Rob Drummond - The Barn Door

Winter started in October that year. Snow began to fall on the 24th and kept coming through mid-April. The field had turned to seed so grazing was finished. The ground was dry and brown and the clean white snow was almost refreshing. This was the fall that marked the end of my first full year as a sheep farmer. My flock was small, maybe 20 or 30 head, but they were all healthy and if everything went as planned, I would have my first lambs in February. It was a little scary, but exciting. The sheep were safely in the barnyard on hay and grain, protected by my Great Pyrenees, Scout. Scout joined the farm as an 8 week old fuzz ball, but had matured quickly and was becoming a reliable guard dog. I never lost a night’s sleep worrying about the sheep when he was on duty. He was cautious but kind to strangers and he was always hopeful that maybe some day one of the border collies would play with him. He was a happy dog and we were ready to take on the winter.

By the end of December the snow was proof of the devil. It was hard to keep the barnyard clear and the snow banks were getting higher than the lift of the tractor bucket. The cleared areas were like skating rinks, and on more than one occasion I was pulling myself up off the ground, only to see the UPS driver watching the nightly spectacle from the warmth of his truck. We didn’t exchange words, but I’d like to think that he was watching to make sure I was still conscious.

The border collies were bored, and the only way to keep them happy was to let them take turns doing chores. They just had to push the sheep into the barn and hold them there while I filled the grain troughs on the opposite side of the barn door. Ice had seized up the rollers and the 12’ monster was stuck in a half open position. I let it go because the last thing I wanted to do was try to force it and end up rehanging it in sub-zero temperatures.

Most nights the chores were routine and the dogs knew what they had to do. They were all pretty competent, although a little disappointed at the repetition and simplicity of their work. Scout would wander through the barn checking his flock, and he was mostly respectful of the work the other dogs did. The only one exception was my dog Andy. For some reason Scout mistook Andy for a bitch in heat, and Andy spent much of his time wiggling and squiggling away from his 97 lb. suitor.  Andy was a good natured dog and calm in all situations that didn’t involve sheep. When sheep were in his radar, every muscle in Andy’s body was tense and you could see the steam come out of his ears. There were demons in Andy’s head telling him to “move the sheep, move the sheep quickly”.

Andy was always a crap shoot at a dog trial. Always the dog that was either going to take the blue ribbon, or send your blood pressure off the charts. When he was listening he was brilliant, when he wasn’t it was a train wreck. During a train wreck, fellow handlers would hear ANDY!,ANDY!, ANDY!, shouted in a progressively louder, deeper tones, and then they would hear the judges last words: “ Thank you. I’ve seen enough!”

On this one particularly cold, nasty evening, it was Andy’s turn to do the chores. The UPS truck had come and gone without incident. Andy had gathered the sheep into the barn and stood holding them while I began to pour the grain into the troughs. I’m not sure how it started, maybe Scout had decided to serenade him, or maybe it was those demons in his head, but what I saw was the back side of Andy racing around behind the sheep. With a loud crash, the first few sheep hit the barn door on their way out and knocked it off the runner. My instinct was to put my arms out and hold it up, but in an instant I was flat on my back, under the door with the rest of the flock charging across me. A quick assessment told me I was still alive and conscious, but I could hear the flock heading out into the small pasture beyond the barnyard, no doubt with Andy hot on their heels. As I began to utter my first hideous words, the sound changed. It was getting closer, and in that instant I realized that Andy was bringing the flock back to the barn. I sucked in enough breath to yell “ANDY LIE DOWN!”  He did, and in a fairly controlled fashion, the flock came back over the door, over me, dropping everything they had in their stomachs through the cracks in the barn door. I was laying on the ice, under the barn door, covered in sheep droppings, but I was alive. Life was good. As I lay there considering the best way to get out of the situation, I heard a loud sniffing sound. It was Scout. He realized I was under the door and was sniffing his way over to me. Then he found me, and like any good guard dog, he decided to mark his territory to keep the predators away. Now I was laying on the ice, under a 300 lb. barn door, covered in sheep droppings, being urinated on by a 97 lb. guard dog.

When I got out from under the barn door Andy was nowhere in sight. That was a good thing. I assumed he cleared the 4’ fence and went back to the house. I straightened out the barnyard, turned out the lights and went to find him. I was still fuming. I went through the kitchen door and said “Where the hell is he”? My wife took one look at me and said “you look nasty and you smell worse. I don’t know what you did to that dog, but the poor thing flew past me and ran into the closet”.

I explained what had just happened outside, but received no sympathy. Apparently, the barn door should have been fixed in the fall, I need to be wearing cleats on the ice and I never should have been using such a hair trigger dog in the barnyard in the middle of winter. “Andy was just doing what Andy always does.”Of course she was right, but it took a while to calm down and Andy spent most of his time in the closet for the next few days. Eventually I forgave him and the lambs started coming and the ground began to thaw and all was forgiven.  He has since retired, but for several years after that I still took Andy out on the trial field, but when the judge would say “I’ve seen enough”, I’d just smile and say to myself “That’s what you think, you ain’t seen nothin”.

Amanda Milliken - Bart and Meg

            My mother was the first to get sheep in our family.  It was hard to believe she was breaking with her suburban traditions and raising fresh lamb. But she did.   A neighbour had a single sheep that flocked with his cows and had not been shorn in two years.  He asked if it could join our flock and while we said yes, we could not catch it at shearing time, so it slipped by. 

            My sister Cathy got a Border Collie from Bill Wyatt of Tennessee.  We all thought it was a singularly clever dog to bring all those horses in, and wished we could get our setters to do that trick.  Once, she stopped up at mothers and watched the sheep and cattle from outside the fence in a meditative way, (which I now know to be showing us some eye.)  I said "Hey, Meg.  Get that sheep." and in five minutes, she put that uncatchable single in the barn.  I rushed to the house and told Mother we had to get one of these dogs and we did.  From a Kemptville horse vet, Cal Kobluk.  Cal's came from a Schaeffer guy from University of Pennsylvania.  Bart was my first Border Collie.  Interestingly, Cal Kobluk called a few weeks ago to get a Border Collie from me.

            He was a smart, engaging pet dog with his black belt in fetch.  We violated every good training principle in training him, but how were we to know what to do?  There was no one around to teach us anything.  No internet.  No books. An annual sheep expo in Toronto advertised a sheepdog training clinic with Glyn Jones (Bodfari).  I went to figure out how to train my dog.  Bear in mind I had no understanding of the outcome of training, so I didn't even know where I was headed.  Bart was the cleverest of the lot at the clinic and Glyn used him all day, to show everyone how to start  a dog.  I went home and did everything he said to do.  Bart's training generated a lot of community interest.  Mother's riding pals came over to watch him progress every week and he came along very well, becoming a useful dog. 

            The next year, I went back to Sheep Focus to do the next level of clinic.  At the registration, the money takers said I should enter the trial.  I asked what you had to do.  When they told me, I said OK.  Bart and I won our first open trial.  I meandered around after that with the dogs, for a year or two.   Cathy's Meg moved to our place.  When I got a bitch called Hazel, a granddaughter of Bart and Meg, I settled on sheepdogging as the sport I would do.  Thirty years later, I would still do it, if I could.