Border Collie Balance Point

Stop by mermaid farm in chilmark on a summer afternoon, and you’ll see husband/wife farmers Allen Healy and Caitlin Jones engaged in very different tasks. Caitlin might be weeding or picking her tomato garden or restocking the farm stand. She’s the vegetable side of the family. You may spot Allen milking the cows or resurrecting an ancient Farmall tractor, while their children, Everett, 6, and Kent, 4, look on intently, offering suggestions on grease fittings. But if you ask Caitlin and Allen about their dogs, you’ll see how much they have in common. Their faces light up when they talk about their first border collie, Elliot.

“He’s the reason we got sheep in the first place,” says Caitlin.
“He needed to herd,” Allen states simply.

Allen and Elliott worked with a trainer for a while before they got the hang of herding. Elliot was a skilled herder but not so good with kids, and has since moved on to “greener pastures”; now Rita (Lovely Rita, Meter Maid), 11, and Red (Reddleman), 4, are the keepers of the fleece.

Allen could move his sheep without the dogs, but he says it would be much harder. He would have to buy twice as much portable fencing so that he could set up the new pasture before letting the sheep out of the original one. Although sheep prefer to stay together, if an adventurous one decides to wander over to a neighbor’s yard or across the street, where the grass is oh-so-much-greener, the rest will follow. But with the keen eyes and agility of a trained border collie in charge, the sheep will surely stay where you want them to be. Or at least where the dog wants them to be.

Noticing our arrival at the sheep meadow, Allen’s flock erupts in a chorus of eager baas. They know our showing-up means fresh pasture, and they can hardly contain their excitement. As soon as Allen lets them out, Red circles. At the far end of the field, he drops and holds them together with his patented border-collie stare. Meanwhile Rita sticks close to Allen as he creates a new grazing area with his portable electric fence.

Once Allen has three of the sides of his fence in position, he issues a single clear whistle. Red and Rita circle from opposite sides and the sheep obey. The dogs are fluid, focused, and intense. The sheep are calm, compliant. Rita’s graceful lope is a bit slower these days, yet she is still able to suggest to the stubborn stragglers that they move it right along. Red spots a wanderer, and instinctively widens his arc. He lowers his head, crouching to strengthen the resemblance to his wolf ancestors. It doesn’t take much to send the sheep back to her flock, but he gives a little heel nip, just for good measure. The move is over fast and before I fully realize that it has happened. The dogs make it look that easy. And yet, I know it has taken them years to get to this point. Rita and Red keep their eyes on their flock until the final fence side is in place, and Allen offers a gentle “that’ll do” to let them know their job is done.

As I watch the dogs (who are watching the sheep),  it appears that the sheep are unaware of the dogs’ presence, and yet they respond to the slightest shift in the dogs’ stance, huddling closer in their circle of ovine safety-in-numbers. There is a stealthiness in the dogs’ confidence. They know that there is a limit to how hard the sheep can be pushed before they spook and control is lost. They have a sense of positioning, always wanting to put the sheep between themselves and Allen.

“It’s all about balance,” Allen says, trying to sum up years of sheep herding. Despite Allen’s characteristic economy with words, I am starting to understand. It’s not just about position, it’s about power and restraint, speed and stillness, order amidst chaos.  Rita and Red flank the pasture like mismatched bookends—one a graying black, the other a sun-bleached red ochre, and I think I have a lot to learn from these wise creatures. Sometimes a little balance is all we need.