Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men: Searching Through Scotland for a Border Collie

by Donald McCaig

  Neither pen nor gates are painted. Bright paint may alarm the sheep.

  From the handler’s post, you face a great unfenced meadow with rumples in it. There are dips and a copse of trees behind which the sheep and dog would be out of sight. The course is shaped like a butternut squash: one bulb with another, greater bulb atop it. From top to bottom, the course is thirteen hundred yards, and the widest part of the bigger bulb is nine hundred yards across. The qualifying runs will be held tomorrow and next day on the smaller bulb. The field is bordered on the right by a stone wall and beyond that the Scotrail right of way (Edinburgh-Inverness).

  This had been a floodplain before it was a meadow. On the left, cattle and sheep grazed on the foothills. John Angus cocked an eye at the sky, “It’ll be a fair day tomorrow,” he asserted. “They’re having the Lairg [lamb] sale tomorrow, and they’ve never known it to rain for that sale.”

  Dougie at our heel, John and I ambled round the course, trying to view each tussock, every dip, like a hurrying sheep might see it. John bent and picked up a tuft of wool someone had dropped. He grinned.

  A Landrover came bumping out to where John Angus and I stood and a serious pale face poked out the window. “John, you know you’re not to take a dog on the course before it runs.”

  “Oh hello, Ray. Hello.”

  Ray Ollerenshaw, O.B.E., chairman of the International Sheepdog Society.

  John Angus smiled like the cat who ate the canary, like the trailing edge of tailfeathers were still protruding from his mouth. “Oh, no Ray. This is young Dougie. You’ll remember I’m running Taff.” He bent to give Dougie a pat. “Just giving Dougie a stroll around, Ray.”

  The Landrover withdrew.

  At the fetch gates, John Angus cursed. The workmen who set up the course had driven the length of the field, creating deep ruts that ran straight for the fetch gates but swerved, in the last few feet, around them.

  John Angus feared the sheep, coming straight for the fetch gates, would get in that track until the last moment when they’d swerve past the gates, and such is the caliber of the competition, that that miss would likely cost a man his chance to qualify.

  Raymond MacPherson was worried, too. You could ask your dog to push them out of the ruts, but, “If I know Blackies, they won’t turn unless you put a dog at their shoulder, and then the first two sheep will go [through the gate] and the second three will stop and run back up the course.” John Angus hoped it would rain. If it rained, the ruts would fill with water and the Blackies would shun them altogether.

  That evening, we lolled before the fire at Kiltyrie, sampling Grampian Television’s malt whiskey. John Angus told his two Welsh houseguests about the International course (“flat as a pancake”), the sheep (“herded by a bloody fool on a motorbike”), the ruts at the fetch gate.

  One Welshman, (Mr. Jones) was a placid, smiling man who didn’t speak much other than to say, “Yes, please, if you’re having one, another.”

  The other Welshman (Mr. Evans) had been to America to show Welsh cobs. He’d thrice had the champion at the Royal Welsh Show. He was a vivid talker.

  John Angus said the trial course for the Grampian had been too bloody small. He said that Michael Puegniz had walked a bitch in heat all over the course before the dogs ran. “Bloody man.” He also said, “Taff’ll give you a tight turn [at the drive gate], but I haven’t the confidence in him I had in Old Ben.”

  The two Welshmen had been driving along the loch, when they spotted a dead stag on a shale hillside above the road.

  “He’ll be poached,” John Angus averred.

  Though in touring clothes, Mr. Evans saw a chance for a trophy and climbed to the beast. “It was bloody steep, mind, and I was slipping back as much as I was progressing and when I got to him, I had only this wee penknife, and he stank, how he stank, and the flies, and me cutting at his head with this wee knife, and the flies, and me not knowing how I was going to get it home if I did have it off. What a trophy he would have made.”

  9

  The Big Course

  I’m sure shepherds held impromptu sheepdog competitions prior to the sheepdog trial at Bala, Wales, in 1873. But Bala was the first modern trial, its course the same as today’s. In the early days, trials were controversial. A few agriculturally minded aristocrats encouraged them, while more conservative farmers worried that their hired shepherds would waste time schooling their trial dogs on the farmer’s good ewes. And, there were doubts the trials did what they claimed to do: select the best sheepdogs and bitches. Complaints persisted. In February 1916, a correspondent for The Breeder’s Gazette wrote,

  To be perfectly candid, I am afraid the trials as yet have not accomplished much. Doubtless they have interested a great many people in the shepherd and his collie, but that we have better dogs today than could be seen 40 or 50 years ago is a matter on which I am slow to pronounce judgement. Some features of present day working are certainly more clever and artful … but great, self-directed “hill-runs” are, I fear, less conspicuous than in the days of our fathers. The trials are doing nothing towards the production and development of the “sagacious” type of collie.

  You’ll hear that complaint today. However, as others have noted, few things improve a dog’s skills more than an old man’s misty memory, and there are grander dogs toasted in the beer tent than are seen on any trial course. There is no doubt that the International favors a certain type of wide-ranging hill dog, and the intensive trialing that brings a dog to the big course winnows out a good many dogs that would make first-rate work dogs and prepotent sires.

  There are many fine working sheepdogs who cannot (or will not) tolerate the pressure of the trialing. Some will do it … grudgingly. John Angus feared Flint might be such a dog.

  The designers of the sheepdog trials created a model of the work the dog does at home. As in all sports, the model is more precise, elegant, and difficult than the mundane activity it represents. Many competitive sports are mock-ups of warfare. Like other farmers’ contests (ox pulls, plowing competitions) the sheepdog trial is a mock-up of work. After a poor trial, critical shepherds complain that “the standard of work wasn’t what it should be.” The highest praise a Scot will give a collie is, “Aye, yin’s a useful beast.”

  Although spectators at the 1988 International have come from the United States, Canada, Holland, New Zealand, as well as Britain, there’ll not be many who don’t have sheep and dogs at home. They are knowledgeable fans. The time limit for the qualifying trial is fifteen minutes, and as handlers run short of time and the timekeeper prepares to ring his bell, dozens of electronic stopwatches go off in the grandstands: peep, peep, peep-peep, peeppeeppeeppeep.

  The handler goes to the post slightly paranoid, with a strong sense of urgency. Sheepdog trialing is a sport where points are taken away, never earned, and before you send your dog out, you have as many points as you’ll ever have. Just behind you are four judges: one each from Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales. A perfect (cumulative) qualifying score will be 440 points. Top scores will be in the three eighties and nineties.

  Often as you walk onto the course, your dog will dash twenty yards ahead, looking for his sheep. Perhaps you clap your leg or call softly and the dog returns to your side. This is a time to settle yourself, swallow that lump in your throat, and see what you can learn as five sheep are herded (by two men and two dogs) to the let-out post, some four hundred yards in front of you. At that distance, you can’t ken much, but you can certainly see if a ewe is trying to bolt. Is the whole lot fractious? Is a sick or elderly ewe lingering behind?

  You meet your dog’s eyes, and if you’re right, your souls exchange confidence. The clock starts when you send him.

  You can lose twenty points per judge on the dog’s outrun. The outrun is the most important portion of the trial course and is judged strictly. What you hope is that the dog will cast out from your foot, widening himself as he nears his sheep, so he can come upon them from behind without startling the
m. Some dogs are born with a natural outrun: others must be trained to it.

  The dog’s life experience determines its gather. It must have strong faith and have learned to delay gratification.

  As the dog runs out, any command, by voice or whistle, is points off, and a man never signals his dog unless there’s trouble to be avoided. The dog is racing away from its shepherd toward sheep it may have seen or may have been cued toward by the shepherd’s stance and body language. As the dog goes out, he can easily lose sight of his sheep and, in dips and low places, certainly will. The dog’s instinct tells him to come in; faith alone keeps him sailing out. If he yields and comes in too soon, he’ll cross the course in front of his sheep and lose almost all his outrun points: disaster.

  The dog must trust his shepherd to warn him when he’s gone too far, when he’s gone wrong. He must trust his shepherd’s silence and keep on, widening, ever widening.

  When an inexperienced dog finally finds his sheep, he’ll rush in quickly, hoping to get to them and, usually, they will bolt like deer. A young Blackie can out-sprint a dog for a hundred yards. Sometimes a hundred yards and a hiding place are all a ewe needs to beat a dog.

  The experienced dog knows that slogging on farther, far beyond his ewes, before he turns in is initially more work, but nothing less works.

  When the dog is behind the sheep, he stops of his own accord or is whistled to a stop.

  If the outrun is correct, the first moment the sheep notice the dog is the lift. The lift is a test of perception and a clash of wills. Permit me this analogy: Picture yourself one morning, walking down the sidewalk, thinking about dailiness—your work perhaps, your wife’s birthday, the postcard you intend to mail—when a car pulls to the curb and a stranger gets out and blocks your path. He (she) is strongly built and exudes menace. Although he (she) carries a weapon, it’s not brandished. The stranger is dressed almost entirely in black, but there are small reassuring touches. Perhaps he wears a badge “Special Constable” or “Security.” The stranger takes a step toward you.

  If you are terrified, you may run or fight or bluster. If you are completely unthreatened, you may say, “Excuse me, please,” and step around him.

  If you turn and walk away, that’s a perfect lift: full points.

  When the sheep come away, with the dog trotting behind (or to one side or the other), the next portion of the course is an exercise in biddability. After the outrun, the shepherd is allowed to command, and most twitter like birds. Judges deduct points each time the sheep stray off the straight and narrow, if ever they pause or hurry. If, when they reach the fetch gate, they are deceived by the ruts and slip around the gate, that’ll be 40 points gone. As the sheep come near the shepherd (and the throng of people immediately behind him), there is a three-species encounter. The sheep are frightened of the man, though more frightened of the dog. The dog has been a great distance out from the man and is relieved to be coming near again. The sheep approach a new, possibly dangerous animal, with a known quantity dogging their heels. This is the handler’s best chance to settle everything, reassure the sheep (and dog), and read the sheep. Now he can see if one sheep is older or younger than the others. Which is the flock leader? Are any sheep out of condition, winded? Are they spooky or reconciled to being herded? At the same time, the handler must be preparing himself for a new, and quite different, phase of work: the drive. To the left, 150 yards ahead, at about ten o’clock, the drive gates await, and once the sheep come round behind the handler, he’ll want to aim straight for the gap between those gates.

  Tight turns are important in trialing, and the nearer the sheep come to the shepherd’s feet as they pass around, the better.

  For the sheep, coming around the handler is a great relief. Steadily they’ve been herded toward a man (danger) and a crowd of spectators (danger) and now, as they come around, this danger is suddenly behind them and they race away, sometimes leaping like lambs in the joy of their freedom.

  This is a place where the young dog can easily go wrong. Its instinct is to run to the head of the flock and bring them back to the shepherd. Running sheep tease that instinct. If the dog succumbs, ignores his handler’s commands, and fetches the sheep back, he will lose perhaps 80 of the drive’s 120 points.

  “Steady Cap! Cap, take time!”

  Obedient to every instruction, the dog must herd the sheep directly through the drive gates. Once through the drive gates, another tight turn is called for. If the sheep are allowed to lollygag once they’re through the gates, points will be lost. The dog must whip around and turn them onto the crossdrive.

  The crossdrive crosses the course through the crossdrive gates on the handler’s right, about two o’clock. Through the crossdrive gates, another tight turn and now the dog fetches the sheep to the man who can finally move from the handler’s post into the shedding ring.

  This ring is a forty-yard circle marked by clumps of sawdust. (Sheep have been known to balk at an unbroken sawdust ring.)

  Like politicians, when threatened, sheep rush toward the center, the stronger pushing the weaker to the left or right. The very old and sickly are left outside the solid wooly mass for predator selection. Too bad for the senior citizens, but as a survival strategy, it works well.

  To shed (separate) the sheep, the handler gets on one side of them, the dog on the other. The dog may charge through, physically splitting the flock or, more elegantly, dog and man may face the sheep from opposite sides and threaten them until they split apart. This strategy is as close to pure mysticism as anything I’ve seen on the trial field. Man on one side, dog on the other, they increase pressure gradually until the desired sheep squirt off from the others. Stuart Davidson, captain of the Scottish team, is a master of this maneuver.

  The dog must dominate the shed sheep until it is clear that he could take them anywhere. Failed attempts, opportunities not grasped, allowing sheep to drift out of the shedding ring: All these cost points.

  For the dog, asked to rush into the sheep while his partner harries them, the shed is reminiscent of the attack run his ancestor wolves once made before they settled down to a meal. The shed has great potential for a grip. If the dog grips a sheep, he is immediately disqualified, his trial is over, and man and dog retire.

  Grips probably cause more disputes than any other element in a trial. On the hill there are practical circumstances when a dog needs to grip a stroppy old ewe, and most dogs will have a “Grip!” command. A few dogs have a different command to bring a ewe to her knees and hold her (to lamb her or medicate her). Nevertheless, grips are rarely tolerated on a trial field and at an International, never.

  Time ticking away, the shepherd hurries to the pen. He’ll clench the gate rope with one hand, extend his crook with the other. From left to right: crook, man, gate rope, open gate—these form an illusory wall blocking the ewes’ escape while the dog presses them toward the mouth of the pen. The man is not permitted to touch the sheep.

  Permit me to resume my analogy. Suppose that menacing black-clad stranger had followed you for half a mile, walking on one side of the street and the other, never so far back you could slip away and never so near that you’d run. Now, suppose his car reappears, the back door opens, and the stranger says, “In!”

  The sheep know perfectly well that the pen is a trap. Penning them takes patience and a bodily understanding of the geometry of power. The sheep are less afraid of the man than of the dog. They are more afraid of the pen than of either man or the dog but not both.

  If man or dog presses too hard, the sheep will fight or flee. Remember John Angus’s bonnet on the end of his crook? Waggled in a skittish ewe’s face, it was just queer enough to shift her. If the man comes on too strong, the sheep’ll run around the pen. If the dog presses too hard, they’ll duck under the rope or jump the man’s crook.

  Any waffling by the sheep at the pen mouth is points off. Any ewe who breaks around the pen is points off.

  When you slam the gate of the pen, you take o
ne glance at your stopwatch and go back into the shedding ring for the single. Mechanically, the single is like the earlier shed only more difficult. You and your dog will need to take that single ewe off with the speed and precision of a surgeon’s knife. The ewe must not know what you intend, and when she turns and realizes she’s out there all by herself—PREY—she must be held transfixed by the dog’s glowing eyes, until her terror becomes paralysis and she is purely unable to take a step.

  The judge calls, “Shed” or “That’ll do,” and it’s all over. You come off the course to talk your run, to take orders for pups, to beeline to the beer tent for a wee dram. …

  If you’ve done well, your dog walks happily at your side. If you’ve botched it, there’s no sense saying “Good dog” and giving him a pat, no use in the world. Sheepdogs are undeceivable.

  At Kiltyrie Farm, the morning of his qualification run, John Angus took his dogs out for a run; wrapped his ulcerated leg afresh; and put ointment into Flint’s eye, which seemed to be improving, and Helen brought him his brogans, which she’d dried last night by the fire. When he complained his favorite jersey (a cable knit with suede patches at elbow and shoulder) wasn’t clean, Helen said, “If you’d take it off sometime, I could wash it.”

  John Angus snapped, “Woman, you’ve a tongue that could sweep streets.”

  John Angus wouldn’t run until 11 A.M., and Helen would ride to Blair Atholl, later, with the Welshmen. “John, somebody has to do things, here.” John was anxious to be off. During the night it had rained, and had those ruts by the fetch gate filled with water, would the sheep be flighty or calm? How would they go for the first dogs?