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For those who are unfamiliar with the tales of ‘Mist’ on Channel Five, I probably ought to explain why a North Devon sheep farmer comes to be writing on the Mole Valley Farmers website. It all started ten years ago with a whim of an idea about diversification, based around my two sheepdogs Greg and Swift. We started with some sheepdog displays for the summer visitors to Woolacombe, followed by a film about the working lives of the dogs, then came a couple of books. Most recently the ‘Mist’ children’s series has been shown on Channel Five, consisting of 39 ten minute stories of the real and not so real lives of the Borough Farm sheepdogs. With a flock of 700 ewes to keep, the last few years have been busy, but one of the biggest draws on my time in the last year has been trying to train the next generation of sheepdogs.
This is an archive of David's articles.
For his latest news, see his most recent article.
'Lay Down!'
July 2011
At three years old Fly has become my most depended upon sheepdog. Not because she is necessarily the best dog in the team, that title still belongs to Mist, but she is full of energy and running and never gives up. Fly's biggest problem has been her excessive speed and reluctance to listen to her 'lay down' command when she's working a long way away. You can imagine how dangerous it can be if she chases the sheep too fast when she's working on the cliffs, so her work on the coastal ground has so far been limited to what I would describe as the 'easy jobs'.
But over the last few weeks I've believed that she's finally ready to listen to me, so I decided that it was time to test her at a sheepdog trial. Sheepdogs frequently behave differently when taken to work in a new environment, and when you add in a long car journey, and the excitement of watching the other dogs at work it's not surprising that the most commonly used excuse for a badly behaved dog at a trial is 'she never does that at home!'
So when our turn came to compete I walked onto the field with some trepidation. We started well, with Fly running 500 yards to the other end of the field to collect the sheep as fast as the wind. Unfortunately, she also returned the sheep to me at break-neck speed! I spent the next five minutes bellowing 'lay down' as Fly decided that the art of sheepdog trialling was to get everything done as quickly as possible. We eventually walked off the course together with Fly appearing to grin from ear to ear, she'd really enjoyed her little outing. I, on the other hand had to face the fellow competitors. There were plenty of little laughs and comments about Fly's speed, but the most telling comment of all came from a friend of mine 'What do you call that dog? asked Roderick with a rye smile as I put her back in the Land rover. 'Fly' I replied 'Funny' he said 'I could have sworn her name was 'Lay Down!!'
info@boroughfarm.co.uk
The Shearing Season
June 2011
The shearing season has meant many things to me over the years. When I was working as a shepherd in my early twenties, it was a chance to earn some extra cash. Farm wages were low so by shearing a couple of hundred sheep over the weekend I could more than double the weeks wages. A few years later when I started farming in my own right I joined a local shearing gang. Shearing sheep became an important part of our income, even if it did leave me permanently exhausted. They say that there is no point in getting older if you don’t get wiser, and ten years ago the sheepdogs started to take the place of shearing in the farm’s finances, so for a few years the only sheep that I sheared were my own flock. But as my time became shorter I finally relented and a couple of years ago, I swallowed my pride and resorted to calling in the local contractors to shear for me.
I could never claim to have been a good shearer, at best I was competent. I always found it hard work, in the mornings I would wind the tally counter back to zero, but my body stayed on the number that I had finished on the night before. When Ross Crang turned up with the local gang it bought home just how mediocre my shearing had always been, Ross can knock off three or four hundred sheep in a day, but more impressively he doesn’t look fit for the knackers yard at the end it, in the way that I always used to!
But perhaps there is a little more incentive for him to spend the spring bent double in a sweaty shearing shed. Shearing charges remained almost static for twenty years when I was shearing, now charges have gone up o £1/ sheep or more. And as we are promised more money for the wool this year, us farmers aren’t moaning (too much) about having to pay the increased charges. But there is another upside to the change in a shearers fortunes, the incentive that it provides for a new generation to learn.
For the past year I’ve been involved with restarting the local branch of Young Farmers. Braunton now boasts over 50 members, and last week we held our first shearing evening. Amazingly 28 members turned out, 25 of whom had never shorn a sheep before!
They are mainly a young group in their early teens, so for many the holding of a sheep was challenge enough in itself, but all were determined and by the end of the evening 40 sheep were shorn and looking very smart for first time efforts. The second shearing evening was equally well attended and with two more planned we reckon that Braunton is well on it’s way to securing it’s next generation of sheep shearers. But above all it’s great to see a new generation getting involved, and learning the skills that will help them become the next generation of farmers.
For more information about Braunton Young Farmers contact:
It’s All in the Name
May 2011
Some things in life should be simple, like the naming of a sheepdog pup. There are two basic rules for the name of the working sheepdog: firstly the name must be one syllable and therefore quick and easy to call and secondly the name must never end in the letter ‘y’ as it sounds girlie!
So here the problem starts, I managed to stick to the two rules for my first few dogs; Kim, Greg, and Swift all fitted in quite well, but things started to go awry when Swift’s first litter was born. The vet students staying with us at the time spotted that my favourite pup had a small umbilical hernia, so they named him ‘Ernie’ (with the ‘ernia). The name stuck but I could justify to myself that it followed the rules as I could call him by the single syllable ‘Ern’ and Ernie was with an ‘ie’ and not a ‘y’.
There was another naming problem with that litter. One of the pups was a ‘stud pup’ and due to be returned to owner of the sire, my friend Derek in Cumbria. I’d selected his dog Sweep as the sire based on his amazing working ability and definitely not his good looks, so it should have been no surprise that the stud pup wasn’t the finest looking collie in the world, in fact he was so ugly that I named him ‘Suggs’ (so-ugg). Derek was most offended, in his eyes Sweep was magnificent and the pup took after his father. He promptly re-named him ‘Fred’.
There have been other naming problems too. As I stood on top of a hill one wild day and called “Mist, Gail” (and a friends dog ‘Storm’), I received some very strange looks from passing walkers, who thought that I was trying to summon up the weather.
So to return to the current puppy naming dilemma, Fly’s recent litter have once again created some difficulties. All of our pups are given puppy names so that we can easily identify them. This litter contained Zola and Bud (you have to be over 35 to understand), Fred, Buster, Betty, Kate and lastly Colin.
Before you ask why Colin, he was named by my younger daughter and somehow the name just seemed to fit. He is, I’m told, the sweetest and most cuddly pup in the litter, which is hardly the criteria on which I select a member of the working team. But by the time he was eight weeks old the female members of the family had once again fallen in love with his adoring puppy eyes. Colin, for his part, was milking that attention for all it was worth. I also suspect that he spotted that his litter-mates were fast disappearing to new homes, so playing the loveable fool would increase his chances of being able to stay put.
And so it proved. I’ve once again been out-voted in the house. Yesterday my own favoured dog pup ‘Bud’ went off to a new home, leaving the soppiest, daftest looking (and cuddliest) collie pup in the litter, Colin, to carry the responsibility of being the next ‘great thing’ in the pack. Well actually that’s not quite true, I wasn’t entirely out-voted, as I was allowed to keep Zola as well. She’s not at all cuddly, or particularly cute, but she has already started chasing the chickens and eyeing the sheep… Now that’s what I call a lovable pup!!
It's in the Genes
April 2011
As I write this month we are right in the thick of lambing. It’s one of my favourite and most exciting times of the year (if you ignore the sleep deprivation). The arrival of new lambs always has that element of wonder, but the excitement comes from seeing what my carefully selected breeding sheep are producing. Just as with breeding the sheepdogs, with the sheep I’m looking to breed from the best animals that I can. As I retain 140 ewe lambs each year as my breeding replacements, the future of my flock is very much dependant on the decisions that I make when I select breeding stock each autumn.
There is strong evidence to suggest the hereditary nature of many traits in sheep. From the number of lambs produced, mothering ability, the amount of milk produced, right down to hardiness. The New Zealanders have apparently identified a gene in sheep that relates to a lambs ability to survive cold weather.
So at lambing time I’m busy identifying potential ewe-lambs. I select those which are born one of a double, without any birthing difficulties and from ewes who have plenty of milk. The hope is that as the years go by I’ll develop a flock of sheep that are increasingly easy to manage, milk well, have good strong lambs and lots of twins.
It may sound a little unlikely, but in a way it’s very similar to the breeding programme with my sheepdogs. Fly’s litter arrived 6 weeks ago, the result of a mating with a top class sheep dog. I’m already on the look out for the genetic traits in the pups that come from the parents that I most value.
Such traits are a bit easier to spot in a sheepdog, though not all are ones that I might be looking for. Every time that Alfie picks up a piece of straw in his mouth and attempts to bark in a ridiculous manner, it reminds me that he’s just as mad as his father, Jake. And when Mist jumps into the back of the Land Rover, she insists on first running around the vehicle in an anti-clockwise direction. Amazingly her mother Gale used to do just the same thing (I bet the New Zealanders haven’t identified that gene!).
So the arrival of new pups and new lambs brings with it great excitement for the future. I’m possessed by the idea that this year I’ve cracked it, and bred both perfect sheepdogs and a type of sheep that will make sheep farming a profitable doddle.
But I guess in a year's time I’ll be thinking just the same thing, it seems that perfection in farming always seems to be a year or two away, and if I’m honest that’s what makes the whole thing so interesting.
Lambing open days at Borough Farm take place from 9 - 17 April.
www.boroughfarm.co.uk
A Mystery Solved
March 2011
Last job of the evening over the winter has been to feed the lambs in a field up by the road. On one occasion last week the weather was wild, windy and wet and it was already dark by the time I arrived at the field accompanied by Ernie, Mist and Jake. So with my hood pulled up I fed the lambs and headed the quad bike home with maximum haste, but it wasn’t until I went to close the gate on the way out of the field that I noticed that Jake was missing. I called him to no avail and to be honest the driving rain was so unpleasant that I couldn’t have blamed him for abandoning work and heading home early.
When it comes to disappearing Jake does have a bit of form. He went missing one day last year while my wife, Debbie, was walking him through the woods. One minute he was by her side and the next he was gone and no amount of calling could persuade him to come back. She returned home expecting him to greet her in the yard, but he was nowhere to be seen, and when he’d still not returned an hour later I set off myself in search of the errant dog.
The woods around Borough Farm run to over a hundred acres and they line the bottom of the steeply sloping valley, so a search of the whole wood was impossible. However I spent an hour or so searching the area where Jake had gone missing, but with no sign of him. On the positive side I did come across three sheep that had gone native for the winter. I had known that they were in the woods somewhere, and I noted where they were hiding and resolved to return the following day to retrieve them.
It wasn’t until nightfall, some four hours after he had gone missing, that Jake reappeared. Debbie was making one last attempt to find him, when he came trotting around the corner only a few yards from where he had been lost. We both gave him a bit of a talking to (to which he happily wagged his tail) and forgot all about the incident. The following day I returned to retrieve the three lost sheep, and was delighted to find that they had by then been joined by a fourth.
But to return to the incident last week…. Having once again found that Jake was missing I decided that I ought to check around the lamb field before heading back to the farm, as there was always a chance that some accident had befallen him and he was in need of help. So I set off into the storm calling and whistling as loudly as I could. But having completed a circuit of the field I was ready to return home when I caught sight of something white tucked under some brambles at the edge of the field.
It was of course Jake, and on closer investigation he was lying staring at a lamb whose wool was completely entwined in the brambles. Furthermore, the lamb was totally black and almost invisible under the hedgerow in the dark. Jake had refused to leave it despite the fact that I’d called him as I drove past only a few metres away. I pulled out my knife and began to cut the brambles away, but as I did so the incident of the previous year suddenly made sense. Jake must have heard or in some way sensed the fourth sheep in the woods, which in all probability was also stuck in undergrowth. And despite me and Debbie walking in the vicinity calling for him over the next few hours, he’d refused to leave it, only heading for home once the sheep had somehow become free.
Such sheepdog tales are not uncommon; indeed I suspect that most shepherds would be able to recount a similar tale. But every time I hear some such tale I am reminded of just how remarkable a dog the sheepdog is, and that there must be many a sheep up and down the country which in some way owes its life to a sheepdog’s devotion to duty.
An Alfie Crisis
February 2011
The quest to maintain a team of four good working sheepdogs seems to be relentless. No sooner have I got a good team of dogs up and running, than one of them is too old or goes lame. So last month’s excursion to the north of England for a mating for Fly was no more than an attempt to ensure that the next generation is up to scratch. The resulting pups (Fly is definitely in pup and looking ready to pop, with two weeks still to go) won’t be ready for proper work for over two years, so there is a bit of pressure on the most recent addition to the pack, Alfie.
At this point I should explain a bit about Alfie. As a single pup, he spent far too long in our kitchen and learnt how to melt the heart of my wife and three children. He’s an expert in delivering adoring eye contact, he’s very clever and amazingly obedient. All in all we’ve arrived at a situation whereby, if the family had to chose between me and Alfie, I wouldn’t stand a chance!
But here luck seems to be on my side. Although he’s only eight months old he’s showing an amazing ability with the sheep. Calm and clever, he controls a few training sheep with a minimum of fuss. More than that, he picks up his commands in just a couple of lessons. All in all he’s a bit of a dream!
So imagine the panic when he seemed to be developing a chronic lameness in one of his front legs. Not the sort of lameness that caused him to carry the leg altogether, just a tenderness that reappeared three or four times over the period of a fortnight.
My real reason for concern was a condition called Osteochondrits Disseans (OCD). It’s an inherited condition whereby a piece of cartilage protrudes into the joint socket. We’d had a pup with the condition before, and despite an operation on each shoulder, he eventually had to go to a pet home as the stresses of work would have proved too much for his joints.
So with some trepidation I took Alfie down to Argyll Vets in Braunton, where vet Jo Dyer is pretty good at dealing with my various sheep dog dramas. An initial examination only confirmed a tenderness in one of his front shoulders, I had to book him in for an x-ray a couple of days later, and return home.
The thought of impending disaster only served to elevate Alfie’s position. He was immediately moved back inside. I noted that when Alfie bounded energetically into the kitchen he was greeted with cries of “Alfie darling!” and “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you for ages”. When I tried the same trick, the only response was “You’re late, your dinner’s in the dog!” (presumably Alfie).
Things were tense on the day of the x-ray. I might have given the impression so far that it was just the rest of the family who had become attached to Alfie, so for the sake of honesty I will confess that I’m pretty taken with him as well. So when Jo rang late in the day I was mighty relieved to hear that although not 100% sure, she thought that his shoulders were probably ok. A couple of weeks rest were prescribed and a course of anti-inflammatory drugs.
For all concerned it has been a good result. So far he’s shown no re-occurrence of the shoulder stiffness and now, back in light training, he’s going from strength to strength.
But most of all, a couple of weeks rest meant a return to the kitchen, where he could perfect the adoring eye look and generally ensure that he could consolidate his place as the most fussed-over male in the household!
The Dog Next Door
January 2011
Some things in the farming year really ought to be easy, like the breeding of a dog or in my case a sheepdog. Dogs are not generally known for their reluctance to reproduce. I remember the story told to me by a friend about his bitch which, when in season, would go to any lengths to attract a mate. In desperation he put it on a lead and tied it to the dining room table. Unfortunately he’d forgotten to shut the window and returned to find the dog next door had jumped through the open window in order to further the numbers of the local canine population.
So breeding sheepdogs, you might think, should provide few challenges but there are some complications that add into the mix. As with great racehorses, great sheepdogs are all in the breeding. There is no guarantee of course, but if you select the sire and dam from generations of good sheepdogs, you stand a good chance of having a puppy fit for purpose. But as a geneticist pointed out to me recently, the problem with sheepdogs is that they require so many different attributes. Quite apart from the basic desire to keep a flock together in one lump, they need stamina, speed, bravery, an ability to listen and a willingness to learn, to say nothing of concentration and that mysterious quality of ‘power in the eye’. So if you take all that lot into account you can begin to realise the difficulties in producing good puppies, but the starting point will always be the dam.
I’d always intended to breed from Fly this autumn; she’s a good sheepdog, showing most of the attributes that I need. It put a bit of a spanner in the works when she produced her single, accidental pup ‘Alfie’ back in June, but the raising of a solitary pup took little out of her (she tried to go back to work within three hours of his birth, but I made her wait three weeks). So when she came into season at the beginning of December it was the opportunity that I’d been waiting for to try to have a ‘proper’ litter of pups from her.
I’m always on the look out for good stud dogs, dogs that are proven both at work and in the field of sheep dog trialling and that have also produced good progeny. With all this in mind I’d chosen Fly’s potential suitor, a dog called ‘Laddie’ belonging to a friend of mine in Cumbria. So at the beginning of December we headed off on a ridiculously long trip up the M6.
Strange though it may seem it had never occurred to me that an eight hundred mile drive might prove completely unsuccessful, but that thought did spring to mind as I stood in a drafty, freezing stone barn somewhere in the Cumbrian fells late on that Tuesday evening. As Laddie’s best attempts of flowers and chocolates were greeted by Fly’s gnashers, I did begin to wonder if there was an easier way of ensuring that the cycle of life would begin. Worse still I discovered at this point that Laddie was in fact the perfect gent and having been told ‘no’ once, was certainly not going to ask again.
But thankfully after a long hour or so, and without having to resort to plying her with a strong red wine, Fly did relent and Laddie was able to spread his genes in a southerly direction. So we’re now hoping that the middle of February will hear the patter of tiny paws at Borough Farm. And if by any chance Fly is still happily at work and not overcome by maternity leave, sufficient time will have passed for me to have forgotten that long, long drive, but perhaps I will be thinking about the dog next door next time!
Great Expectations…all over again!
December 2010
Sheepdog trainers such as myself suffer from a common affliction. It’s the syndrome of the wonder puppy. I’ve been training sheepdogs for over a quarter of a century, so by now I should be well aware of the pitfalls of over inflated expectations the moment a new pup starts to show any sort of promise. But I just can’t seem to help myself so here we go again!
You might remember that I wrote about Alfie back in September, soon after his unexpected arrival (he was a single born pup, the result of Jake spending the night in the wrong run). He was tiny at birth and both my wife Debbie and I thought him unlikely to survive. Then at weaning time the vet diagnosed him with something called mega oesophagus (a lack of swallowing reflex resulting in him returning solid food) and it seemed that Alfie’s story might well finish there.
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| Alfie as a pup... | ...and aged five months - what a difference! |
Amazingly with a little TLC from the family and a large dose of luck, the mega oesophagus miraculously disappeared. However, due in part to his lack of siblings and his illness, Alfie had taken residence in our kitchen and somehow managed to charm his way into staying put in his bed by the aga for the first four months of his life.
There comes a point in a sheepdog puppy’s life where it has to be tested for interest in work and each morning for the last month I’ve prised Alfie out of the kitchen and he’s joined the rest of the dogs as we feed a flock of fattening lambs. Now here comes the dangerous bit for anyone afflicted with the syndrome of ‘wonder pup-itus’. As I watched him begin to show an interest in sheep, he started to make moves and turns that seemed to show great promise. And when I took him to a few quiet sheep for his first bit of training my excitement just began to boil over. Alfie controlled his sheep with a style and authority more akin to a dog of five years than five months.
Fortunately not everyone in my household is quite so easily led. When I later recounted to Debbie the wonders of Alfie’s first proper outing with sheep, she smiled sweetly and said ‘now which dog have I heard you say that about before?’ And by the time she had recounted the name of every dog that I have ever owned, I had to admit that perhaps she had a point. I am a little prone to believing that each and every one of them is destined for greatness. But for now I’m going to carry on dreaming that at last I’ve found that wonder pup that will turn into a wonder sheepdog, a champion of them all!
A Career Spent Chasing Sheep
November 2010
Late Autumn/early Winter is a great time of year here at Borough Farm. The weather has been kind, with the bright October sunshine lighting up the beech trees in their golden autumn bloom. The cold mornings soon warm up to become shirt sleeve weather by late morning. The ewes in the flock are now ready and waiting for the arrival of the rams and are looking in prime condition…. well almost all of them.
There is a lot of working involved in preparing the ewe flock for the mating season. The ewes are selected into groups to reflect their body condition at the beginning of the summer, then in mid-September they are treated for worms, docked to remove soiled wool from their back-ends, treated with a bolus to provide essential trace elements and finally selected into groups depending upon which breed of ram they should be joined with. And once this is done I usually reckon that by the end of the Autumn they look a picture.
One morning last week I was checking the flock and had just commented to my son Nick that the flock “look in fine fettle”. At that precise moment we crossed the brow of a hill and there tucked up under the hedge was a ewe in anything but fine health. The blood stained mucus coming from her nose, the laboured breathing and the lowered ears were clear signs of pasteurella. She was a lucky find, as the usual sign of this disease is sudden death. We treated her with an antibiotic injection and took her home, but I was left pondering about the sixth sense of a sheep farmer.
For many years my wife, Debbie, and I have had a superstition about tempting fate. The merest thought that something is going better than anticipated with the sheep flock, seems to transmit to the nearest ewe. At lambing time if I comment on the number of strong double lambs born, it will invariably result in 24 hours of single births. Or a quiet conversation between us that lamb losses have been minimal will result in a run of fatalities.
Come the spring, an expression of delight that the sheep haven’t been suffering with maggots as yet will result in a cloud of blow-flies descending to lay their eggs on any available sheep. And should I ever think to myself what chaos would be caused if a certain gate were left open, I can bet that within a week I’ll discover that it has indeed become mysteriously unlatched.
So are shepherd’s really blessed with some mysterious sixth sense? One that detects oncoming disaster? Or is it just a case of predicting the inevitable?
Thankfully the ewe in question responded to her treatment and is now happily rejoined with ewes and rams, but when keeping sheep such a happy outcome is not always the norm and I’m reminded of a friend of mine whose sheep I once looked after…
I’d had a particularly successful summer and with some pride I told him that amongst his flock of 600 we hadn’t had a death for over two months. He is a farmer who is always resigned to the ups and downs of farming, in fact you could describe his approach as fatalistic.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said dryly, “they’ll catch up.”
Keeping sheep has always had its problems, anyone who thinks that they have overcome a sheep’s natural desire to turn up its toes, tends to be brought back down to earth at speed. But with the sort of mornings that we’ve been having over the past few weeks, it’s easier to remember why a career spent chasing sheep is what I always wanted.
Some days don’t go according to plan….
October 2010
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Eddie |
Eddie has always been a highly functional sheepdog, he's good at working in the sheep pens, rounding up big flocks and he works very hard. But there are some things that Eddie is not so good at, like remembering his left and right!
This week Eddie had a problem of a completely unexpected sort. On Tuesday morning we had set off to check on the sheep on a hilly bit of ground in Mortehoe. It had been foggy for most of the morning and as I drove up the hill on the quad bike the fog got thicker. I had only gone a few hundred yards when I noticed that Eddie had gone missing! I didn't think much of it, as even in thick fog a sheepdog should easily be able to find his way back to the starting point (in this case the Land Rover). So when I returned to the Land Rover ten minutes later and found he wasn't there, I was a little surprised. I retraced the route that I had taken, but still no Eddie, so after a bit of calling and whistling I decided that I'd better check that he hadn't tried to walk the mile and a half back along the road to home.
There was no sign of him on the road and when I returned to Mortehoe fifteen minutes later, I was beginning to get a little worried. Just then Heidi from the bed and breakfast in the village came running over saying, "have you lost a dog?". Somewhat relieved I said that I had and was told the story of Eddie's morning wander. Once lost in the fog, he must have wandered back to the Land Rover but instead of waiting there he jumped the gate into the car park. Then, smelling the morning bake of croissants in the village shop, he decided to pay a visit. Once inside the shop, Mel the shop owner thought that she recognized him as another dog in the village. So she put a lead on him and shut him in the stairwell of the next door flat. However, once Mel had locked him in, Eddie spotted an open window on the first floor landing and jumped through it, landing on the flat roof of the kitchen next door! Here he was completely marooned until another neighbour was summoned to rescue him with a ladder. This rescue was just in progress when I arrived.
He didn't seem at all embarrassed at being passed back through the window into my arms. I put him on a lead and he walked, presumably putting it down to 'just one of those things that happens when you are an Eddie!'
So I owe a big thank you to Mel at Mortehoe Village Stores and to Heidi at Town Farm House B&B for their help in the rescue of Eddie.
Pack Politics
September 2010
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Alfie and Fern |
Fern has been a grump since the day that she was born. She has never played with the other dogs; in fact they seem to ignore her for the most part. Throughout her working life she would only do as she was told if there was sheep involved in the request, but most infuriating of all has been her refusal to go in her kennel. It’s not that the kennels at Borough Farm are an undesirable residence for a sheepdog, in fact I would consider that they are somewhere near the luxury end of the market, but any attempt to tempt Fern into her kennel invariably results in her turning belly up and wagging her tail whilst refusing to move... quite simply infuriating!
Fern is now 11 years old and she has always coveted a place in the kitchen for her retirement. It’s an ambition that never seemed likely to be fulfilled, but the arrival of the new pup ‘Alfie’, seems to have brought out a new side of Fern’s character.
Being an only pup, Alfie has been allowed kitchen comforts for longer than would normally be the case and with Fern’s grumpy reputation we’d been cautious about allowing Fern anywhere near Alfie. It was much to our surprise when recently I found the two of them rolling around together, playing like litter mates.
You might say that I’m a sceptic, but I’m still not convinced that this is a genuine show of a lighter side of Fern’s character; I think it’s far more likely to be a devious attempt to gain access to the kitchen. But perhaps I’m being unfair on Fern, because I suspect the real reason is far deeper and is actually a reminder of how deeply dog behaviour is rooted in their past as wild pack animals.
My dogs have a well defined hierarchy amongst themselves, Jake is undisputed top dog, Mist is second in command and the rest show respect to the two of them.
If my pack of dogs were living wild, then Fern’s retirement would not have been retirement from work, it would have meant that she was no longer capable of hunting. The hunting role would have been taken on by the younger members of the pack and some of these younger females would likely have had pups. To still be of value to the pack, an old dog like Fern would have taken on the role of ‘babysitting’ while the pack was away hunting.
I find the politics of a pack or team of dogs amazing, but it is a great reminder of how deep instincts still rule their behaviour. Most of a collie’s instinct to work is inherited, but some it is said be to learnt from its peers.
I’m hoping for my own sake that Fern is selective as to which bits of her working traits she is passing on to Alfie!
A Shepherd's Priviledge….
August 2010
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Morte Point |
It is a privilege to farm on the coast, and keeping sheep on the North Devon coast I consider that I keep my sheep on some of the finest coastal scenery in the country. Daily stock checking rounds are a chance to breathe the freshest of air, forget about mobile phones (although mine rarely rings) and enjoy what’s best about a life spent chasing sheep.
However all that beauty can’t be kept to oneself and the peninsular of Morte Point, which I graze for the National Trust, attracts between 80,000 and 100,000 visitors a year. Through the summer months it can be like farming in a goldfish bowl, which is a challenge in itself (not that that bothers me unduly, having that many visitors on the farm has its benefits when it comes to keeping people in touch with the ways of the countryside) but there is another challenge of Morte Point when it comes to keeping sheep; namely two miles of unfenced cliffs. Last week cliffs visitors and sheep combined in one of those occasions that shouldn’t happen to a sheep farmer.
I had a ewe and lamb, which back in May had refused to come in for shearing despite the best efforts of Mist and the rest of the sheepdog team. Ever since then she had been watching me on the morning rounds, diving into thick bracken cover should I look as if I were going to make any attempt to catch her. But one morning last week, she lay close to the end of the Point, tucked against a rock, her head pressed against the earth, the dark area of wool on her back a sure sign that she was suffering from fly strike. During the summer blowflies lay their eggs in sheep’s wool and the hatching maggots then eat at the sheep’s flesh. Today she would have to be caught and taken home for shearing. With half a mile back to the Land Rover it was never going to be easy.
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Precarious position
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Despite the ewes condition, Mist’s arrival prompted her to make a mad dash for cover, heading in a westerly direction and ever closer to the cliff edge. Mist is a pretty experienced sheepdog and sensing that the sheep was behaving irrationally worked her from a distance, turning her roughly in the direction of home. But any sheep suffering from a stressful condition will run relentlessly downhill, even if that means running over a determined sheepdog, and despite Mist’s best efforts ten minutes later Mist and I found ourselves looking at the sheep who was perched at the top of the cliff looking straight out to sea. Shepherding sense told me that the best thing to do was to leave her to move away by herself but as I turned away, she decided that the best course for avoiding capture was to scramble down to a ledge ten feet below the top of the cliff.
Upon inspection it was obvious that she wouldn’t be coming back up without some help and the 40 feet of steep, crumbling scree below her meant that I wasn’t going to get her without a rope, so half an hour later I returned with a rope, a Land Rover to fasten it to and a few of the younger members of the family who couldn’t resist a bit of drama.
However the audience wasn’t limited to family and as I started the scramble down after the errant sheep, a small audience of morning walkers started forming at the cliff edge. I often wonder on these occasions whether people are more concerned about me or the sheep, but as a slip from the sheep bought a gasp from above, but the loss of my footing produced not even a murmur, I realised that I wasn’t even a close second. The reality was that it wasn’t really too perilous, but when I eventually caught the sheep in one hand whilst hanging onto the rope with the other, I wondered what my next move would be.
It was then that I suffered that rarest of occurrences, an incoming mobile phone call. Perhaps half believing that my predicament would be cured by a ‘phoning friend’, I answered it only to hear a voice from a call centre in India trying to sell me some worthless banking product. After a few choice words I returned to the wrestling match in hand and, after a little more scrabbling about, managed eventually to return the ewe to higher ground, where she was unceremoniously loaded into the back of the Land Rover.
The audience went on their way muttering about ‘that poor sheep’. I pulled up the rope and headed home once more, feeling that for once this morning’s privilege was one that most of us sheep farmers could do without!
David, Mist and the rest of his sheepdogs can been seen in action both at Borough Farm and at Dunster Castle throughout the summer.
www.boroughfarm.co.uk
Blogs, dogs and the unexpected….
July 2010
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Fern, Gail, Swift, Ernie, Jake and (foreground) Mist |
The displays side of our business is becoming ever-more important and no sooner than the sheep are shorn, the summer season is upon us. With good-sized audiences to entertain there is a certain pressure in making sure that I have a good team of sheepdogs on which to rely, but each year that seems to be more of a challenge. Although I have nine dogs at present, the oldest Gail and Ernie are well and truly retired, with third eldest Fern also looking as if she’s ready to throw in the towel. With Mist, Jake and Eddie relied upon to do most of the displays and work around the farm, I’m working on a new generation of dogs to take some of the strain.
I have a couple of trainees at the moment, Roy and Fly, who I had hoped would be up to performing at this year’s displays. Roy is two years old and as my wife says he’s always been a ‘problem child’. He came to me as an eight month old dog with ‘potential and a few issues’. He’d shown great promise early on but soon developed the habit of biting the back legs of sheep, a habit that clearly had to be stopped. Puppies often do this sort of thing and such problems are usually cured with a few well-timed reprimands. However, I hadn’t bargained on Roy’s devotion to the cause. All through last Autumn and Winter, through wind and rain I diligently worked with Roy. When the snow came there was enough moonlight reflected to allow us to work long into the evening and slowly the bad habits disappeared and he became under some sort of control. But then there were the other behavioural problems, like bolting off to find sheep whenever he’s let out of the run (refusing to return for half an hour), the barking in the kennel every time that my back is turned (accompanied by the “wasn’t me” look when he gets the blame) and his biggest faux-pas to date, the eating of the Land Rover back window (or at least the rubber that held it in). Oh yes, and he ate my crook!
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Fly |
So all things being considered, over the past few months I’ve realised that Roy wouldn’t be coming out to demonstrate the art of misbehaviour at the displays this year, but there was no need to panic. Just as Roy had been struggling to make the grade, little Fly had been making great progress and as the first display approached, I was sure she would be up to the task. The morning of the first display arrived and, with the usual feelings of last minute panic, I set about the morning jobs. I opened the kennels for the dogs to stretch their legs and... Fly failed to materialise. Poking my head inside the door I was greeted by the unexpected whimper of a single tiny black and white pup (the result of a brief dalliance with Jake when he’d been returned to the wrong kennel for ten minutes). I groaned loudly, the other members of my family who soon gathered tried to hide their excitement. Fly wagged her tail and seemed unsure as to whether she was to be a working or stay-at-home mother. Jake wagged his tail, whistled nonchalantly and gave me that "wasn’t me" look that he’d learnt from Roy.
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David with Swift and Ernie |
So that evening it was the old team of Jake, Mist and Eddie who took to the field for the display, with Fern lending a paw as and when she pleased. People often quote to me the old saying ‘never work with children or animals’ but I don’t agree at all. You just have to be able to accept that even with the best laid plans they will always conspire to defeat you!
David, Mist and the rest of his sheepdogs can been seen in action both at Borough Farm and at Dunster Castle throughout the summer.
Words and photographs by David Kennard
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