proudly lived up to my name as a sheepdog...  

But that was it.  A fleeting second.  After that, I had to pee on every post that Frodo had peed on.  I also had to have a big poop.  Before we had arrived, my poor human had had visions of me racing after a sheep and potentially harming one – I mean I grab Frodo and Paxton all the time.  Not those sheep.  The only harm from me would have been that they could have died of boredom.  My human tried to encourage me.  She walked with the sheep.  She stared at the sheep.  She tried to psychically communicate with me by envisioning me herding the sheep.  It didn’t work.  I stood in the middle of the pen and squeaked.   Ding.  My time was up.

The instructor kindly said that sometimes a dog just has an off day.  And the dog can come back a week later and do fine.  My human knows he just said that to be nice. 

The good things?  I didn’t eat sheep poop.  And because it was raining – no one was taking photos or video.  Not that there would have been many action shots.  It was a pity really, because we looked quite handsome after our morning groom-a-thon.  Wet.  But handsome.  That grooming was time well spent

A friend of my human joked that Frodo and I are Polish Lowland Sheepishdogs.  Not funny.  My human said that given our sluggish response, we could be called Polish Lowland Sleepdogs.  Again - not funny.  Good thing my human didn't buy a frame for my herding certificate. 

But being the glutton for punishment that my human is, I have a feeling that I WILL get to meet sheep again some day.  But probably not any time in very near future.  I wonder what would have happened if it had been a herd of porcupines…..

©  Linda Wozniak