Mr. and Mrs. Dog: Our Travels, Trials, Adventures, and Epiphanies

Some Epiphanies

100 SomeEpiphanies S ince rounding up goats in West Texas last winter, Mr. and Mrs. Dog and I had put thirty thousand miles on the station wagon, from the Dakotas to New Hampshire to my calling June in on the wrong sheep at Gettysburg. That particular mistake knocked us out of the top seventeen, and walking off with a minute remaining (retired: score zero) might have bumped us off the United States Team. Sure, retiring spared June and the sheep—sixty seconds’ worth. June and I had had a pretty good score until I quit. Lucky for us, next year’s National Finals Sheepdog Trials would be in South Dakota the exact same week as next year’s World Trials, and trans­ porting dog(s) to our Finals would be cheaper and miles easier than getting them to South Wales for the World. For a century the Brits had maintained a six­month quarantine for dogs entering the UK. Six months. Six months in solitary confinement would drive most Border Collies insane. Literally. But once dogs could be micro­ chipped and the Brits (sort of) joined the European Union, their Depart­ ment of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) adopted a new protocol. Under the new rules, a US­microchipped dog could get a fresh rabies shot and have his blood tested by an EU­approved lab (in Kansas) to make sure the dog had rabies titers. Six months later it could enter the UK on a DEFRA­approved carrier. Think of it as a six­month rabies quarantine (remote version). June might still make the team but it’d be a while before I knew and DEFRA’s paperwork was so formidable and the tickets so expensive I couldn’t start without a go­ahead. Cross my fingers and keep on trialing. June was running well but Luke wasn’t. We’d solved his outrun problem—Luke would outrun for sheep he couldn’t see—and we’d solved his pushiness problem with quieter but Some Epiphanies 101 firmer whistles. Luke yearned to work brilliantly and was desperate to please. The more he hungered and the more I expected of him, the worse we did. I needed a wisdom fix and thought to get it from Bev Lambert. Bev grew up without livestock experience and by sheer drive, commit­ ment, and intelligence recreated herself as a brilliant sheepdog trainer and handler. Her day job was librarian. She must have been good at it because she regularly turned down raises: “Just give me extra time off so I can get away and trial.” Some rough snuff­dippers Beverly routinely whipped at trials had threatened to visit her library to see Bev in her “work duds,” but, far as I know, none ever made good on it. Conditions on the Connecticut turnpike alternated between blinding snow and gobs of slush sixteen­wheelers tossed onto my road­salt­streaked windshield. When I reached Beverly’s farm, we couldn’t do a thing. Ice­crusted snow made dangerousfootingfordogsandsheep,sowedrankcoffeeandchatted in her kitchen. Beverly mentioned a scientific study investigating why some musical child prodigies go on to become successful adult musicians while others don’t. They investigated variables: parental income and profession, educa­ tion levels, and so forth. The only differential they found between those who made the grade and those who didn’t, Bev said, was “hours practiced.” No doubt. But Luke and I had spent hundreds of hours training and we’d solved the big problems. He and I liked to train, we liked to work together, so why had he run out of gas when he got behind that wall at Gettysburg? Maybe ours hadn’t been the right kind of practice. I love music and regret not playing an instrument. As a child I took piano lessons and wasn’t half bad. But my piano teacher didn’t like me and I didn’t like her and I hated the tunes I was assigned to play. Practice was drudgery, so that was that. How does practice lead to mastery? Although I’ve driven many more hours than I’ve trained sheepdogs, if there was a United States Car­Driving Team I couldn’t get on it. Mine hadn’t been correct practice. My dogs hate drill and will only put up with so much meaningless, re­ petitive work before they sour. Like us, they seem to learn best when asked to solve real problems: working at the limit of, but...