A Good Dog

by Jon Katz

  Most mornings, she would rush halfway up the hill—the flock had almost always drifted up to the top for the night—and take in the situation. She looked to the right, then the left, surveying the scattered sheep, until she reached some sort of conclusion. This was critical, an Irish friend and herding guru had cautioned me. “You stay quiet and let her make some decisions.”

  Via e-mail and telephone calls, other trainers conveyed their disapproval. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to herd sheep,” one trainer scolded. “You need lessons—you’ll mess her up.”

  But working with Rose was a great experience. I’m happy we did it our own way.

  Each morning, after mulling the situation, Rose moved one way or the other, quickly or slowly, to gather the flock and bring it down to me. She carried in her head a manual of some sort that showed how things ought to work. I didn’t have one, so I decided to trust her and her burgeoning instincts. Her evolution was a beautiful thing to see.

  Rose was too young to herd sheep—yet she was herding sheep. She was too young to stay calm, but she did. One couldn’t expect this still-gawky pup to control animals that towered over her, including a donkey that could pulverize her with a single kick. But she did.

  She was as calm as Orson was excited, as dauntless as he was convinced he would fail. As needy as he was of my presence and attention, Rose was almost indifferent to it. Working with her, I could see the enormous blocks that had been created in him—his excitement, confusion, aversion to commands, hyperarousal.

  Daily her confidence grew, her experience mounted. She was poised, assured, and you could see how proud she felt after our work was done and she trotted out the pasture gate, pausing to wag her tail and give my hand a quick lick.

  Day by day, she became more of a working dog, and Orson became less of one, more of a pet.

  We were all still settling in at the farm when the first real blizzard of the winter struck. The wind began to shriek as sheets of snow started blowing across the yard and the road. I cranked up my new woodstove and took out a bottle of Glen-livet. The dogs were inside, curled up for the night—until Rose began barking. When I looked out the window, I saw that the donkey and the sheep had escaped through the pasture gate, crossed the road, and were vanishing off into the woods.

  I panicked. I’d never been confronted with a livestock breakout before. I didn’t relish having to call Paula to tell her all my animals had vanished in the storm.

  It was ungrateful of them to have bolted, I thought, after I’d so carefully supplied plenty of hay and fresh water and shelter. Perhaps something spooked them. Maybe I hadn’t latched the gate. In any event, there were acres and acres of forest out there. I had no way of finding the sheep, of bringing them back.

  Orson was of no use in this predicament. If we did manage to locate the animals, they would just run farther at the sight of him. Rose looked at me eagerly with her send-mein-coach look. We headed outside. “Go get ’em, girl,” I yelled, having little choice. The puppy—at this point barely six months old—disappeared into the woods.

  A half hour later, huffing and puffing, cursing the cold and snow and yearning for that warm fire and glass of scotch back at the farmhouse, I followed the sounds of barking off in the deep woods. When I stumbled to where she was, I saw in my flashlight’s beam that she had rounded up the whole gang—sheep, ram, and donkey.

  Nobody was going anywhere, as she barked, circled, and nipped. In an open forest, Rose was the fence.

  She maneuvered behind the animals and, with me leading the procession, we marched them down a long path, through the meadow, and back across the road. I closed the gate behind them, piling trash cans and boards against it for good measure.

  Rose, clearly, had found her destiny. All the things I had been working so hard with Orson to do were things she did naturally, instinctually. No longer the novice, she was maturing into the Queen of Bedlam, while the notion of Orson’s ever being a working dog—something important to me, and, I believed, to him—began to fade. Perhaps something in his proud, needy spirit perished as well.

  Rose knew without coaching how to separate the donkeys (soon there were two, later three) from the sheep. She guarded the gate if it swung open, halted the sheep at the road if we were crossing to graze. During lambing season, she alerted me when lambs were born, kept mothers and babies together while they bonded, marched ewes and their newborns into the barn where they’d be dry and warm.

  Soon, other farmers were calling to borrow her for particularly demanding tasks. We put down barnyard riots, herded errant goats, held roaming cows at bay. We charged ten dollars for house calls, and before long a couple of hundred dollars had accumulated in the basket on my desk, money destined for dog-rescue groups.

  We became partners in the oldest, most traditional, way of dogs and humans. Living with Rose, I understood why dogs had been domesticated in the first place. I was acutely conscious of what a dog like her might have meant to a farmer a century ago.

  Something elemental had changed. Border collies need work, and Orson was intensely eager to find it. As Carolyn had predicted, and as I knew too well, the world would not make sense to him until he did.

  But when he did, it wasn’t the kind of work one saw border collies doing on cable shows or at herding trials. Orson’s work became me. And that had to be enough.

  Equilibrium came to the farm slowly that first year. The weather soon grew harsh and bleak. I had little understanding of how to manage feed, hay, and water in upstate New York’s worst winter in forty years. I was overwhelmed by the physical brutality of our daily routines.

  Carol, the donkey, fell gravely ill, necessitating many late-night walks to the barn with syringes and salves. I had to administer shots and pills and wrap bandages. Hauling corn and grain to the ewes, dragging hoses across the icy tundra that was my driveway so the flock would have water, lugging fifty-pound bales of hay up the hill—I found it challenging, enthralling, battering. I’d foolishly mistimed the arrival of my ram, Nesbitt, so that the ewes gave birth in February, most of them in the middle of the night, invariably in sub-zero temperatures.

  Yet as my new responsibilities turned daily life upside down, Orson achieved a certain steadiness that had always eluded him. Probably it wasn’t easy for him to watch Rose and me enter the pasture without him. It wasn’t an easy thing for me, either. He always wanted to come with me—everywhere—so he ran to the door. Excluded, he then sat at the window, watching, waiting until I returned.

  But he found compensations. The farm was quiet in the winter, with few visitors and distractions. I still worked with him each morning, but we simply went out to the pasture, and after he circled the pen a few times, I showered him with praise. He was feeling successful, I thought, or at least feeling like a failure less often.

  With deadlines looming and the bitter weather discouraging roaming, I felt less guilty than normal about holing up inside to work. I noticed that Orson came to see my work as his responsibility, too. When the computer hummed to life, he plopped down on the floor next to me, his head often resting on my right foot. Soon he would sigh deeply and go to sleep.

  Rose loved to sit out in the yard on the bitterest days, so she could keep an eye on her sheep. She had no interest in my work, only hers. Sometimes, when I went out to call her, Rose was nearly invisible, covered with snow. She popped up out of the whiteness, shook herself off, and rushed into the house—straight through to the back door, hoping to go back outside and collect some sheep. She would happily have lived outside, the better to guard her flock.

  Orson was different, and perhaps we were all becoming more comfortable with that. I appreciated his companionship through that awful winter. His time with me by the computer, as the woodstove crackled, became our work together. I loved having him so close as I wrote. Often, because I didn’t want to disturb him, my leg ached from keeping it so still.

  A soulful, peaceful side of him emerged that had been harder to see out in Carolyn�
�s pasture or back in New Jersey. While I clacked away at the keyboard, this once restless creature would lie contentedly for hours. If I reached down to stroke or pat him, he licked my hand, met my eyes, thumped his tail a couple of times, then went back to sleep. In this way, day after day, we wrote a book together.

  His newfound peacefulness was infectious. Once again, I marveled at the diverse, complex nature of dogs, the myriad ways in which they work their way into our hearts. Whenever I looked down at Orson, I smiled.

  To own such a dog is not, as many readers know, a simple thing. It requires vigilance and spawns anxiety. Will he take off after some poor dog walking down the road? Break through the screen door after a chipmunk? Terrorize the oil deliveryman? One could rarely relax around a dog like Orson, yet that winter, in my office, as the temperatures outside plummeted and the winds whistled, I did relax, and so, I think, did he. He had found work he loved to do, that he was very good at. The next six months were the most peaceful, I think, of Orson’s complicated life.

  When spring finally came, we took several walks through the day, sometimes into the woods, sometimes down to Black Creek for a swim. He tore through the meadow, diving for field mice and moles, rolling in deer scat, erupting in joyous bursts of energy. He rarely had much to do with sheep, but he didn’t seem to care. Neither did I. Finally, the pressure seemed to lift a bit. He was content.

  He was even gracious to—or at least tolerant of—little Clementine, my sweet-faced new Lab puppy.

  I’m very partial to border collies. I love their intensity, intelligence, and affection, the energy they exude and demand from their humans. But I missed having Labs. Julius and Stanley were as delightful and affable companions as I’d ever had. I wanted a simple dog, one happy to hang around, doze at my feet, watch a Yankees game.

  So I pestered Pam Leslie, a highly regarded breeder in Vermont, until she told me about a litter that included a couple of yellow Labs. Then I pestered her to sell me one.

  Clementine was pure Labrador: nothing was too disgusting for her to gobble up; she rarely took offense; she loved most living things, including sheep and donkeys. Orson did not play, and had little patience for dogs that did, but he took a lot of stuff from Clem, who grabbed his biscuits and chewbones, tore through the house annoying him, and vied shamelessly for my affection. Once or twice he growled a warning to get away, but generally he seemed amused and never intimidated her the way he had Homer.

  Clem loosened the place up, getting Rose to play hide-and-seek once in a while. She even got Orson to relax. She and I were soon watching baseball together on the sofa, Clem stretched out next to me, snoring through the innings. She was a lovely addition.

  The only trouble we had was when somebody came to visit—delivery person or friend, it didn’t seem to matter much—and Orson hurled himself almost hysterically at the door or gate.

  But otherwise, he appeared—for him—at ease. Perhaps we’re finally getting it, I thought.

  Orson had friends, almost all of them female. His girlfriends, I called them—dog lovers, neighbors, and friends who adored Orson. They knew him as an affectionate, playful, and relentlessly social creature prone to crawling into their laps; he had a charming, almost flirtatious, mode with women.

  An attention addict, he loved being the center of things; if attention didn’t flow naturally, he was a genius at getting people—especially me—to focus on him.

  But he didn’t have to work hard for attention from his girlfriends, who cooed and fussed over him. His tail started wagging the second he heard their trucks. They brought him treats, brushed his coat until it gleamed, had long conversations with him. When he was not around sheep, doors, or gates, Orson could be pretty sociable. “You are a slut,” I would mutter, as his girlfriends left.

  A dog can be a pussycat at home, a rampaging monster outside. How do you explain to a terrified FedEx driver that the dog lunging and barking at him might be the creature that’s loved you more faithfully than any other?

  I was constantly interpreting for Orson, with his multiple personalities. He’s really a sweetheart, it’s just that border collies bark and nip. He’s a good guy, he doesn’t really hurt people, it’s just a boundary problem. I appreciated the girlfriends, not only because they were my friends, but because I never had to explain. They saw the same Orson that I knew; they, too, loved him for his vulnerability, for having a great heart despite a confused life.

  Sometimes, even strangers could see that in Orson. A woman in the nearby town of Granville called me one afternoon to say that she’d read about him in A Dog Year, a book about our first year together. Catherine had come up from Westchester to stay with her mother, who was gravely ill. Although she hated to ask, she wondered whether I might bring Orson by for a visit. Her mother had enjoyed reading about him, was eager to meet him, and could no longer get around much.

  “He’s not always gentle,” I warned her. “He can get excited sometimes.” But she said she and her mother, Madeline, would take the chance.

  Madeline’s husband had been a dairy farmer until his death five years earlier. She had remained on the farm as long as she could, but Madeline’s days there were numbered. She was failing.

  I’d developed a soft spot for farmers. Many of my friends now were farmers, and I was moved by how hard they struggled, and how doomed their way of life seemed. There was no way I could say no.

  We drove up that same afternoon. The farm was off Route 22, perhaps fifteen miles from me, four miles north of the only McDonald’s for miles.

  Decaying trucks and tractors, cannibalized for engine parts—the signature lawn ornaments of the dying family farm—littered the drive. Two giant barns, empty and neglected, were both tottering visibly. A few chickens pecked in the yard, but we saw no other animals. Catherine, an attractive woman in her forties, met us at the farmhouse door and showed us in.

  The house smelled of cats and sickness. Madeline, sitting in an armchair in the living room, had wispy white hair; a cotton sweater hung on her tiny, birdlike frame.

  She spoke in the sad, reflective tone of someone who knew that time was short. “I was hoping to make it to Florida for a few years,” she said, after apologizing for the house. “But I think I’m headed for a nursing home instead. I hoped to die on the farm, but that may not be possible.”

  Orson had spotted a girlfriend—any female who thought him handsome and sweet—and made a beeline to Madeline. As if they’d known each other for years, he circled to the side of her chair and offered her a paw. Then he licked her hand, and rested his head on her lap.

  I started to call him off, fearing that this frail woman couldn’t handle him, but I stopped when I saw her take his head in her arms for a hug. He closed his eyes; she did, too.

  They probably sat like that for just a few minutes, but it seemed like longer. “I’m afraid that this may be the last time I will ever hold a sweet dog like this,” Madeline said, wiping away tears, looking embarrassed. “He is as wonderful as I knew he would be.” And what could I say?

  Orson and Jon

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Contract

  Almost from the moment Orson arrived in New Jersey, our life together was shaped by a nearly continuous series of arguments, confrontations, misunderstandings, and disputes, punctuated by great fun, love, and an ever-deepening attachment.

  We disagreed over his right to chase school buses, or kids on bikes and skateboards. Or his tendency to charge after small dogs and try to herd them down the block toward me. Or his love of bursting into strangers’ backyards in search of dogs, cats, and barbecuing burgers.

  I did not believe it was appropriate for him to open the refrigerator with his nose, take food from plastic containers, and hide the empties under sofas. Or to plow through glass windows. Or find his way through, around, and under the picket fence in the backyard.

  I felt strongly that he should not stick his nose into paper bags in the car, remove the ham or turkey from sandwiches and leave th
e bread.

  One of our typical, often memorable, disagreements centered around a neighbor’s cat that continually sassed him from the safety of a living room window, hissing and flashing her butt while he barked and yelped on a leash. One summer morning, that window was open, leaving nothing but a screen between this taunting cat and Orson. I did not agree with his decision to rush up onto the porch, leap through the screen (the resulting dog-shaped hole looked like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon), and chase the cat through the living room, over the couple sleeping in their beds, upstairs into the attic, where he cornered and terrorized the cat (but didn’t hurt her), and then return via the torn screen. People said my screaming and cursing could be heard all the way down the block. I strongly expressed my differing point of view to him. This dispute cost me $500 in broken lamps and screen repair. We never saw the cat in the window again.

  We quarreled over his terrorizing of Homer—he glowered Homer away from his food, then tried to steal it—or his charging and nipping of people who approached the gate, or his demented pursuit of garbage trucks and fire engines.

  We had differing worldviews, he and I. He occasionally obeyed me, when it was convenient, or there was nothing more compelling to do. He was definitely one of those dogs prepared to go his own way and happily take the consequences. Obedience was, to him, a fluid notion, one of those ideas important to me but not always relevant to him. And these were explosive, powerful instincts. There was hardly a nanosecond between the time he saw something—the cat, for example—and he exploded after it. I rarely had time to move, let alone issue commands.

  Our mounting quarrels culminated in a nearly literal fistfight we had when he pushed open the front-porch screen door one morning, tore out of the house and into the street, and tried to herd yet another passing school bus. I found this obsession neither cute nor trivial: He could easily have been killed, and kids on the bus hurt by the driver’s sudden braking. We’d had this fight too many times, including the time we’d run from the police.