17 December

Fate Report: A Life In Balance

by Jon Katz
A Life In Balance
A Life In Balance

With all of my dogs, but especially with Fate, I seek for them a life in balance. Every now and then, I get a message from one of the border collie people upset or unnerved because I permit Fate to circle the sheep every day – she loves it. Am I worried about her being obsessive? Not walking slowly up to the sheep? Should she be standing this way or that?

No, I guess not. Fate has many passions, not one, she has a life in balance, we worked hard on that. Border collies are all addicts, work is their crack cocaine. You can never let them do just one thing. She is not Red, Red is not her. I love seeing the difference.

Fate has the most wonderful herding instincts, she goes to the sheep, and even at her tender young age, is able to stop them and contain them. Soon, I will be sending her out to go fetch them. She is not going to be a trial dog, or a herding dog,  I have enough ribbons on my wall. And it was no fun for me getting any of them. Fate has fun, all of the times. She has a happy virus, and she transmits it to us all of the time.

Fate is a joyous and athletic dog living the full range of life. One of the diseases rampant in the dog world is the belief that there is one way for dogs to live, one fits-all way to teach them, train them, get them, and live with them. And that we must stuff all the dogs into our own envelope.

This is a sickness, really. There is not one way to do anything with a dog, they are all individuals, so are we, we live in all kinds of different places and have all kinds of different values and ideas. With every dog, I think, I have to see their spirit and decide how much to try and change it. Fate has a powerful center, a strong sense of identity. She loves to run and circle. I’m not going to break her of that, I don’t want to. I want to keep her soul intact, it is beautiful and precious.

Dogs are, after all, a reflection on us. Nobody knows how to live with a dog better than you do. No one else can really tell you how to do it, as often as we ask.

Fate is Maria’s dog in many ways, mine in some, ours in most. We get the dog we need, given the chance, they become what we need them to be. That is their key to success, when we have driven so many other species of animals off of the earth.

Fate adores Red and watches out for  him, even sharing her treats with him. She spends mornings with me practicing her sheepherding, teaching me how to do it.  We go for our first walk of the day, and then she spends the day with Maria in her studio, the two enjoy hanging out together. When Fate wants to go out, she goes to the door, and she goes out. She races back and forth in the yard, tosses balls and sticks in the air, buries treats and dead things for later, digs holes, stares at the sheep grazing, barks at the geese flying overhead.

When she wants to come back in, she scratches at the studio door, and goes inside the crate or curls up on the floor and sleeps. In a half hour, she’s ready to move again. She is not like Lenore, she doesn’t love the couch.

When we head out for chores, she loves to come, leaping into the car, her head sticking out between the front seats, she navigates seriously and continuously. She watches every thing, every person, dog, loud truck. She misses nothing. When we go to the hardware store or bookstore, we bring her with us. She has many friends and admirers, as do so many dogs in our town.

In the afternoons, and in the mornings, Fate walks in the forest with me and Maria and Red.  She sniffs, eats revolting things, she and Red play tag, bound back and forth through the woods. She always stays near us.

Two or three times a day I run her and Red in the pasture. Then, during the afternoon feeding, we work with the sheep again. She is responsive, keen and powerful, her eye getting stronger by the day.

At night, Fate comes in, chews on her bones, plays quietly by herself – Red is usually done by dark – visits Maria or me, sometimes she and I wrestle a bit. She visits with me when I am writing, putting her head on my knee, waiting for a scratch. She is an intensely curious dog, she wants to be a part of everything. When Maria goes into the barn, Fate goes with her, when she works on her fiber chair, Fate inspects every baling string.

My wishes for my dogs is that they live lives to their fullest potential, that they are busy, loved and engaged with the world, inside and out. And that, I am happy to report, is the life Fate is living.  We very much love having Fate, she is often – chasing chickens, eating cat leavings – a pain in the ass. But she is the dog we wanted and need, right down to her claws.

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