Someone asked me recently what the focus was of my writing about animals. I said I remembered when I started seriously writing about animals about 15 years ago, I had the sense that there was a big gap in animal writing. Much of the writing was mawkish, sappy to me – the selfish Rainbow Bridge and how Spot-saved-me-and-I-saved him stuff.  A lot of the writing online seemed arrogant and superior – what-I-know-and-you-don’t or why-you-are-stupid-and-I’m not.

There is a lot of money in making the people who love animals feel stupid, I hope to never reward it and I hope to never do it. Nobody is dumber or more confused than me, but I never stop trying to learn.

What interested me as a writer was what I didn’t know and needed to learn, especially when I foolishly got my first border collie Orson and was transformed by my own ignorance and hubris.  Wow, I thought, so much to learn. It was what I was learning that drew me to the subject, not what I knew. Orson drew me to sheepherding, brilliant trainers, farms and rural life, sheep and donkeys. To writing about animals.

Most of us are not experts, not gurus, we didn’t need to be made to feel dumb, we just needed to be open to learning and acknowledging our limits. Those people became my  readers, my community, in books, and here online.

I was taken aback by the fury and contempt of some of the border collie people early on. One woman posting on a friend’s blog said the entire border collie community hated me right away, because I had done it all wrong. She was correct, of course, I wrote a book about doing it all wrong, I could write a dozen more.

It doesn’t  happen often now, but it still happens.

In fact, many thousands of border collie people read my books and follow me still, not because I know it all, but because I don’t. Mostly because we are learning and struggling together. Animal rearing and training is not an exact science, it is complicated, difficult and circular. Border collies are a particular challenge, that is why I am drawn to them. Gurus make a lot of money making people feel they can’t do it ourselves. I believe we can.

For me, it is never a straight and simple line.  And I never listen much to arrogant people. My first dog book, “A Dog Year,” was not about what I knew, but what I came to understand I did not know and needed to learn. I have never felt regretful for that, learning and intelligence are both about admitting what you don’t know, not what you do.  I have learned a lot, my dogs and I are happy and lucky, I have so much yet to learn.

The focal point of my writing also became the people who have animals like dogs, not just the dogs themselves. As a writer, I was immediately – and still – drawn to the ideas behind attachment theory.

Why do we get the dogs we get? Why do we love the dogs we love in the way we love them? Why do big men get small dogs? Why do some people need to get dogs that scare people? Why do some people need to rescue dogs, rather than adopt them and love them? Why do women have different reasons for loving animals than men? Why are some people cat people, and others dog people? Why do so many people need to see their dogs as abused? What does our love for animals say about our own emotional lives and relationships with people?  Why does an oddball city dweller like me go buy a farm and love herding sheep with border collies so much that he leaves his life behind? There are answers to those questions, and the answers are what I try to write about, the people, not just the dogs, horses, donkeys or cats.

When I started taking photos, I was aware that the vast majority of animal and pet photos are close-ups of the animals, but we rarely see the connection between animals and people. Those are the photos I wanted, the connection, not the cuteness. Those photos are hard to get, they take patience, experience, and good lenses.

I experienced a profound breakthrough in my animal photography when I met and married Maria.

She has an extraordinary gift for exchanging emotions with animals, her emotions are very available, much on the surface, and animals are sensitive to our emotions, they can read them quickly and accurately.  In general, women show emotions more easily, one reason they tend to connect with animals so intensely. It is a natural way for them to interact and communicate. Men can certainly do it, I see farmers do it all the time, but many men choose to not do it.

This turn in my work and life began with my photos of Maria talking with the donkeys. You could see them exchanging feelings and images. She does it with Chloe her pony, she does it with the dogs. This evening, it happened with Fate, I saw the two of them talking to one another, I did not want another cute dog photo, I wanted to capture the conversation they were having.

That has become the focus of my animal writing and my animal photography. I always have a camera or an Iphone handy, I caught the shot above when Fate climbed up on a footstool and moved close to Maria, who responded by putting her book down and looking the dog right in the eye. They stared into one another’s eyes for several minutes, I go the shivers watching.

I rarely take photos inside the farmhouse, and almost never put them up on the blog. I am open about some things and not about others. This time,  I had a conversation that was backlit by a reading lamp. Sometimes it all comes together, but not that often. I have learned to look and wait for it. And to try to be ready.

We can never know for sure but I believe Fate in her very busy and restless mind needs sometimes to connect with her people, with me, with Maria. To be reassured, get grounded, feel safe. She looked Maria in the eye, and Maria looked back. They were each saying, I believe, that they loved the other, that they  were always happy to see one another, that they needed to connect with each other before resuming their lives. People need that, animals need that.

After their connection, Fate jumped down and went to chew on her pressed rawhide bone. She got what she needed.

I do not believe these conversations have our precise words and feelings, animals have alien minds, we need to work hard to understand and respect them as their own beings, not reflections of us. But sometimes I think we are saying the same things to each other, and I think that is what I most seek to capture in my words and images. I think I captured it here.