I miss the relative ease of just answering questions TMT style. Don't any of you have questions we can all answer?
I'll start. I don't have a fancy button or sophisticated method of linking any blogs that might want to participate…because I'm LAZY…so if you do, just comment. Questions will be answered, blogs will be read.
Here's mine:
How has sheepdog work changed you as a person OUTSIDE of the work?
I'm wearing flannel lined pants from a feed store. That's huge!
I view and experience communication very differently, and not just with my dogs. I am more relaxed around people. Most people who didn't know me before this are surprised when I say I am really fundamentally shy, introverted and solitary. I primarily communicate via email and writing because I'm much better at it. Face to face I can almost appear … either so quiet that humming seems reasonable or so randomly jabbering and odd that humming would be a relief. I used to have to be dragged from my house to attend any sort of social thing. I might agree to this once a month, if there was enough alcohol.
Now people stay at my tiny house in Greenleaf with me and outside of my habitual running/walking/hiking…I am maybe ALONE, REALLY ALONE once a month.
At least all my old friends FINALLY know FOR CERTAIN that I'm not the unibomber.
I can't say exactly what it is about working dogs that has helped me relax with people, maybe it's as simple as learning to fail publicly, or seeing that everyone struggles with the same things and we all have similar feelings about it. Communication with any type of animal is not that dissimilar. I've always felt very different and removed from people and I don't as much any more, especially with people who work dogs. Or at least it doesn't matter to me.
Okay. That's pretty basic. I wish I had something more clever, but what can you expect from someone wearing pants from a feed store. Give me something better!
EyeHerdEwe 
(I’m not sure if my first attempt to post a comment went through) Sheepdog work has made me discover my inner “country girl”…prior to sheepdog, I had always been a city girl…I figured I’d be living in a condo downtown, going out most nights of the week…
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Let’s see,, I now have 18 pregnant sheep and one old llama.. who would have ever thought that the highlight of my week would be going to spend the day with them and the dogs. Thinking about nothing in particular, just zoning and living in the moment and above all being grateful. How lucky I really am to have met such nice people who really care about each other… that is the real win here… not the lift, not the fetch etc. it is the community..
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You could still live that dream in most ‘cities’ in Idaho. You’ll need a two bedroom and you’ll need to use the stairs and not the elevator.
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You sound so much more honorable and balanced that me. Still, if you had told me ten years ago I would give a SHIT about sheep…I’d have called you basque. The people are different. I agree that the people I’ve met and have become friends with through this I feel are warmer and more genuine than most I’ve met for the 40-odd years leading up to this. Plus funnier.
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Funnier is very important! And, I think more honest. Not in every case, but I think the sheepdog people, or at least the ones I have met and LIKE, are more honest at a pretty basic level, than people I know from other parts of my life. I *think* that honesty may come from the “can’t help but show everyone that you suck” part of this game. . .and everyone gets it.
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I agree with you Ann; I think that the people who can’t laugh, and who especially cannot laugh at themselves will not last long in this sport. I also see that as a form of honesty. Acceptance without justification. Have you ever heard DD snort? It’s all that honesty bubbling to the surface!
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Gosh dang it…I hate hate hate your comment program. I had the cleverest comment so let me try this again! Note to self, copy before hitting post. Note to you, I fall into the “not in every case” category! That said, what was the question again? Oh ya, “How has sheepdog work changed you as a person OUTSIDE of the work?” Since becoming addicted to sheepdog work, I have bought into the Scope Mouthwash company. See Scope is the mouthwash of choice for finger whistles. Choosy FWs choose Scope over Listerine 5:1! Scope covers an assortment of bodily function flavors including sheep crap, placenta, snot, puss just to name a few of the items that might end up on a persons pinkies. I’m stuck with my pinkies because I have not yet obtained the ubber cool made just for me lanyard with the child-sized pinkies attached. Till then, I resort to Scope! Oh and not to overwhelm you with the enthusiasm of you TMS Tuesday…but I have also become the filmer and editor of slasher herding music videos…..just sayin’
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Sheepdog work has allowed me to meet various people from various backgrounds from all over the world and become friends with them! Whoever thought I’d be planning a trip to work dogs with a friend that lives 18hrs away. Or have a person who I consider “my trainer” be on the other side of the US….
I’m not outgoing but I’m working on it 🙂
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Lora…they make puss mouth wash? For lesbians? I think you meant pus
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No, I think there is a Puss Flavored mouth wash that is sold on one of those BC sites. It’s called ‘Relax, Bitch’ and comes in Novice, Pro-Novice and Open flavors. I haven’t tried it, but I hear it makes your breath really …bitchy.
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Hey, Kelly – you don’t have to be outgoing, just outgoing in your field.
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Once it was posted….and I even check it with the spell check…I could not change it! And I laughed all day long! I bet you all really wonder about me now doncha! Where the hell is the delete button when you need it…and I will say it again, I hate your comment program! Love to all you guys…..I’ll be sure to bring the mouthwash….that is so funny Katy….relax bitch. My wife’s dog got mouthwash and all I got was this stupid tee!!!!
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HA HA I’m outgoing with myself. Do all the snide comments I make under my breath count? But that to I have to stop as I am trying for a month to stay positive and polite 🙂 Its not going so well…
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I think just about everything changed for me with stock work. I’ve met people who revealed the folly of my assumptions about Carhart wearers, who were not only hilarious and generous, but whose bullshit detectors are active and accurate. I never knew how much of my free time I wanted (needed?) to spend outside. If you’d have told the version of myself I was 10 years ago, when I was a committed cat only person, that I would be getting up at 5:30 to break the ice in a stock tank, use a dog to hold sheep off while I bring out hay, take eggs from a chicken coop, all before commuting 30 miles to the job I then lived 3 miles from, well, I think I would have called you more than basque.
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That’s what I’m intrigued by almost as much as the basics of the “sport” itself, Robin, is how much we change and are willing to change to do this thing. But more than that how we change outside of the obvious practical (or impractical) ways. I am a different person. I’ve changed more in this last 3 – 4 years than I had in the previous 20. Maybe it isn’t just the work and the people and the details of what it takes to get better, though; maybe some of it is timing.
Re: Carhartts: I KNOW!!! I HAVE FUCKING COVERALLS NOW!! My mother is SPINNING in her grave.
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I think my mother wishes she were….
What I also think is interesting is how common becoming a wholly different person is with this activity. Why is that? As singular as the story feels, it’s really fairly mundane. What other kinds of things are transformative like this? Marathon running maybe? It’s also the absolute, hands-down hardest intellectual work I’ve ever done (and I’ve had a lot of schooling).
I think there is something really addictive to being able to be in that kind of sync with a dog and to truly being doing things that require the knowledge both of you bring but that neither of you have by yourself. To me, it’s no surprise that so many horse people move to this (though that’s not how I got here)–i think horses are the only other species that humans engage in joint activity with like that.
Plus the opportunity to get intimate with multi-species shit, snot and pus–well, really, who’d turn that down??
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