On Thursday Fetching the ewes – a job for man and dog
Read Anton’s column every week in the Western Morning News
I‘On the subject of just how clever collies can be, I have a story for you...’
T’S that ‘ovine time’ again, when the ewes have to be fetched in, given a bit of a wash and a spruce up ready for rumpy pumpy with the tups. And with a growing list of daily cattle work due as well, daylight hours just aren’t long enough. It isn’t helping my tired bones that two of my key operatives are about to be temporarily lured away by whatever the attractions of turkey bothering might be. For it’s also a busy time for turkey farmers, who draw in seasonal workers from far and wide.
While some of our sheep are relatively biddable creatures, living in what you might recognise as fields and are more or less civilised and domesticated, others live far out on the peat, barely knowing what people are. Wild as hawks, and sublimely tough and self-reliant, they’re the archetypal hill sheep.
Gathering them involves first finding the little bleaters. For while they each have their ‘lear’ – the piece of hill where their mother reared them, and which will always be home – they aren’t exactly chained to it. Then they have to be shed out from neighbouring flocks. The etiquette at this time of year is, generally, that odd ones belonging to neighbours, which have strayed from their own lear, ought be fetched in and returned. If they get left out, away from their flock, their owner might not find them. And while the sheep might run cheek by jowl with other flocks, the road journeys, returning strays, are often many miles.
Then these scattered sheep have to be pushed together, and headed home, trit-trotted down into the valley toward the moorgate. If the cloud base drops below 1300ft we’re cooked, as the sheep simply vanish into the fog. Driving rain makes the work less pleasant and the peat squelchy underfoot, equally testing waterproofs and resolve. The many tiny streams suddenly become raging white water, and even the smallest get dangerous to cross; decisions are made on the hoof regarding these crossings. While the summer gathering for shearing is often during low water, the November gather is a very different kettle of fish. Long diversions can put hours onto the work at hand, rather than risk having sheep flounder in seething torrents.
Gale force winds also bring problems. As well as the sheer work of trying to stand upright – especially if you want to climb onto a large boulder to get a better view – they also mean the poor dogs can hardly hear what’s expected of them. Luckily, my boy has got a bright young collie who can pretty much read his mind. My somewhat portly senior hound is belligerent and bone-headed, but she too shows moments of near clairvoyance on occasion. Somehow, it’s all coming together, and we’ll soon be into the final round of dipping, and the tups can go to work.
And on the subject of just how clever collies can be, and how close they are to those they work with, here’s a story for you – which I have been given kind permission to repeat. I, somewhat vicariously, know a bright young lady who grew up living a very similar existence to such as described above, albeit on a storm-blasted moor on the Scottish borders. Her dad is a pretty hard bitten fella, working an equally hard bitten flock of blackface sheep across miles of exposed hill ground. It’s the kind of back country marked on the map as ‘There be dragons here’. Now circumstances and the tides of life have found this girl setting up home with her young man in North Wales, chasing dairy cows for a crust. Once there, she’d obtained a collie pup from a farmer near Aberystwyth. And the photos I’ve seen suggest this sharp little dog could very nearly learn to read and write. Much loved mostly as a pet, ‘Pip’ only has six sheep and some dairy cows to work. Now, the narrative moves along, and settled into her new life the girl found this little dog was ailing somehow. Not recognising what was wrong with her beloved hound but sure something was amiss, she took Pip to the vet. After running through the symptoms, the vet quizzically asked whether there might be an inpup bitch in the house, because the dog appeared to have a phantom pregnancy. And this, my friends, is when the young lady of the tale realised that she was indeed herself unexpectedly – and only just – ‘expecting’. My goodness, they’re brighter than we realise aren’t they? And now, some months later, Pip has a new pack member to be besotted with, and all is well.
Right, onwards. What’s the forecast for the day?