"There is no driving of the flock; that is a practice entirely unknown; but the shepherd, when he wishes to remove his sheep, calls to him a tame wether accustomed to feed from his hands. The favourite, however distant, obeys his call, and the rest follow. One or more of the dogs, with large collars armed with spikes, in order to protect them from the wolves, precede the flock, others skirt it on each side, and some bring up the rear. If a sheep be ill or lame, or lag behind unobserved by the shepherds, they stay with it and defend it until some one return in search of it. With us, dogs are too often used for other and worse purposes. In open, unenclosed districts, they are indispensable; but in others I wish them, I confess, either managed, or encouraged less. If a sheep commits a fault in the sight of an intemperate shepherd, or accidentally offends him, it is dogged into obedience: the signal is given, the dog obeys the mandate, and the poor sheep flies round the field to escape from the fangs of him who should be his protector, until it becomes half dead with fright and exhaustion, while the trembling flock crowd together dreading the same fate, and the churl exults in this cowardly victory over a weak and defenceless animal."[5]
If the farmer will seriously calculate the number of ewes that have yeaned before their time, and of the lambs that he has lost, and the accidents that have occurred from the sheep pressing upon one another in order to escape from the dog, and if he will also take into account the continual disturbance of the sheep while grazing, by the approach of the dog, and the consequent interference with the cropping and the digestion of the food, he will attach more importance to the good temper of the dog and of the shepherd than he has been accustomed to do. There would be no injustice, or rather a great deal of propriety, in inflicting a fine for every tooth-mark that could be detected. When the sheep, instead of collecting round the dog, and placing themselves under his protection on any sudden alarm, uniformly fly from him with terror, the farmer may he assured there is something radically wrong in the management of the flock.
Instinct and education combine to fit this dog for our service. The pointer will act without any great degree of instruction, and the setter will crouch; and most certainly the sheep-dog, and especially if he has the example of an older and expert one, will, almost without the teaching of the master, become everything that can be wished, obedient to every order, even to the slightest motion of the hand. There is a natural predisposition for the office he has to discharge, which it requires little trouble or skill to develop and perfect.
It is no unpleasing employment to study the degree in which the several breeds of dogs are not only highly intelligent, but fitted by nature for the particular duty they have to perform. The pointer, the setter, the hound, the greyhound, the terrier, the spaniel, and even the bull-dog, were made, and almost perfected, by nature chiefly for one office alone, although they maybe useful in many other ways. This is well illustrated in the sheep-dog. If he be but with his master, he lies content, indifferent to every surrounding object, seemingly half asleep and half awake, rarely mingling with his kind, rarely courting, and generally shrinking from, the notice of a stranger; but the moment duty calls, his sleepy, listless eye, becomes brightened; he eagerly gazes on his master, inquires and comprehends all he is to do, and, springing up, gives himself to the discharge of his duty with a sagacity, and fidelity, and devotion, too rarely equalled even by man himself.
. James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, living in his early days among the sheep and their quadruped attendants, and an accurate observer of nature, as well an exquisite poet, gives some anecdotes of the colley, (the Highland term for sheep-dog), with which the reader will not be displeased.
"My dog Sirrah," says he, in a letter to the Editor of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, "was, beyond all comparison, the best dog I ever saw. He had a somewhat surly and unsocial temper, disdaining all flattery, and refusing to be caressed, but his attention to my commands and interest will never again be equalled by any of the canine race. When I first saw him, a drover was leading him with a rope. He was both lean and hungry, and far from being a beautiful animal; for he was almost black, and had a grim face, striped with dark brown. I thought I perceived a sort of sullen intelligence in his countenance, notwithstanding his dejected and forlorn appearance, and I bought him. He was scarcely a year old, and knew so little of herding that he had never turned a sheep in his life; but, as soon as he discovered that it was his duty to do so, and that it obliged me, I can never forget with what anxiety and eagerness he learned his different evolutions; and when I once made him understand a direction, he never forgot or mistook it."
On one night, a large flock of lambs that were under the Ettrick Shepherd's care, frightened by something, scampered away in three different directions across the hills, in spite of all that he could do to keep them together. "Sirrah," said the shepherd, "they're a' awa!"
It was too dark for the dog and his master to see each other at any considerable distance, but Sirrah understood him, and set off after the fugitives. The night passed on, and Hogg and his assistant traversed every neighbouring hill in anxious but fruitless search for the lambs; but he could hear nothing of them nor of the dog, and he was returning to his master with the doleful intelligence that he had lost all his lambs. "On our way home, however," says he, "we discovered a lot of lambs at the bottom of a deep ravine called the Flesh Cleuch, and the indefatigable Sirrah standing in front of them, looking round for some relief, but still true to his charge. We concluded that it was one of the divisions which Sirrah had been unable to manage, until he came to that commanding situation. But what was our astonishment when we discovered that not one lamb of the flock was missing! How he had got all the divisions collected in the dark, is beyond my comprehension. The charge was left entirely to himself from midnight until the rising sun; and, if all the shepherds in the forest had been there to have assisted him, they could not have effected it with greater promptitude. All that I can say is, that I never felt so grateful to any creature under the sun us I did to my honest Sirrah that morning."
| [A] shepherd, in one of his excursions over the Grampian Hills to collect his scattered flock, took with him (as is a frequent practice, to initiate them in their future business) one of his children about four years old. After traversing his pastures for a while, attended by his dog, he was compelled to ascend a summit at some distance. As the ascent was too great for the child, he left him at the bottom, with strict injunctions not to move from the place. Scarcely, however, had he gained the height, when one of the Scotch mists, of frequent occurrence, suddenly came on, and almost changed the day to night. He returned to seek his child, but was unable to find him, and concluded a long and fruitless search by coming distracted to his cottage. His poor dog also was missing in the general confusion. On the next morning by daylight he renewed his search, but again he came back without his child. He found, however, that during his absence his dog had been home, and, on receiving his allowance of food, instantly departed. For four successive days the shepherd continued his search with the same bad fortune, the dog as readily coming for his meal and departing. |
Struck by this singular circumstance, he determined to follow the dog, who departed as usual with his piece of cake. The animal led the way to a cataract at some distance from the spot where the child had been left. It was a rugged and almost perpendicular descent which the dog took, and he disappeared in a cave, the mouth of which was almost on a level with the torrent. The shepherd with difficulty followed; but, on entering the cavern, what were his emotions when he beheld the infant eating the cake which the dog had just brought to him, while the faithful animal stood by, eyeing his young charge with the utmost complacency! From the situation in which the child was found, it appeared that he had wandered to the brink of the precipice, and then either fallen or scrambled down, the torrent preventing his re-ascent. The dog by means of his scent had traced him to the spot, and afterwards prevented him from starving by giving up a part, or, perhaps, the whole of his own daily allowance. He appears never to have quitted the child night or day, except for food, as he was seen running at full speed to and from the cottage