Let me say a few things about Lily: She has never tried to herd people, children, cats or dogs. She does not look like a classic herding dog. You wouldn't mistake her for Lassie or the border collie in Babe. And we have no particular reason to think she's been yearning to herd sheep.

But she is a proud adoptee from a shelter called Herding Dog Rescue, so we in her family have always had two basic, interrelated questions: Which breeds are mixed into her mongrel lineage, and if she ever met a sheep, what would she do?

We've had Lily six years, and she has never had a chance to lift her nose in a pasture, take a sniff, contemplate her destiny — and either chase some livestock or turn away perplexed.

This summer, I set out to remedy that. I found a place called Raspberry Ridge Sheep Farm in eastern Pennsylvania. Several times a year the farm invites dogs for "herding instinct tests."

Carolyn Wilki greets me with a hearty welcome. She describes herself as the "resident chief shepherd" of Raspberry Ridge, which she founded 20 years ago. On 67 hilly acres near the Poconos, she has 100 sheep, 100 ducks, 13 dogs, two cats and one camel. She offers many different training classes for dogs, and some involve herding.

Lily and I start by walking around a small pen, maybe 20 square feet, with three sheep inside. They're chewing the grass indifferently — until Lily pauses outside the fence, sniffs and barks at them.

"Yell, 'Good!' " says Wilki. So I do.

The sheep start retreating to the other side of the pen. Lily races around the fence after them. They go back and forth for a minute or two, like a pendulum. Wilki calls this choreography "wearing."

After this warm-up, we open the gate and go inside the pen. We replace Lily's workaday leash with a 20-foot rope. "It's there just so we can catch her if things get too crazy, that's all," Wilki says. "We don't want the dog to take down a sheep and have lamb sushi."

This has never happened, but Wilki takes no chances: In addition to the rope, she makes dog owners sign a waiver saying they'll pay the replacement cost for a sheep — $150 for ewes, lambs and wethers, and $450 for a breeding ram.

Wilki is not really evaluating how determined a dog is to protect sheep from, say, wolves and rustlers, it turns out. Dogs have no such innate instinct. They actually start out as the wolves in the canine-sheep relationship.

"What we want them to do is to take their predatory actions and control the livestock," Wilki explains.

So, once inside the pen, Lily and I are instructed to converge on the sheep, "like two wolves."

Lily has several advantages here. Being faster than I am is an obvious one. So is being relatively unencumbered with recording equipment.

Lily quickly kicks into high gear, chasing the sheep, cornering them, pausing, backing off and starting again.

"That's good!" Wilki shouts. "See how she stays in their 'flight zone,' not getting too close? That's very good!"

We do this a few times. It's all pretty blurry for me, but it seems like everything is coming into sharp focus for Lily. She's having a blast.

And then she stops. She sits on her haunches and takes in the scene, as if to say, "What the heck just happened here?"

Wilki decides Lily has had enough for one day. My dog is off to an auspicious start, but Wilki doesn't want to push her. And I am delighted to report that she passed the test. Wilki writes up extensive notes, but despite my cajoling, she declines to give Lily a letter grade. This is a pass-fail exercise, Wilki insists.

Still, any dog parent would be pleased with the write-up:

  • "Responsive to direction/control."
  • "Keeps stock grouped."
  • "Readily adjusts temperament."
  • "Has good bite inhibition."
  • "Nice herding candidate."

Wilki estimates Lily is "more than 50 percent" border collie. She doesn't have the breed's characteristic bark, but she does have its "fetching tendencies" and "sensitivity to [sheep] 'flight zones.' "

How far could Lily go? Could she score a blue ribbon in one of those herding trials? Wilki says it can take up to four years to gain that level of mastery, at least for the part-time shepherd.

"The dog will tell you, with further training, whether it really likes and wants to do this or not," she says. "Right now, she's saying, 'All systems go — let's do it!' But it's totally up to you."

Now that we've figured out something about Lily's nature and her DNA, we need to decide how much nurturing we want to invest in letting her realize her full potential — whether there will be any more herding in Lily's future.

A fair number of city slickers regularly make the 90-minute trek for training at Raspberry Ridge. It's a time-consuming and expensive habit. Then again, how you gonna keep a dog down in the big city, once she's been to the sheep farm?

Copyright 2015 WNYC Radio. To see more, visit http://www.wnyc.org/.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

When people tell you about their dogs, you may hear about the traits of the particular breed, you know - loyal, protective, maybe known for being good hunters. Well, Fred Mogul of member station WNYC has always wondered if what he's heard about his dog is true. For years, he's wanted to conduct an experiment to find out, and this summer, he finally did.

FRED MOGUL, BYLINE: Looks like this is the place. Take a look, Lily. What do you think? Lily and I have driven two hours west of Brooklyn to get here.

CAROLYN WILKI: You're at Raspberry Ridge Sheep Farm. We're in beautiful Bangor, Pa.

MOGUL: That's Carolyn Wilki.

WILKI: I am the resident chief shepherd and chief dog trainer. We have 67 acres, 100 sheep, 100 ducks, 1 camel, 13 dogs and two cats.

MOGUL: And, for a little while today, there is one more dog - Lily, my family's faithful mutt. I'm here at Raspberry Ridge to give Lily a herding instinct test. I got her years ago at a place called Herding Dog Rescue, and I've always wondered if she really has herding dog in her. Wilki is going to help me figure that out.

WILKI: I'm looking for sustained interest. I'm looking to see if the dog barks.

MOGUL: Dog and sheep start out kind of as enemies. The dogs are the wolves, the predators, and the sheep are the prey.

WILKI: We don't want the dog to have lamb sushi or take down a sheep, but what we want them to do is take their predatory actions and control the livestock.

MOGUL: All right, enough talk. Let's see what Lily can do.

WILKI: So what I want you to do is start walking around on the outside of the pen, and when I yell good, you yell good also.

MOGUL: This is to praise Lily just for looking at the sheep. She's eyeballing and sniffing the sheep through the fence. Good.

WILKI: Oh, this is good though. This is good.

MOGUL: They start moving to the other side of the pen. Lily follows.

WILKI: See how she's going back and forth like that? She's doing a little bit of what we call wearing, which is a pendulum-like motion where they go from one side of the sheep to the other.

MOGUL: So far so good. Now it's time for the main test. We open the gate and enter the pen.

WILKI: We're going to get her in here with a 20-foot line.

MOGUL: Which Wilki warns me I'll need to tap dance around as it whips across the ground.

WILKI: It's there just so we can catch her if things get too crazy, that's all.

MOGUL: Wilki tells Lily and me to walk together toward the sheep.

WILKI: A mental image - you're two wolves going out for lunch. That's your lunch, so start chasing after them. Go to your left. Go to your left. Go to your left. Go running after the sheep.

MOGUL: OK. I'm trying, but I'm not moving that fast. I've got sound equipment and a camera, and I'm dodging that 20-foot rope that's zipping back and forth in the grass. At least Lily's on top of things.

WILKI: She's putting them together. She got two together. Where's the other one? Yeah, go get him. Yes, good. All right. She's keeping them together.

MOGUL: Lily's having the time of her life.

WILKI: That's it. You did it.

MOGUL: At some point, though, Lily starts to hit overload. She sits on her haunches, looks around and tries to figure out what just happened. We gather outside the pen. While Lily drinks from a water bucket, Wilki writes up a report card.

So if we were scoring her, what do you think?

WILKI: It's always guys that ask that question, and honestly - this is a pass-fail. She's showing, clearly, much more than 50 percent of what she needs to do at this stage to do a herding.

MOGUL: In other words, Lily's like a promising minor-league prospect. So now what?

WILKI: The dog will tell you, with further training, whether it really likes it and wants to do this or not. But right now, she's saying all systems go; let's do it.

MOGUL: Well now that we figured something out about Lily's nature and her DNA, we've just got to figure out the nurture part and whether there's going to be any more herding in Lily's future - tough to say. I mean, how are you going to keep them down in the big city once they've been to the sheep farm? For NPR News, I'm Fred Mogul. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

300x250 Ad

Support quality journalism, like the story above, with your gift right now.

Donate