A Need to Work Like a Dog

Consider this scenario: Your newly adopted dog has just chased your neighbors’ cat across their lawn, through their screened window, shattered two lamps, raced up the stairs and held the cat hostage in their attic. You are enraged at the dog and liable for all damages.

Does it even occur to you that the dog might not be chasing the cat, but attempting to herd it? That he may not be misbehaving, but succumbing to age-old instinct? Probably not. Because you, like most people, may think herding is extinct--along with animals and people who want to do it. You’d be wrong.

The cat/dog mayhem described above actually happened to Jon Katz. He’s a 6-foot, 230-pound urbanite best known until recently as a respected writer on new media, new technology and other 21st century subjects. He has written 11 books, numerous articles and is also known among friends as a devoted husband, father and spiritual leader of two placid yellow Labs, who dozed faithfully at Katz’s feet for years as he sat writing to earn their living. For most of his adult life, he says, “my idea of excitement was to go to Yankee Stadium and have two hot dogs.”

Then something “really bizarre” happened to Katz. He got a new dog. Its name was Devon--a ne’er-do-well, 2-year-old border collie who had failed at everything in life, including Freud’s two biggies: love and work. Devon was bred to be a competitive show dog--a job he could not handle. He was, therefore, considered unfit by his first owner, for pats, treats, “good dog” compliments and other perks that would provide a pup with self-esteem. The rejected, dejected dog was shipped back to the breeder, who induced Katz to give him a home.

It is unclear which of the two has helped the other more. Devon is happy and fulfilled because he has both love and work--herding sheep. Katz has a new life too, his writing focus and daily pursuits transformed. He has become what he describes as “an itinerant shepherd”--a guy who actually spends much time in a pasture, with 300 head of sheep, a wooden crook, and two young collies who assist him (or vice versa) with the herding.

“We have these amazing moments, the dogs and I,” Katz says. Sometimes we go out at 3 or 4 in the morning to graze the sheep for a few hours. I lie down in the pasture and watch the meteor showers. We also help with the lambing, shearing, worming,” he says.

The Pennsylvania sheep farm where he’s a volunteer shepherd is about a 1 1/2-hour drive from his city house in New Jersey, which is exactly 12 miles from the center of Manhattan. “Sheepherding isn’t dead, no matter what anyone tells you,” Katz says.

Actually, nobody tells us anything about shepherds and flocks these days, except at church on Sunday mornings.

Katz’s new book, “A Dog Year: Twelve Months, Four Dogs, and Me” (Villard Press), details one year from the day Devon arrived--by air--from the breeder. A year in which Man and Dog--each going through difficult times--found themselves through each other. And through herding sheep.

The book belongs to a small, relatively new genre of what might be called animal memoirs. These are books about people and their pets that do not dwell on either the person or the pet, but on the relationship between them; the intertwining of two individual lives, of two species.

It is unsentimental--a small joy ride of a story about a man trying to comprehend the needs of a certifiably nutty animal--a dog whose brilliance is exceeded only by his Machiavellian talent for mischief. It is a supremely satisfying tale because Katz understands that Man and Dog are totally unalike yet capable of affection and respect for each other. That’s one definition of friendship.

When Devon appeared, Katz’s own life was in turmoil. His only child, Emma, had just left for Yale. He was approaching middle age. His few close friends had drifted away. He was not happy writing about media and the Internet anymore. “I was doing a book on interactivity for Random House. I hated it. I was distressed every time I sat down at the computer.

“This new dog lands in my life like a bomb. A Tomahawk missile. And now, such a short time later, my whole life is all different. Now I write about dogs and their people. I shepherd three or four times a week. I have wonderful new friends. Devon did all that.”

Chasing Provides a Clue

At first he seemed “crazy.” Katz nicknamed him Helldog on his first day, when the cur bolted his crate in the airport and raced through the terminal, security police with guns drawn behind him. On arrival at Katz’s house, the dog Houdini’d himself out of the yard, leaped onto the roof of an oncoming car and proudly held his ground like a truant kid hitching a ride by hanging onto the back of a bus.

Devon chased buses and trucks and everything that moved. No amount of toys, food or petting seemed to calm him. It became evident to Katz, eventually, that the dog wasn’t chasing. He was herding. An instinct native to the breed for at least 10,000 years. This epic moment of understanding changed both their lives. Katz took the dog to the sheep farm, where they trained at herding together and where their problems eventually were resolved.

Katz’s book may be unusual, but his tale is not. Around the country, thousands of people with various breeds of collies, Australian or German shepherds, sheepdogs, Rottweilers--people who’ve spent millions on their dogs’ nutrition, health care and recreation--are learning that dogs couldn’t care less about designer dog beds or high-tech toys.

If they are herding breeds, they need to work at herding. It is a job done in tandem with a human and requires some practice so that man and dog can communicate through the subtlest of signals. Since there are few sheep or cattle farms in most urban areas, smaller facilities have sprung up around the country, where sheep are kept so that city slickers (both dogs and people) can practice the ancient, almost obsolete art.

Classes in Herding

Drummond Ranch, between Acton and Palmdale in the high Mojave Desert, is such a place. Ted Thompson Ondrak, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, and his wife, Janna, bought the 40-acre ranch along with a few dozen sheep in 1999 as a training facility for herding. They hold instinct tests to see if each dog has the desire to herd. They hold classes for those that do, so that dog and owner can communicate--and they offer sheepherding time for people who’ve been through the training and want to work out with their dogs. It’s their full-time profession--and their passion.

“Most people are amazed to learn that the breeds they own are herding breeds,” says Ondrak. Those who love their dogs are happiest doing what makes the dog happy. And if you see the dogs’ faces when they start herding, you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that they love it. That’s what makes it so magical.”

On Sunday at the ranch, real-estate brokers Allan and Diane Gantt arrived after a 1 1/2-hour drive from Fullerton to see if their Canaan dog, Mystery Girl, has the herding instinct. “She’s never even seen a sheep,” said Diane, sounding anxious. The couple have three cats and noticed that the dog was trying to herd them. They watched as Ondrak set the young dog loose in a small arena with a quartet of sheep. In seconds, the pup was moving them around like an old pro--using instincts even she didn’t know were in her. It was, as Ondrak had said, magical. The Gantts, close to tears, said they’d sign her up.

Writer Sal Manna of North Hollywood was there with Dharma, one of two Australian shepherds he goes herding with twice each week. “It’s more fun and better behavior training than letting them run aimlessly in the dog park,” he says.

Kate Hutton, the Caltech seismologist, showed up with one of her three dogs, two of which are herders. “It started when I owned a cattle dog who was a handful in the house. I had to come up with something for her to do. She was bored.” Hutton found herding, which she now enjoys most weekends, either at Drummond or a place in Murietta run by Terry Parrish, who “rents out” some of her herding dogs to local golf courses plagued with flocks of ducks who like the greens as much as the golfers do.

Influence of ‘Babe’

The sport has become a lot more popular since the movie “Babe” came out in 1995, Hutton says. The film told the story of a pig who learned to herd and eventually won the sheepdog trials by asking the sheep, politely, to move. “That’s the key,” Hutton says. “The herder dog has to let the sheep know it’s in charge without biting or any overt displays.”

Marsha Bain, of Hacienda Heights, a spinal-cord injury nurse at Long Beach V.A. hospital, says she’s become so involved with the sport that she bought a “really big RV just so my dogs and I could spend weekends here at the ranch. It’s great exercise for all of us.”

Jerry Stewart provides open space and sheep at three locations in Southern California--Long Beach, Anaheim Hills and Perris--for use by people who want to enjoy herding with their dogs. An Orange County native, he owned a fiberglass repair corporation from which he retired at 35. “This is how I do my retirement,” says the former surfer, scuba diver and airplane pilot, who says his life changed when he got a dog as a gift from a girlfriend some years back. “Easy was a sheltie, a perfect companion until I’d drive through canyons. Then he turned into Mr. Hyde, tried to jump out the windows, became insane. I noticed it happened every time the dog saw cattle. Out of my love for that dog, I tried to find a way to put his instincts to constructive use.”

Stewart trained Easy to herd with him, “and doing that gave me a whole new vocation. It’s more than a profession. It’s integrated into my way of life. We had some monumental discussions--me and Easy--learning how to do all this. Which is quite interesting, because it’s across species. I didn’t just teach him. He taught me things like what sound to make for specific herding behaviors.”

Few of the newly developed herding facilities are as bucolic as the authentic sheep farm in Pennsylvania at which Katz spends so much time. The real issue is not the location, but the experience of herding, he says.

“Herding is actually a form of obedience training--a form they instinctively understand. It makes the training so much easier and the dog so much happier. People haven’t been told that if their dog bites, chews, ruins things, he is not bad. He is doing what dogs do. He needs training he can comprehend.”

“A Dog Year,” about Devon, is being made into a film by HBO. Katz’s next book, “The New Work of Dogs,” illustrates how the work of dogs has increasingly meant dealing with the emotional lives of Americans. For that book, he follows a few people and their dogs for a full year. “I go with them when they get the dog, to the vet and the park with them.” He has gone with women to “the divorced dog club--a group of women who’ve divorced and gotten a dog to get them through it, and meet once a week to discuss it all.”

He is following a woman of 53, who has no family, who is dying of breast cancer, he says. “She got a corgi named Reggie. Their relationship is amazing. She sings to him all the time. She is buying a piece of land to build a little house where she can go with Reggie to die. She’s made arrangements with a friend to care for him when that happens.”

And he’s following a city guy named Bill. “He’s ancient, his dog is ancient; he’s toothless, his dog is toothless. The dog is ill-tempered and smelly and sick. So is Bill. They love each other more than any two creatures on Earth. Penny keeps Bill alive, and vice versa. He walks her a few times a day. They sit on the front stoop at night; he with Penny on a leash. She tries to bite everything that moves, but he sits there beaming like a proud papa, constantly repeating, ‘Isn’t she a doll, isn’t she a doll?’ ”

Katz says Penny is every bit as much a working dog as his own border collie. “She takes care of him. And at dinner time, he takes whatever food he has and splits it exactly in half, so each of them gets the same size portion. It’s so tragic, but it’s beautiful.”

Katz already has the go-ahead from his agent and publisher for the book after that one, which will be about sheepherding. “I’m a dog writer now. I love what I’m writing. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always loved my work and wrote some books that pleased me. But I’ve had some pretty lonely signings and readings at bookstores--certainly no crowds.

“With ‘A Dog Year,’ the readings are standing room only. People come with pictures of their dogs; they want to tell me stories. They bring treats for my dogs, who go with me to every appearance. The dogs work the crowd like two pros. They walk up and down the aisles, getting pats and eating treats. They come back to my table and go to sleep. At the very end, they get up when people clap, as if to take bows. Believe me, if there was any rescue involved when I got Devon, it was the dog who rescued me.”