I have to admit that I couldn't do what I do with my flock of sheep without my dogs. I know that a lot of shepherds say that they can move their flocks using a bucket of grain, but my sheep are too wary to fall for that. Most of them will come in, but a few stay back and watch to see what we have planned. When the others see the few outside, they become nervous and run out of the barn, too, so that we then need to get more grain to try to bring them back in. We eventually got to the point where we knew we could not move the sheep reliably, so we got our first dog, Lisa.
Because she was our first dog, I made a lot of mistakes with Lisa - both in selecting her and in her training. She is still around now, seven years later, but retired, having gotten to the point where she is more trouble than help. Because border collies need a productive job to maintain their sanity, she has developed the task of protecting me from the rooster when I collect eggs from the nesting boxes. This isn't something I would have thought of on my own, but she has embraced it as her task in life since her retirement and, since it has created a kind of peace in the household, we go with it.
Coda was the next dog to arrive and is now, at five years of age, our main dog. Although I am constantly reminding him to slow down while he's working, he can do just about anything I need with little instruction. He is tough enough to move the most ornery rams, and yet can be gentle and patient enough to move even the youngest weaned lambs. I am afraid that he is a once-in-a-lifetime dog: he is just that easy to work with. I used to think that he read my mind, but I have come to realize that he must read my body language and often knows what I need him to do even before I even tell him.
Besides being so good with the sheep, Coda also knows to steer clear of the llamas. We have one llama protecting each group of sheep. When I take Coda into an area to move sheep, he keeps an eye open for the llama and, although he will move my sheep as needed, he will also keep from being killed by the resident llama. Chance isn't so savvy and the llamas are my major issue with him right now....
Chance is the youngest and also the smallest of our three dogs. Being two years old, he doesn't yet have the experience that Coda has developed, and I don't think he realizes that being too close to the llamas is a danger. He becomes so involved with working the sheep that he loses track of where the llama is - and that can be fatal! When I take Chance into the flock of sheep, I have to keep an eye out for him, to keep him away from the llama. I am hoping that, eventually, with more experience, he will figure all of this out for himself the way that Coda did - but he hasn't done it yet. Right now, it can still be a heart-stopping experience to let Chance work the sheep.
Of our three dogs, Chance has the most unusual personality. If you were to meet him in the house, you would think he's still a puppy - he's much too playful and immature for you to consider him a working dog. Yet, if you take him in among the sheep, all of that silly puppy behavior drops away, and the working dog comes to the fore. If you met him in the pasture with sheep, you would have a hard time reconciling the dog you saw indoors with the one you met in the fireld - he is that different.
Many people ask me if I have a favorite from among our dogs.... In fact, I do have a favorite. The problem is that my favorite changes by the day. Actually, it probably doesn't take that long to change from one to another - it can be minutes! Coda is definitely my favorite for certain tasks with the sheep, but Chance is actually better at other times in moving the flock. Lisa can be a doll - or a stinker, depending on her mood. Overall, life with three border collies isn't easy - they have way too much energy to simply be household pets. Yet, for our lifestyle, I can't imagine doing what we do without them. Their intelligence and drive make working the sheep infinitely easier, and our lives away from the flock infinitely more interesting.....
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