A Dog Named Hope
Chapter 2

By Michael Mooney

A lot of things happen in the first six or eight weeks of a sheep dog’s life. Their eyes open, and they leave the confines of the place where Fly had made her nest, and enter the world of the sheep farm. They go on walks and meet the other dogs, including Cap who was their father, and begin to learn the dos and don’ts of living in their society. 

They learn to respond to the sound of their name and the voice of their handler. And they come into the presence of sheep, a meeting out of ancient times of predator and prey, which both parties, once they reach a certain age, instantly recognize, except that for a dog on a sheep farm the sheep are no longer simply the prey so much as the reason for her being and the means of her accomplishment.

In April on the farm the sheep had been out of the barn for a few weeks when Fly’s time came, or she wouldn’t have chosen the box stall with what was left of last year’s hay as the place to have her litter. The ewes and their lambs were in the pasture behind the house, where they fed on baled hay. When the grass greened up they would move into the twenty-acre field.

In the farther pasture at the edge of the woods, two acres of cleared land inside a woven-wire fence, Marcia kept a dozen Jacobs, a breed of horned sheep that are small and light and fast on their feet, and these she used for working the dogs. Beside the barn was a round-ring, sixty feet in diameter, also of woven-wire fencing, where she could put three of four Jacobs for a dog to work at close quarters. In the round-ring the puppies would first meet the sheep.

Six weeks later, in May, when Alice returned to the farm, Marcia was in the twenty-acre field with Cap moving the sheep. Marcia saw the pick-up with the blue cap go by along the road and heard it enter the yard beyond the trees that blocked her view of the barn and the house. 

Moving the sheep meant letting them out of the small, electrified, fenced enclosure into the open twenty-acre field. When Alice drove by, Marcia had opened the fence, and Cap had moved the sheep out of the enclosure and pushed them into the field, where he was now lying down watching over them, making sure that no one of them strayed and that the flock stayed in the field. Marcia set about moving the sections of five-strand electrified fencing. 

She knew Alice was about due for her return visit, but she hadn’t known how much she dreaded it. Hope was too young to have begun to work sheep, and it was normal for a pup so small, with such short legs, to tire on the daily walks with the other dogs, which they spent tearing after each other along the trails and over the stone walls. Apart from noting the little dog’s general inability to keep up, which wasn’t much different from her two brothers’ inability, Marcia hadn’t thought about the murmur of the valve, because the consequences for the dog would be that she couldn’t really work, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Still, if she hadn’t thought about it, seeing Alice’s truck, she knew she had dreaded it. 

About the time she had the fence set up in the new place where she wanted the sheep to graze, Alice came through the trees into the field. The sheep had strayed to the far end of the field, and Cap was watching them. Marcia whistled, and the dog was on his feet, and a quarter of a mile away the sheep all lifted up their heads. Another whistle sent Cap in a run to the left, at speed, out, around, and behind the sheep, who came instinctively together in a knot, lambs and ewes, and began trotting rapidly back down towards Marcia.

With the sheep directly between herself and the dog, coming rapidly down on her, Marcia called to Cap to lie down, and take time, shrill verbal commands to which the dog instantly responded. The sheep in turn responded to his lying down by stopping in order to crop another mouthful of new grass.

"Walk up!" Marcia called, and Cap was up, putting one foot in front of the other, wolf-like in his pose, and the sheep started forward at a pace that reflected the increasing pressure of the dog.

Marcia had positioned herself beside the gate, blocking the sheep if they had any notion of going past, which for the most part they did not. The ewes knew the drill and entered the five-strand enclosure. The lambs followed, and Marcia closed the gate behind them.

"I can’t get over the way he does just what you tell him," Alice said, coming up to where Marcia knelt beside the fence hooking up the charger. "Every time I see it, I just can’t believe it."

"He doesn’t always, I guess," Marcia said. "But he’s a good dog, all right. Aren’t you, Cap?" And she touched the dog’s ears with rough affection.

"He seems to know just what you want him to do," Alice said, "even before you tell him."

"That’s true enough," Marcia agreed. "It’s his instinct, and I rely on it."

Cap stood by the fence, eying the sheep, panting with a rapid breath. His tongue hung out of the side of his mouth, and when Marcia reached out a second time to touch his ear, he moved aside before she could do so and didn’t take his eyes from the sheep inside the fence. Then he looked at Marcia with an expression that seemed to say, "What next, Boss?"

"That’ll do," she said. "He’s a good boy, all right. Let’s go this way," she said, and the two women started towards the trees and the barn, with Cap trotting at Marcia’s side, his head just underneath her left hand.

In the barn Fly’s puppies still occupied the box stall where they were born. It was safe and warm, and it gave them plenty of room to move around. Fly liked to get out of the stall now and then, liked the opportunity to go out in the field and work sheep, but if anyone approached her puppies, then she could get very fierce, especially when they were new-born. When Alice knelt down in the straw to examine them, Marcia knelt down beside her, putting a hand on Fly’s collar to make sure she didn’t bite.

In six weeks the puppies had got longer, with larger feet and legs, but they still had that round, hippo-like shape from their diet of softened food and mother’s milk. Hope was smaller than her brothers, but they were all vigorous and active, and went for walks with the bigger dogs, which meant that, while the people walked, the dogs tore along the path ahead and through the trees and over the stone walls that marked the fields from the time a hundred and fifty years ago when the land had been cleared. Alice examined all the pups one by one with the stethoscope, and then she examined Hope a second time.

"It’s there," she said, wrapping up her instrument and putting it back in its case. "It’s a leak in the ventricle on the left side, which means — well, you know what it means. It means her heart won’t be able to pump the blood hard enough when she really needs it, when she works. It means she’d better learn to be a house dog and sit by the stove."

Marcia let go of Fly’s collar and stood up, brushing the straw from her pants. She reached over and picked up the little female pup, who struggled vigorously in her arms, pushing away with her feet and arching her back at the same time she licked Marcia’s cheek. Fly sprang up beside Marcia to get a better view of what was going on.

"That’ll do," said Marcia, as Fly continued to spring up beside her. "Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt your puppy. Fly, that’ll do!

Holding the puppy, she let herself and Alice out of the stall and closed the gate behind.

"I want to show you something," she said to Alice, and led the way out of the barn into the clear May sunshine. Cap, who’d been waiting in the runway, came out of the barn with them, and the four crossed the yard and headed for the round-ring.

In the woven-wire enclosure were four Jacob ewes. Marcia had brought the Jacobs into the round-ring earlier that week because she wanted the puppies to meet them. The Jacobs, who were odd looking sheep with horns that came out of their heads at crazy angles, were feeding on flakes of alfalfa and clover. The approach of the two women and Cap didn’t disturb them until Marcia opened the gate and slipped inside with Hope, leaving Cap and Alice outside.

"Not now, Cap," Marcia said to the dog, who looked at her with an expression that seemed to question the wisdom of what she was about. "I want to show you something," she said again to Alice. "Watch this."

Holding the little dog against her chest, she walked into the ring. Hope struggled to break free, straining and squirming with all her might, her head back over her shoulder looking in the direction of the sheep. Then Marcia knelt down and, without exactly releasing her hold, put the little dog on the ground facing the Jacobs. Hope had four white feet, a blaze of white on her chest and at the tip of her tail, and a white streak that started on the top of her nose and reached back between her ears. The rest of her was black She stood still, one foot in front of the other, eying the Jacobs, her tail erect, her short round body seeming to grow longer, while the Jacobs all came together in a close knot, thirty feet away, their eyes on the little dog, ready to break and run, which in another instant they would have done if Marcia hadn’t picked Hope up.

"Good girl," she said, letting herself out through the gate where Alice and Cap waited. "What a good dog you are, Hope!"

Outside the gate she put Hope on the ground, where the little dog began to jump up at her father with the apparent intention of licking his lips, which Cap for his part tolerated, but only just.

"You see?" Marcia said, the emotion telling in her voice. "She wants to work sheep. When I put them in the round-ring the other pups couldn’t have cared less, because they haven’t yet turned on to the sheep. Oh, they’ll come to it soon enough, and they’ll be good sheep dogs, too, but she’s already got it. She’s got all the instinct, and she’s so ready to learn. You saw her — and you saw the sheep, too, saw them react. They knew right away who she was and what she was about. A dog like that doesn’t happen every day, you know. A dog like that can’t just sit by the stove!"

It was a passionate speech, and the two women looked at each other, before Marcia turned away and covered her face with her hands. Beside them, Hope jumped up to lick her father’s lips, which Cap apparently had had enough of, because he bared his teeth and growled at the little dog, then put out a foot and forced her to the ground, where she groveled submissively, rolling over on her back and exposing her belly.

"You know what can happen, of course," Alice said.

"I know, I know," Marcia answered in a stifled voice, turning back to the barn, calling Hope to come with her, which the little dog did. "But a dog like that doesn’t happen every day. She can’t just sit by the fire — that’ll kill her, too!"

"Let me think about it," Alice said.

"There’s not much to think about now, I guess," Marcia said abruptly. "I’ll keep her on the farm with me. There’re plenty of other dogs to do the work, and when she’s tired she can rest."

(to be continued)
 

Editor’s note: Ensuing issues of The Irish American Post will follow the story of Hope. Author Michael Mooney lives in Milwaukee.