Talking to Animals

by Jon Katz

  The men shook some grain, tossed it on the ground, and made a trail into the truck. It usually works, one said, but Elvis wasn’t buying it. He came lumbering over to me, drooling, checking my hands, waiting for instructions. I felt a powerful stab of guilt and betrayal; Elvis trusted me. I looked him in the eye and told him the truth, speaking the wordless language we shared. “I won’t lie to you,” I said. “This is the end of our time together; you won’t be able to walk much longer. You are going to get on the truck you’ve managed to avoid all these years.” I closed my eyes, cleared my head, and showed him where he was going. I broke up a bit, and felt tears starting.

  I waved to him to come forward, took an apple from my pocket, and tossed it into the truck. He ignored it, walking up to me instead. I turned and walked up the ramp into the truck—the two handlers were standing outside the pasture gate, wide-eyed at the sight of me walking into the truck with a giant steer.

  Elvis followed me. He stood calmly and patiently in the truck as if he did it every day. He ignored the grain and the apple. I leaned over, tears streaming down my face, and kissed him on his great big nose. I walked down the ramp, and I could not look back. The two men came running forward and quickly closed the back door of the truck In the end, Elvis would feed homeless people at a shelter in Glens Falls, New York, for an entire winter.

  It tore me up to put Elvis on that truck, but I do not regret it or apologize for it. Anyone who has lived a life with animals or has been on a farm will understand it, although I well know that some will never understand or accept it. I am grateful to Elvis for many things, and one was his grace when it was time for him to leave. I believe he understood what I was asking and knew where he was going. Animals embrace acceptance in a way that is unnatural and alien to human beings.

  By the time he left my farm, Elvis and I were communicating daily. He would stand, come, and be still for me. I could give him a shot, or rub balms and ointments on his scratches and sores. I knew when he was hungry and when he was in the mood to sit quietly with me on the hill and look out over the valley—this was an image he communicated to me often and clearly, perhaps more clearly than any other.

  Elvis took my ideas about talking to animals to another level of understanding and skill. If I could talk to a three-thousand-pound steer, I could talk to almost any kind of animal I might encounter. I felt Elvis and I had broken through. I think we genuinely saw and heard one another. It was not, for me, that complex or mysterious a process. It required me to look at animals in a new and different way. It required me to accept that, for all our yearning and breathless discoveries, animals do not speak our language, and we do not speak theirs.

  We can work as hard as our fevered imaginations would like, but we cannot turn them into us, nor us into them. They are different, they live in an alien world. Our task is to look for the windows and cracks where our souls and spirits meet, to move bravely and lovingly through the openings they make.

  5

  Rose’s Message

  I bought Bedlam Farm to expand my life in the country and my life with animals. I had left my family, friends, and work behind to live as different a kind of life as was possible for me. I knew I was unprepared for the rigors of farm life and bought Rose, a border collie puppy bred from strong herding lines, to come to Upstate New York with me and help.

  Despite the painful end to the Orson story, I was excited to have another border collie. I was mesmerized by the energy and intelligence of the breed, and as a fellow ADD, I connected with him on a spiritual level. I had learned a lot, much of it the hard way, and I welcomed the chance to apply it.

  When we arrived, Rose was six months old. I knew next to nothing about farms, and I scrambled to do the obvious—fix up the barn, patch the holes in the roof, get good fencing.

  In October, a trailerload of sheep (and one donkey) arrived from Pennsylvania. I had just had more than a year of sheepherding lessons, and the plan was to wait until Rose was a little older and then train her slowly and gradually.

  When winter hit early that year, I could not possibly have been less prepared. A blizzard from Canada came roaring down with shrieking winds, covering the farm in snow and ice. The farmers called it a Canadian howler, and for good reason. The wind sounded like dark spirits loosed from the grave.

  The sheep and donkey had never been in such a storm. They panicked and tore out through the pasture gate, then ran across the road, down into the woods, and out of sight.

  I had no idea what to do, and there was no one around for me to call. I stood there helplessly. The wind and cold and snow were brutal, beyond anything I had experienced. And I had a six-month-old puppy with me.

  Rose was not panicked by the storm, even though her fur was quickly covered in snow and ice. She did not blink or flinch or take her eyes off me. Neither of us had ever been in this kind of a situation. How would I get those animals back to the farm and through those gates and up into the Pole Barn?

  Six months is too young to seriously train a border collie. I could not possibly start her training by letting her loose in a blizzard and have her wandering around the woods looking for a donkey and the sheep.

  I stood in a blue hooded sweatshirt, no gloves, and city shoes. I was covered in snow and so was my puppy, who looked out toward the woods where the animals had gone and then back at me, pleadingly. Rose lacked any commands to follow, or any experience with these woods. I could not imagine how the animals could be made to come back to the farm, even if we did find them, and they could be miles away by now.

  The puppy was not on a leash, but already smart and intuitive enough to know not to run out there without my permission. I held my hand up, like a police officer stopping traffic. If Rose could speak, the words would have been “send me in, coach.”

  And so, we had a conversation.

  “You’re too young,” I said. “If I release you, then I’ll have my dog and all of the other animals out in the storm.”

  Rose: “I can do it, give me a chance to succeed.”

  I looked at her, and around at the blizzard, almost a whiteout. The wind was howling down the hill; the snow was already drifting. I thought of Rose out there in the woods, the animals stuck out in the open during an awful storm that was expected to last a couple of days and get much colder. If I waited much longer, who knows how far the animals might get?

  I knew it was dangerous to send Rose out there, but I sensed her strength. She was ready, eager; she knew what she was doing.

  Sometimes you have to follow your heart and gut, not your mind. “Go get ’em, Rosie,” I said. “Find them for me.” It was the first time I gave Rose that command; it would not be the last.

  Rose needed no more encouragement. She took off across the road and through the big meadow and vanished into the woods. I ran into the farmhouse, put on some boots and a heavier jacket, and ran out after her. I could only see a few yards ahead of me, and the wind was deafening, driving the snow into my face.

  I was already berating myself for this dumb and irresponsible decision. Rose was untrained and young. What if she got lost out there as well? Could she make her way back? Would she keep running, or get picked off by one of the coyotes I had heard yowling at night? How would she find the animals in this weather?

  I saw her tracks for a few yards, then they disappeared in the snow. I ran to the end of the meadow, about two hundred yards from the farmhouse. I called out to her. For five or six minutes, I heard nothing.

  Then I heard barking. The sound was sharp and clear. I felt it was directed at me. It was insistent, as if it were an aural locator beacon that I could follow. Rose was calling out to me. She had found the animals and was letting me know where she was. I followed the barking, regular and continuous, and came out of the woods and into a long culvert by an abandoned dirt road.

  I came closer and saw the donkey and sheep, all huddled in the culvert, Rose in front of them, charging and nipping at any one of them that moved. Scientists say that dogs have
vast stores of genetic memory; their instincts call up images from the past like files in a computer, only faster. Rose instinctively knew how to herd, given the right training and exposure, and at the right time. It is easy enough to mess up herding dogs by pushing them too hard and too soon.

  Rose had followed the animal tracks through the snow, or smelled the donkey and the sheep, or heard them walking through the brush and snow. The sheep instinctively drew into a flock, as they do when a herding dog appears, and the donkey, also a herd animal, stayed with them.

  Rose was barking and racing back and forth, keeping the sheep together, creating her own portable border. I was astonished to see this puppy doing precisely what I had hoped she would do and wanted her to do. Rose and I had not had the chance to do any training together; I had no working commands to give her yet. I was communicating with my emotions—concern, focus—and my mind, imagining a walk back through the meadow.

  And that is what happened. Wordlessly, I took a deep breath and told myself that this would happen, it had to happen. I imagined it and remained calm and clear. I did not throw a lot of words at the young dog, or project anxiety or doubt. I moved behind the culvert. There was nothing between Rose and the pasture gate but a meadow and a blinding, raging snowstorm.

  I hoped she would sense my intentions and feelings. I hoped her instincts would pull up all the genetic herding memory that had been passed on to her.

  As I moved farther back, Rose ran over to me, and the sheep made good on their opportunity to move out of the culvert and away from the large man and the barking dog. I spread my arms wide and moved forward and the donkey—ever willful but anxious, it seemed to me—moved out behind them.

  I think these animals were looking for their shelter and for some hay and water. I held out my hand to Rose—a silent stay command. She saw it and grasped it. She stayed put, giving the animals a chance to follow their own steps back. And this was a tricky part. If Rose moved too fast or panicked the sheep or the donkey, they might bolt into the woods and go even farther away, or worse, run down the road and into the town. There would be trucks and plows down there.

  It was not a good place for any of us to be. I ought to be in the farmhouse with the dog; the sheep and donkeys ought to be up in the Pole Barn, dry and protected from the wind, snow, and ice.

  Rose marched the animals through the snow, across the road. She was firmly in command, rushing back, forth, and sideways to keep pressure on them all, to keep them moving forward.

  And they seemed to be grateful. As they came within sight of the big barn, the animals rushed forward, picked up speed. They wanted to be safe and warm and dry again. They wanted to have hay and fill up their bellies on this savage night.

  As they neared the road, I looked up in alarm. I saw the flashing lights of a town plow truck coming up the hill. Rose could barely see me in the snow. I felt a wave of concern. I remember creating an image in my mind of Rose running up around the rushing animals and heading them off at the road, holding them until the plow truck came by and I could get there. I was already running.

  I remember feeling confident about this image, confident of Rose. And I remember the sensation of sending this thought out of my head, across the meadow, and of Rose receiving it. I was not fearful any longer; I knew she was getting the message. I could almost see it traveling through the snow and the wind. It was a powerful moment for me. I saw and felt my message getting to her, saw her reacting to it. It was all so fast, so unconscious; it had nothing to do with commands, and everything to do with trust, connection, feelings, and images.

  Rose stopped weaving. She tripled her speed and burst through the snow. She got out ahead of the animals and stood her ground, giving them the border collie eye and barking. The sheep stopped, confused, and obeyed this little dervish racing back and forth in front of them, daring them to move.

  I came up huffing and puffing. Rose gave me what I thought was a contemptuous glance—about time—and I got around behind her, saw the plow truck flash by honking its horn. I got out into the road, saw it was clear, and told her to come ahead (“come on, Rosie”). She circled around to the other side.

  I opened the gate and the animals came thundering back in. They rushed up to the shelter of the Pole Barn, Rose in steady pursuit. I closed the gate, got some bungee cords, and tied it closed tightly. I went into the barn and opened the wide doors, dragged some hay out, and put it into the feeder. I saw that the water tanks were full, and called Rose to me.

  We went back into the farmhouse. I saw her shake herself off and go lie down by the woodstove. I sat down with a cup of tea. I was shaking, too, and not just from the cold. It was the excitement of realizing that I had been the fortunate beneficiary of a gift, that I could talk to this dog. I was grateful for it, and I worked hard to develop it. It seemed lucky, not the fruit of genius or special intelligence. I had won her trust and attention, showed her my feelings and intent, shared my mind and needs with her. There was no longer any question in my mind that communication was possible; it had only to be refined and polished.

  I was talking to animals.

  The following spring, in the middle of lambing season, I was anxious. It was my first experience of lambing. Friends told me what equipment to get, but I was all alone on a big farm with twenty-five pregnant ewes. One night, I was sound asleep when I felt something nip at my arm.

  Rose, who often looked out of the upstairs windows into the pasture at night, was nipping at my arm, which was hanging off the bed. She was trying to wake me up. She nipped at my sleeve and forearm, and then barked.

  I was annoyed. What was she doing? My first thought was that I had to keep her downstairs, or retrain her. My instinct was to yell at her in order to get her to stop barking and nipping in the middle of the night.

  What a nightmare this could be, if it happened often, if it got to be a habit. I thought of all the complicated dog training books I had read, how to discourage behaviors by pinching, crating, flicking fingers, using a sharp and corrective voice.

  I sat up, and Rose ran out to the window in the hallway. I got up and followed her. I thought I heard a different kind of bleating out in the pasture, odd for the middle of the night. It was sharp and high-pitched, not a sound that had ever come out of any of my ewes.

  And then I got it. I saw the look in my dog’s eyes, the urgency in her bark, the excitement. Rose was the guardian of the sheep, their herder and protector. She always kept an eye on them, listened for them. She sensed coyotes before they did, knew when a sheep got stuck on a fence or had fallen ill.

  A lamb! I wasn’t expecting the lambs to be born for another month, but Rose had heard a lamb. It was a cold night, icy and windy, a dangerous night for a newborn lamb. I couldn’t see the baby animal, but I could hear it. I got dressed quickly, grabbed a jacket and a big flashlight, and rushed downstairs and outside.

  In the darkness, I couldn’t see where the lamb was, but I opened the gate and Rose rushed up the hill and behind the Pole Barn. I followed, carrying the first aid kit I had prepared.

  When I reached Rose, I shined the light and saw a newborn lamb, covered in amniotic fluids, wet and shivering. She looked as if she was nearly frozen to death. I took out a blue sling I had purchased and got it under the lamb so I could pick her up. Then I saw that the mother was struggling; she was lying on her side nearby.

  I pointed to the ewe. “Get her up, Rosie, Get her up!” Rose looked at me hesitantly; this was not a command I had taught or used. I stopped, took a breath, and visualized Rose getting the mother up. Rose responded immediately. She came around, started barking, got the ewe on her feet, and then got behind her.

  We were in sync, talking to one another now. Rose didn’t know where to bring her. I sent her an image of the barn, where the lambing pens and heat lamps and hay and straw were. Holding the sling in front of me so the ewe could smell the lamb—this is how sheep bond with their babies, by smell and by cleaning them—I began walking slowly backward down th
e hill and toward the lambing pens in the barn, which I had spent weeks preparing.

  Step by step, we came down the hill. Several times, the mother panicked, got confused, or tried to run. Rose headed her off, kept her moving behind us, pressured her so that she wanted to be closer to me and the lamb than the Pole Barn and the other sheep. This was critical, because if she ran away, then she might lose her connection to her lamb, and the lamb could die or would have to be bottle-fed for months.

  I think of that march down the hill as a long conversation, just as clearly as if it were spoken in words. When I needed to go faster or slower, Rose knew it, sensed it, felt it. When the ewe got nervous, Rose saw it and told me, and I slowed down or waited for her to catch up. When we got down to the barn, Rose stopped outside and waited, so that the mother could come into the barn, and then Rose blocked the door. We had them both, we had done it. We had saved the lamb together.

  I put the lamb on a pile of hay, turned on the heat lamps, opened the gate, and stood back. The mother looked around. Rose came into the barn quietly and the mother looked at her lamb and rushed into the pen. I threw in a tub of molasses mixed with water, cut the lamb’s umbilical cord, cleaned the fluid out of her nose and mouth, and rubbed a soft towel on her to warm her up. Then the ewe, recognizing her baby, began licking and cleaning and nuzzling her. The baby found her nipple and began to feed hungrily. They were both all right.

  For the rest of that spring, whenever Rosie barked in the night, I got up and we found the lamb and mother, and got them into the barn. Only one lamb died; she seemed to be sick at birth. All of the others made it and grew up to be healthy.

  Rose had learned how to talk to me. She would come to the bed and bark, and if I didn’t wake up, I’d get a nip on the arm. I had learned how to listen to her.