Kinda like an old pair of welding gloves...

It's 90 degrees here today.

Humidity's the same.

Grass is so wet it gleams in the steam of the sunshine.

Had another storm last night - this makes one every other day or so for the last couple of weeks.

Grounds so saturated you can poke it with a stick and it squirts into your eye - like that fancy grapefruit at Shoney's Breakfast bar.

Weaned off the lambs last week - but the storm last night put a section of the old metal barrier fence down - and 100 or so ended up across the creekbed and up the hill - way up the hill.

Up the hill and in the woods at the top of the hill - in the thick stuff I can't walk through, and up the hill that's too steep for the atv...and it ain't any cooler up there in the sun.

First, me'n Roy gotta put the ones still on the flatland back in the feedlot - little bastards just don't work right, the pull to mama's still too much and they ain't got any brains - having left 'em at mama's teats...

But with my help, and a lot of flanking back and forth - and two trips to the water trough - Roy gets 'em through the small gate and I finally get it closed.

Then we're off up the hill.

I still haven't finished fencing the top of that thing - always seem to find some excuse to avoid it, must be getting smarter in my old age - but that means that poor Roy's gotta forge up that hill, way wide to avoid spooking the brainless twits, through the thickets and underbrush and up a grade so steep that I can't walk it without a crook to dig in.

But he's all heart, still panting from pushing the flatlanders. And looks a bit like a horse, needing to pull himself up that grade.

Into the woods he goes, and I can't see him anymore.

A few come out, maybe 1/2, but they stop, and I have no idea what is going on.

I give a couple "walk up's" - not too forceful, I remember nearly drowning a ewe at the Jordan Trial when Craig's walkup took her into the pond on the blind fetch - and I begin to think Roy's just gone too wide, or gotten lost.

Next thing I know, the rest come busting out a thicket too awful for a rabbit warren.

But they stop part way down the hill, and I worry that they're going back.

So I give another set of weak whistles - not even sure what for, just that I ought to be doing something...and I see Roy's doubled back on his own to pick up the first group on the other side of the hill.

He moves them straight over to the second group - and begins to push them toward me.

It's 90 degrees and the humidity's that high and the grass is steaming in the sunshine.

The lambs finally cross the creekbed and begin a run for the barn.

I call Roy to stop - he doesn't want to and I have to insist - but he finally lays down and I drive up on the atv.

He's panting and spit is flying from his flews and his tongue is drooping and he's covered with burrs and has a cut next to his eye and he's nearly gasping.

So I pick him up, even though he doesn't want me to - and I put him in the back of the atv.

And I drive onto the flatland, and weave the lambs back to the pen - with Roy watching carefully over my shoulder - still gasping for air.

I lift him off the back - he doesn't want me to - right next to the water trough - and he wastes no time literally falling in and laying down, still gasping.

I figure the lambs can wait awhile.

I take a look at the cut by his eye, and dig the weeds and stuff away from the corners of his eyes, and notice he's limping a bit when he climbs out of the trough - ready to move the lambs into the pen they belong in.

So we do.

And he's left behind, in that thicket, some hair, and some blood, and a lot of sweat...but he's walked out of there with all the heart he was born with - all the heart that generations of working hill dogs have bestowed on him.

And I think, once again, how wonderful it is, and how lucky I am, to have these dogs.

And how sometimes a good dog is kinda like your favorite pair of welding gloves - being pockmarked and ragged, it seems, is just part of the deal.


Bill Gary - June 2003

ã Bill Gary 2003

"Beth"

Bill Gary and Mary Sullivan Kensmuir, Working Stockdog Center W8101 690th Ave River Falls, WI 54022 715.426.9877 willgary@pressenter.com