Jon Katz - Dog Days

CONTENTS

Animals have always awakened something in metheir little joys and travails alikethat, try as I might, I find impossible to express except in the language of devotion. Maybe it is the Lords way of getting through to the particularly slow and obstinate, but if you care about animals you must figure out why you care.

M ATTHEW S CULLY ,

Dominion:The Power of Man,
the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy

Professor Chernowitz, and other readers:

No dogs die in this book.

PROLOGUE

Dog Days

E ACH WINTER HAS A PERSONALITY OF ITS OWN; THIS ONE HAD BEEN gentle in terms of snowfall yet relentlessly cold, with few storms but lots of nasty ice and miserable temperatures. And it was hanging on.

It would be weeks before we could stop putting out hay to feed the animals and rely completely on the pasture, still brown and scrubby on this sunny, chill March morning.

Hay purchases are always something of an annual crapshoot. Buying quality hay that helps your growing population survive and flourish, ordering enough to last through the dark monthsits not simple. During my first winter at Bedlam Farm, a period of general chaos, Id given the animals two or three times as much as they needed; in the spring, it took weeks to cart away the rotting leftovers. Now my hay was green, moist, and nutritious, and I had learned to smell and squeeze and poke it just like real farmers do. I had ordered five hundred bales this year, and it looked like I might just make it to spring.

This Sunday, the donkeys were by the gate, hoping for cookies. The sheep were lying in a wide ring around the hay feeder, peaceably chewing. I still havent come to truly love my flock of Tunis, but they do know how to gaze meaningfully at nothing, quietly marking the passage of time.

We were all awaiting one of my favorite rituals, the arrival of a new breeding ram. Rumsfield, the ram from the previous year, was so gentle and affable a fellow that Id had him neutered and kept him on the farm.

As usual, Id made up my mind not to breed lambs this year; there was enough going on at my farm, with my dogs, with my life. As usual, Id changed my mind. Lambing had turned out to be one of the most satisfying parts of life on Bedlam Farm.

My first year, when the lambs were born in mid-February of a brutal winter, was something of a catastrophe, complete with breech births and vaginal prolapses among the flock; frostbite, exhaustion, and panic for me; and dramatic midnight visits from the large-animal vets. Every ewe seemed determined to give birth at three a.m. in howling winds and sub-zero temperatures. If not for my border collie Rosethen just a puppywho helped me find the newborns in the darkness, kept them with their mothers, helped me lure everyone into the barn and under the heat lamps, I wouldnt have made it, nor would many of the sheep. I was overwhelmed and underprepared, and I lost a couple of my weaker charges.

My second year was easier. Id learned a lot. Last years lambs were born later in the spring, with fewer mishaps. I had all the necessary supplies on hand, my lambing pens stood ready, and Id overcome any qualms about reaching into ewes to turn or tug at recalcitrant offspring. Turns out I wasnt bad at it, in fact. I only had to call the vet once.

Instead of freezing on successive bitter nights, I sat sipping coffee in a lawn chair on moderate spring days, reading a book and watching the ewes, waiting for Rose to alert me when a lamb was being born.

With her help, the new babies and moms were quickly moved into their pens to rest and recover. I tagged ears and docked tails and administered immunizations, and, after theyd had a few days of the pampered life, sent the sheep out into the world. Lambs, unlike their elders, are curious, playful, inquisitive; it was delightful to see them literally gambol around the pasture.

So why stop now? It seemed a shame not to put my knowledge to use. My cabinets, in both the barn and the kitchen, were still filled with halters, buckets, vitamin supplements, syringes, penicillin, iodine, ear taggers, and tail dockers. Rose and I felt like old hands by now.

So Tunis breeders Wendy and Jim Cameron, whod sold me my previous two rams, had left their small Massachusetts town at dawn. Around noon, their giant blue Ford truck roared into the driveway, towing a sizable livestock trailer.

The Camerons were in their thirties, warm, friendly, a bit shy, struggling to make their farm work despite higher taxes, increasing governmental regulation, and the rising cost of everything, especially land. We were glad to see each other.

O N A FARM, THERE ARE A NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO ARE VERY IMPORTANT but who you see only once or twice a yearthe shearer, the farrier, the farmer who buys my sheep, the folks who sell me firewood and hay, Jim and Wendy. Their visits mark the seasons, milestones in the animals lives, the rhythms of the farm.

On these occasions, nobody has time for lengthy conversations, or the opportunity or desire to delve deeply into one anothers lives. But theres a bond between people who help farms function, a warmth and connection. Were glad to see one another, eager to catch up, to trade stories, gossip, and complaints.

Though I dont make my living farming, Ive been largely welcomed into this fellowship. Id quickly come to understand that nobody can run a farm alone. When you find good, helpful people, you hang on.

The chatter is reassuring. Did you have a good year? How was the winter? What are you paying for hay? Did you lose any animals? Are you making any money?

Because Im a writer, not a real farmer, my early encounters felt somewhat strained. I couldnt begin to explain to most of these rural craftspeople and farmers that I earned my living writing about dogs.

Now I have battle scars: a sunburned complexion, the hunched crab-walk that marks a farmer, dusty Carhartt sweatshirts, frostbitten fingers. And Im still more or less standing. So the awkwardness has passed; these visitors are now friends, part of my community.

We grouse about prices, about difficult neighbors, unpredictable weather. We catch up on the lives of our families and kids. Over time, weve come to know many of the same people, so we report deaths and births, successes and failures.

These visitors also show interest in my dogs, and often greet them with biscuits and pats. Theyre particularly fascinated by my border collie Rose, by far the least social of my dogs but the one they most respect. Theyve seen her in action. Whereas most people fuss over the sweeter Labs, they understand the worth of a reliable working dog like Rose, a helper, a problem solver.

And we talk animals. Our lives revolve around animalsdogs, sheep, chickens, donkeys, deer, rodents, predators.