a dog's day

It's sheepdog day!! but first, Kylemore Abbey

The abbey was located in a castle manor. Now, there's castles and castles. Cahir Castle is like a fort taken by orcs three eps before the Battle of Helm's Deep. Kylemore Castle is like the setting for some trending YA romantasy with a rakish dissolute young lord and the plucky heroine who infiltrated the castle to dethrone him but ohhhh noooo she is falling in love. Also there's a Victorian walled garden where they can walk in the evenings, exchange meaningful glances...

Also, pigs! (This part would get cut from the YA novel.) There were two of them, named Ken Scamper and Perry Pickles. We came to see the pig feeding demonstration at 11:30. The pigs were already snuffling grain off their feeding mats. A guy popped out of a shed, tossed more grain on the mats, and turned to leave. "What are you feeding them?" someone called out. "Barley and oats," he said, and vanished back into the shed. That was the whole pig feeding demonstration. Cute pigs though. Very rotund. The big pig was the boss; after a while he decided there was more grain on his roommate's mat and walked over there, and the roommate got out of his way fast. Don't mess with the big pig.

Then we were off to a sheep farm for the day's main attraction. They use purebred border collies for herding. Smart dogs with a natural tendency to group and herd. IMPORTANT: There were PUPPIES. Two-week-old puppies just starting to open their eyes. Everyone got to hold a puppy.

One of the dogs (Jack?) was let out of his kennel while the farmer was giving his intro talk and we were passing around the puppies. Jack was very alert, but surprisingly neutral to all these unfamiliar humans up in his yard. He circled around us, watching us, and was perfectly chill about accepting pets but didn't lean into them or ask for more. At one point Mom wandered off a tad and he circled around her to bring her back. But he was super attentive to the farmer. The farmer might move or gesture as part of his talk and Jack would be super intent and jumping with excitement.

An actual sheep herding session might be 3-4 hours long with the farmer controlling two dogs at once. For the demo, the farmer used one dog at a time, first Slip(?) and then Jack. They were amazing. The dog was way up on the hillside. It was loud on the ground because all the kenneled dogs were barking up a storm (lotta craic) and the farmer was explaining things and we were talking too. Then the farmer would say "go up" or "away" in a quiet conversational voice, not speaking up or breaking the cadence of his talk, and the dog would immediately respond. They're laser focused on his voice and filter out every distraction to follow the command words. Their hearing is incredible. Except when the farmer would say "lie down" sometimes he'd have to repeat it a couple times because the dog heard it perfectly well but they don't want to lie down, they're having fun chasing sheep. But the dog would do it. It was a flex on the farmer's part.

There's precision involved because sheep from multiple farmers may mingle on the slopes. The farmer can see which are his, due to the spraypaint marks, but the dogs don't know. So a farmer must be able to command a dog to split up a bunch of sheep, group these and not those, and bring them back down.

The farmer also sheared a sheep for us. He just kinda grabbed the sheep and used clippers to clip off the whole coat in one piece. Boom, a few cents' worth of wool. The sheep need to be sheared, else flies may lay eggs in the wool and the maggots will eat the sheep alive. Domestic sheep have been bred to produce excess wool. Wild sheep aren't as woolly and can also self-shed.

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Pictured: Jack at work; Kylemore Castle; Ken and Perry