A ‘Failed’ Sheepdog’s Beautiful Recovery From Trauma
My border collie spent six years locked alone in a farm shed. Now, he is fulfilling his destiny (with the help of my rescued chickens).
Murf was a “failed” sheepdog. In Ireland, failed sheepdogs don’t live long. Usually they are taken out behind a barn and finish up with a bullet in the head. Farmers have a different view on animals than someone like me. For farmers, animals are there to work — whether it is producing milk, producing offspring, herding cattle, protecting property, or killing rats.
But strangely, Murf wasn’t dispatched into the next world. Instead he was locked away. Away from sheep and cattle, away from the other dogs on the farm, away from people. He was shut up in a shed by himself—for six years.
The cruelty of this is obvious. Dogs are smart and need a lot of exercise, they are social creatures. Sheepdogs in particular need jobs to do, just like their forbears. I wondered, sadly, if Murf had been punished—not dispensed with — but deliberately singled out and kept alive as retribution for his failures. His isolation for that long must have been worse than death.
Eventually, one of the farm laborers simply had enough of it.
