I come from Chile and I used to work in the Andes gathering goats for goat keepers. We had sheepdogs there, but they weren’t as keen or well-bred as the Irish dogs. It put a little seed in my heart that one day, I would love to learn how to breed and train good dogs.
I had worked with horses in Chile, Argentina, Italy and Ireland, but with a horse you are working with an animal that has a lot of reasons not to establish a relationship with you. You are trying to convince them. After a long day training horses, my sheepdog would just look at me with his tail wagging, just waiting for me to give him any order or to please me – you were going from a creature who didn’t want to be there to one who would do anything for you.
The dogs were like therapy after a day with horses. My job now, apart from being a father of three small kids, is to breed and train dogs, and I trial dogs too. I belong to the Clew Bay Sheepdog Trials Association. Trialling is very competitive. Every Sunday people are there and it’s lovely when you have a really good dog.
The dogs that shepherds used back in the 18th century, bred on the border between Scotland and England, were out all day with the shepherd. They were bred with the objective of rounding up these wild sheep in the mountains. Their natural instinct is to gather.
A good sheepdog, in my opinion, has to be friendly because a friendly dog is going to understand when he does something good. When he does something wrong, he is not going to take it personally. Nervous dogs take it completely personally. He has to have good stamina and be keen, which means he is mad for work. He has to have intelligence – some dogs, you will explain a lesson in 10 minutes and others it will take a month.
I used to work gathering for other shepherds in Connemara. They hire you for the day. You have to have a dog that is able to go up the mountain. Many times, you lose sight of the dog. Mountain sheep are well adapted to the mountain. It’s hard to bring them down, that’s why a good dog is worth a lot of money.
The farmer could have up to 1,000 sheep, but if it is on commonage, it’s even more complicated. The dog must block or let go of a neighbour’s sheep. That’s why these dogs are essential and why many farmers value their dogs more than a tractor. Without a dog, you just cannot bring them down. When you have a dog that is able to gather these wild sheep – and they are wild, many of them don’t want to come down – you can command at a distance.
All of my commands start verbally and then continue with a whistle. We start with very soft whistles with the mouth and they go higher the farther away the dog is. When you have a dog that you lose sight of, but you know he is not going to lose the head and push sheep down a cliff or get himself into an accident, it’s like owning a very expensive car. It’s the best thing ever.
The world record for a dog was broken last year when a shepherd in England paid €28,000 for a young bitch. She paid that because if she is gathering on a mountain, one good dog does the work of 10 people and never shows up tired or with a hangover.
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For the shepherd, sheep are his fate and his food. If your dog has any interest in sheep, keep him well away or on a lead always because his natural instinct is to run and play around with sheep. This can lead to huge loss for the shepherd, especially around lambing. A sheep can very easily miscarry after being worried by a dog. I would ask everybody to please have their dogs on a lead because they can get themselves and their dog in big trouble.
In Ireland and also in Chile, if a dog is worrying sheep on private property, the owner of the sheep has the right to shoot the dog.
We started doing visits to nursing homes where we will do a little trial. In one near Galway, we saw so many smiling faces and shining eyes. Many of the residents were farmers and they remembered how important dogs were in their own lives. We visit schools too. Many kids have lost all contact with nature. We try to take them out of their head and out of their headphones and look at how beautiful Ireland is and how fortunate they are to live in this country.
Newport in Mayo reminds me a lot of the south of my country, Patagonia. There is a lot of resemblance in the landscape and in the people too. There is a mountain culture. It’s a lovely place to live. It’s lovely to be able to share my love of dogs. Dogs are my cable to planet Earth: they ground me and give me so much.
In conversation with Joanne Hunt
