I pick Rikki's Team

From the desk of Tarma Shena

This winter I decided to do something different and not take the stock up and down the hill. This let areas rest and allowed me to do some treatment for pests. In the interest of mental health I have been rotating the dogs all winter instead. Teams and rotations have varied but it looks something like this;

Dogs on sheep duty come up the hill and go in the corral with the roosters and grow outs.

The dogs that were in there move up to the house and take the yard. (kind of a day off)

Yard dogs move to the front pen.

Dogs in the front pen go down with the sheep.

Although it has occasionally changed for heat cycles and things, that has been the general rotation all winter.

When I added the geese I started bringing a third dog down the hill so one could cover as the geese were right on the perimeter.

Then I brought home the new sheep and started borrowing dogs from Katerina and alternately bringing down a two or three dog team depending on who was available. Any pen with poultry in it cannot be left unguarded or the predators will move in.

As things progressed and I shuffled dogs I got to learn who worked well together and who just tolerated who. I learned who got cocky if left to their own devices and who didn’t care.

Now over the course of the winter, Reina, Colter, and of course Terra have randomly come down for the walk as a chance for a break from their duties and Mimi occasionally got a break from the chicken pen. This also had the added benefit of giving Punica random working partners as well.

Now I told you all this to tell you another story.

My neighbor is often doing chores at the same time I am so her farm dog, Rikki, is often running around the shared section of the pasture following her around. She’ll meet us at the silver gate when the dogs say I’m coming.

Ruger has a bad habit of howling every time I head down the hill which usually sets off whichever youngsters didn’t get to go and you can tell I’ve started chores from a mile away.

Rikki greets the dogs I’ve brought with me and then moves off or initiates play depending on who it is. She repeats the process when I bring the dogs out of the sheep pen after chores are done so they can come back up the hill with me. She will bounce along with us to the silver gate and then go about her business and I take my dogs up the hill for breakfast.

It’s been our routine most of the winter.

A few weeks ago as I was letting my dogs through the silver gate Rikki darted through as well and headed up the path. I had to correct her and send her scooting back into the pasture. I have never taken Rikki up the hill and she knows not to enter a gate without permission nor has she ever tried, stopping at the sheep gate and the silver gate without ever a word from me.

I forgot about it as a one off until about a week later when she attempted to do it again. This time my brain saw the intent in her energy and I reminded her before she got the chance to fail.

But that also got me wondering about the pattern. Why has Rikki tried to follow me some days and not others? Now keep in mind Rikki is a smart cookie, she sets the bar for farm dogs in a lot of ways.

As I continue doing chores I run a list of dogs through my head, going backwards to the last time Rikki gate crashed, who did I have with me?

It took me a few more days and one more attempted gate crash from Rikki to figure it out.

It wasn’t playmates.

Rikki had picked her pack, her apocalypse team so to speak.

I don't know where she though we were headed or what our plans were, but I have to admit, if the end of the world were coming, I think I’d pick Rikki’s team too.