by Jon Katz
This time I was enraged. I believed—I would perhaps view it differently now—that he understood that he was being defiant and dangerous, was purposefully thwarting me, blowing me off, rejecting my alphaness. All those training books I’d been reading said I was supposed to show him who was boss, force him to accept my authority, take charge.
At the time, I angrily collared him and dragged him inside, only to have him slip his leash and take off after another bus when I walked him half an hour later. I was tired and frustrated, sick of arguing with Orson, sick of losing. Months of these incidents caused something in me to snap, and I charged into the street, dragged him onto the sidewalk, threw him about ten feet into some shrubs, tossed the pooper scooper at him, along with my Yankees cap, and screamed that he was bad, that he must never do this again, that he could not stay with me if this was going to continue. I told him he simply could not live with me in New Jersey if something didn’t change.
Orson was shocked by my raging and yelling, and frightened as well. He lay on his back with his feet in the air, a rare gesture of submission from a relentlessly dominant dog. I was nearly weeping with frustration, torn by my growing love for this dog and my growing realization that communicating with, understanding, training, and controlling him was, so far, beyond me, and was leading both of us toward trouble.
I didn’t know enough about him, or about dogs. I was losing track of how many times he’d nearly killed himself or frightened and disturbed some human or dog.
During one of Paula’s first walks alone with him, he’d bolted across the street and gotten hit broadside by a passing car. He bounced fifteen or twenty feet, then bounded to his feet. The vet could find nothing wrong with him.
But he couldn’t live in New Jersey this way. I either had to do better or send him back to Texas. I think it was at that moment that I realized that I would never send him back, that I would do anything within reason and within my power to train him, calm him down, and keep him in my life.
I spoke to him of this that morning, as neighbors gawked at the spectacle: Orson cradled in my arms; cap, scooper, and other debris strewn about; the angry bus driver moving off, shouting warnings at me and the dog. I’d hurt Orson that morning, throwing him around like that. I’d scared him and myself, but I’d also grasped the depth of my attachment—and commitment—to him.
We can’t go on this way, I explained. I’ve got to do better. You’ve got to do better. I’ve got to be clearer, to find a way to get through to you. You’ve got to hear me and stop doing crazy things that will get you or some other creature hurt.
We both began to calm down. His tail began to swish, and he kept reaching up to lick my face. I felt that I’d somehow communicated to him, shaken him up.
Out of this confrontation came the fundamental understanding between us. I sometimes called it our covenant, or our contract, because it was in so many ways about faith and commitment, about the love that I have always wanted and needed and which he seemed to need, too. It was a significant agreement, one that was to change my life soon, in dramatic and completely unexpected ways.
Looking back, with the cheap benefit of time, it seems an arrogant, inappropriate, even absurd thing to have done. Dogs have complex and wonderful minds, but they are foreign to us in many ways. They think, but not like us. They reason, but not the way we do. They can’t enter into agreements. They can’t adopt our ideas of faith and propriety, can’t be held responsible for our notions of commitment and responsibility, for our needs and wants.
As I sit here on the farm, that important argument—a treaty, perhaps—seems a lifetime ago. It’s hard to imagine my life before Orson, now that I rise at five to walk the dogs and haul hay out to the sheep, spend my day gathering eggs and tending to a donkey’s cracked hoof, and fall asleep by nine.
I’d always loved dogs, but they hovered in the background of my life. I had no reason to think about them much, until Orson came. Then they suddenly burst into the center and I was thinking about them much of the time. Orson changed the shape and order of things.
I was a prisoner and victim of my own bumbling goodwill and ignorance, and so, soon enough, was he. If I’d known then what I know now, I can’t imagine entering into any kind of compact with a dog. But then, if I’d known more, I probably wouldn’t have driven to Newark Airport to pick up that dog. And how much poorer I would have been.
“Here’s the thing,” I thought out loud and explained to Orson that morning in New Jersey as the life of the neighborhood coursed curiously around us. If people were wondering about a man lying in the ivy with a dog in his lap, they were also going about their business, heading for work or school. Many of them had been watching me chase this dog across yards and streets for months.
It was time for a change. “I will keep faith with you. I will stay committed to you. We will not quit on each other. We will not give up on each other.”
I was convinced he was as committed to this understanding as I. I would do anything within reason to help him, to train him, to calm him, to guide and lead him and show him how to live in the world. He would stick it out with me, learn and grow with me, and we would be able to live together, happily and lovingly.
Things did get better after that awful fight. Orson never chased after a school bus after that morning. He did pay more attention to me, although not always. Our basic and painstaking grounding and obedience work did begin to pay off. He didn’t become a different dog, but he did become a calmer one. I began to understand that my job was to lead and guide him, not to negotiate bargains with him. This did him more good.
Our arguments continued, as life on the farm presented a wide range of things to disagree about. I didn’t agree with his practice of charging and nipping at gates and doors. I couldn’t endorse the rough way he handled sheep. I protested his plunging into brambles and sticky burrs, his wolfing down dead animals and deer scat, his relentless persecution of Homer.
But our covenant was a turning point. If we were committed to each other, if there was no turning back, then how could my life with him fail?
It was a warm spring day at the farm. Rose, a bit worn from walking the sheep across the road and babysitting them in the meadow, was dozing in the fenced run behind the house. Clementine, my new Lab puppy, was next to her, contentedly gnawing on some rawhide. After a few weeks of growling whenever Clem came near, Rose had allowed her to sit close. (Rose did not yet deign to play—she did not play, had not ever played, something that seemed to puzzle Clementine to the core.)
Rose occasionally lifted her head up to see where the sheep were, then lay down.
Orson and I were off on a picnic, headed together up the pasture hill to the two Adirondack chairs I had positioned there. Most days, if the weather permitted, Orson and I had lunch up there. I usually made myself a sandwich, took an apple and a bottle of water in a backpack, along with a few biscuits.
We would enter the pasture—the sheep would make themselves scarce—and Orson would circle me, happy to be coming along. Like Rose, he had a conceptual streak: even if he didn’t know precisely what we were doing, he got the idea. If I picked up the backpack and headed through the gate, we were going up the hill, so he would head for the gate, delighted to join in this new ritual.
If we had a favorite spot on earth, the top of the hill was probably it, although we would soon find another. The chairs were built by Don Coldwell, a master carpenter and friend who lived in the village. He also made me the beautiful ash walking stick—enscribed with the name “Bedlam Farm”—that helped steady me as we made the climb.
It was about a third of a mile from the farmhouse, and we had to climb a steep hill—I always grew a bit winded, Orson never did—then open the uppermost gate and turn left to a shady spot where the two chairs sat nestled, nearly hidden by the trees.
The walk got progressively tougher as my leg troubles increased. My knee hurt and my ankle was weak and sometimes gave way suddenly. Often, increasingly, I fell. It was a Ve
rmont reporter visiting me who noticed that at certain points in our walks, Orson pressed close against my knee. I’d assumed he just wanted a pat, but once she asked me about it I realized that this happened at spots where I had fallen in the past. He remembered. When I did fall, he rushed over to me, frantically licked my face and gnawed at my ear until I got up. There was no way he would leave me lying there.
At such moments, he seemed especially Rin Tin Tin to me. I believed that if I stumbled and then, for any reason, couldn’t get to my feet, I could turn to him and say “Orson, boy, go get help! Go get Anthony!” and he would be off like a rocket and my friend Anthony Armstrong would soon come roaring up in his pickup to save me.
I had come to view Orson as my guardian, my protector. That somehow seemed part of the deal. We would watch out for each other. Rose was an immensely better working dog, but it was Orson I turned to when I thought I might be in trouble—when a menacing dog appeared, when a wild pig popped out of the woods nearby and attacked Rose, when blizzards roared down from Canada, when coyotes circled up on the hill, when I needed company to hike up the hill. Orson had my back. We still had plenty of disagreements, but he was a good man in a brawl, fearless, faithful, loyal, a warrior for love.
Once we got to the top of the hill, Orson plumped down and put his head on one of my feet. I took a deep breath and looked out at the beautiful and verdant valley that spread all the way to Vermont, at the sheep grazing below, at my beautiful old farmhouse with its rich history, at the hawks circling above. I shook my head in wonder that I could claim this spot, and was nearly overwhelmed with gratitude for the dog who had somehow, in ways I had not begun to understand, led me here.
Sometimes I read or dozed in the warm breeze. This day, I just leaned over to scratch Orson’s nose. We were both as peaceful up there as we ever were anywhere.
Then we made the much easier hike back down. At the bottom of the hill, I let Rose and Clem out of their fence, and the four of us walked across the road and down into the meadow, so the dogs could plunge into the stream to cool off and swim.
Orson was always the first one down the path and into the water; he loved to circle a few times like an old lady at the beach, then tear back to me. Clem chased sticks and balls, while Rose skittered across to the opposite bank to see if there was anything to herd.
Then we all marched back. It occurred to me on those walks that my time on this farm was perhaps limited. I was getting older. The farm rested on steep hills, muddy in spring, treacherously icy in winter. I sometimes felt I was drowning in the rituals and the chores of a farm. My leg throbbed when I walked uphill, and the pain could be punishing.
Bedlam Farm was a daunting place for a middle-aged man with a bum leg. But I was not alone or unprotected. Orson and I had made a good deal, and both of us were sticking to it.
Orson
CHAPTER FIVE
The Big Nipper
Chris, the FedEx man, drove many miles on the rural route he covered. He came to my farmhouse three or four times a week, bringing books and CDs, computer paraphernalia, farm and dog supplies.
He loved dogs—he had three of his own—and knew how to handle the ones he encountered. You could tell he was comfortable around them.
When his truck pulled into the driveway, right alongside the front yard and the side door to the house, Orson was likely to go berserk. But Chris, patient and experienced, got out of his truck, stepped back calmly, avoided eye contact and approached the house walking sideways, all the while talking normally, saying “Hey, Orson,” and praising him when he was quiet. Usually Orson was not quiet. But he did love food, and when Chris reached into his pocket for a biscuit, the barking paused. Then Chris would toss the treat over the dog’s shoulder.
The idea was to calm Orson, to reward him for being calm, and to steer his attention away from the truck and from Chris. Meanwhile, when I heard the barking, I walked outside to get the packages and put Orson on a leash. Next to me, and away from the doorway, Orson settled down. When he was calm, Chris tossed Orson another treat, and soon Orson would accept pats and scratches and lick Chris’s hand. It usually took two or three minutes for Orson to cool off enough to be trusted. Then I removed the leash, and he sniffed affably around the truck.
Chris and I took this calming and acclimating ritual seriously. Over the course of six months, Chris would probably be here nearly a hundred times. If we stuck with it, we agreed, Orson would accept the presence of the truck and its driver. Enough introductions, dog biscuits, scratches, and hugs and Orson would get the idea. He’d become desensitized to the truck, welcome Chris, and perhaps be more comfortable with others as well.
One spring day—Chris guesses it might have been his seventieth or eightieth delivery—Orson didn’t bark when the FedEx truck pulled into the driveway, just sat still, wagging his tail. I was in the barn, doing chores.
Chris got out and tossed Orson the usual biscuit; he scarfed it up and walked over quietly, his tail going more rapidly, his ears up. He seemed to recognize Chris instantly, and was focused on his hand—the source of treats.
Chris, pleased, thought he’d broken through. He reached over slowly, tossing biscuits every few seconds. Orson ate the biscuits, turned, and nipped the thumb of Chris’s right glove, tearing it nearly off. There was no blood, no injury, just astonishment.
“I really thought we had it,” Chris said.
Border collies sometimes do nip—people, animals, balls, anything that moves rapidly away from them. This is a natural behavior, the way they control large animals and induce them to go where they want them to. When people like me get a dog like Orson, they tend immediately to demand that the dog eliminate its natural behaviors and live the way humans prefer. Inevitably there’s some tension. In fact, there can be civil war.
I saw the fight in New Jersey as our personal Appomattox, a kind of truce. Much later, I recognized it as only the first of a number of turning points. I kept wanting to declare our personal struggle over, proclaim myself victorious, and leave the field of battle. Of course, the skirmishing had just begun.
Orson did appear to focus on me more, for whatever reason, after that tussle. He more readily accepted my authority, or at least the idea of it. Yet our new understanding didn’t spell the end of the long, uphill battle this dog faced to subordinate his nature to human expectations.
Tens of millions of dogs make this accommodation every day. Lots don’t, often with sad consequences, and the more powerful the instincts, or damaged the dog, the tougher the struggle.
Border collies often upset their people primarily because they’re supposed to be a smart breed; their owners don’t recognize that they’re also intense, instinctive, even odd creatures. If you don’t have work for them, they will find some on their own; odds are, it won’t be the kind of work you want done. We think of these dogs herding sheep, but their own definitions of work are much more fluid.
Orson, for example, didn’t like where I kept the magazines that streamed weekly into the house in New Jersey. He decided to move them. Every time I glanced up, he was skittering up or down the staircase with a recent Newsweek or Rolling Stone in his mouth. Paula and I kept magazines in a pile downstairs, where we could skim through them in the evening. Orson, however, felt they should be upstairs, by the bed.
This was a perfect job for an obsessive dog looking to keep busy. I scolded Orson when I caught him, and put the magazines back on the stack, but I couldn’t make much of a dent in this new routine. After a couple of months, we began reading magazines in bed.
Border collies generally shouldn’t use their mouths when working. But I learned that there are times—say, dealing with rebellious ewes, obstreperous rams, and grumpy donkeys—when nipping becomes an essential tool. A good herder will not bite a sheep, but might “pull some wool” once in a while.
Rose has nipped cows to get them moving, and backed up rams by nipping them on the nose; it sometimes proves an invaluable work tool, even a matter of survival.
Now and then, two or three ewes get it into their heads that they don’t feel like moving across the road to graze, or they want to flee the shearer, or the vet. Rose convinces them otherwise, sometimes by discreetly nipping their noses or butts.
Sometimes sheep get tired or hot. Sometimes they feel protective of their lambs. Sometimes they’re just ticked off. They will kick, butt, or run away, struggles that a working dog like Rose quickly learns she must win, by any means. So, many border collies will nip now and then.
Orson was a nipper—the Big Nipper, I started calling him. In New Jersey, where there were significantly more people per square mile, he sometimes nipped at people who grabbed him too enthusiastically about the face or tail, or at people who edged too close to our backyard gate. He nipped garbage trucks if he could.
And at times he was more than a nipper. When highly aroused, he could grow crazed, barking and lunging, not completely under my control or his own. Every dog owner has his own definitions, but I consider a dog potentially dangerous if he or she cannot be recalled instantly, 100 percent of the time. Orson couldn’t.
Yet he seemed to go in cycles. Sometimes the arousal got better, sometimes it got worse. I was always celebrating the former, then despairing over the latter, always right and always wrong.
But if Orson was a pain, he was a manageable one. In New Jersey, where life went from chaotic to mundane, whole weeks would pass without incident. We went for long walks through the neighborhood, trekked out to Raspberry Ridge for lessons, met other dogs and dog lovers at local parks.
This is where guilt and responsibility often collide with a dog like this: Orson should almost always have been leashed, crated, or kenneled, at least until he was fully and completely trained. I knew, even then, that most border collies can’t really live fully or happily in a place like suburban New Jersey. That’s part of why I bought a farm.
