THE SHEEP, THE DOG AND DAD'S WHISTLE

By Dr. Robert E. Plucker 

 

Sheep are nice enough animals, but they are not at all smart.  They do things because their sheep leader does them first.  Mostly the leader only does things by habit because he or she has done these things before, and once the leader has formed the habit, it is nearly impossible to change it.

When I was in high school, my Dad had raised sheep on his farm for a number of years, and like most sheep, they liked to get out of their usual pasture and go for a nice walk down the road.  They would amble down the driveway, turn right, and head for the church which was only a quarter of a mile away.  They would eat the grass and weeds growing at the side of the road, but my Dad worried that a car would come speeding along and bash into them.

Dogs are handy animals to have around a farm because they help ever so much in making cows and sheep go where they are supposed to.  They also help in making the cows and sheep return to wherever it was they sneaked out of.  My Dad had a dog that would go and fetch the sheep from the church (I really don’t know what attracted them to the church) whenever he gave a special whistle.  He didn’t whistle through his fingers the way you may have seen people do, but it was extremely loud and piercing.  The dog would go zooming over to the church after the sheep, round them up, and chase them home at a fast gallop.  My Dad could relax on the front porch while all this chasing was going on.  This whistling-for-the-dog-to-chase-the-sheep trick went on for several years.  The sheep never learned that it was no use to run to the church because surely the dog would come to chase them back home.

Dogs don’t live very long, compared to humans, and after not too many years, my Dad’s dog died of old age, happy and contented that he had worked hard and done his duty as long and as cheerfully as he could.  My Dad, who never lied, always said that that dog laughed a lot.  But the sheep, creatures of habit, never noticed that the dog was dead.  They continued every now and then, to get out of the pasture, amble down the driveway, turn right and head for the church.  When my Dad would see them, he would give his loud whistle, and the sheep, sure that the dog was hot on their heels, would gallop back to their pasture.  This went on for years.

Sheep don’t live long, either, and it happened that every single sheep in my Dad’s small flock had been replaced by the time I had started college.  They had died, and been replaced by their lambs, or they might have been sold and replaced by other sheep, but there was not one sheep left that had ever personally seen the dog that had chased them years before.  But still, every time they ambled down the driveway, turned right and started running for the church, my Dad would whistle his special loud whistle and the sheep would all come charging home, sure that the dog, whom they had never met, long since dead, would come after them and nip at their heels.

Photos: https://www.google.com/search?q=sheepdog&hl=en&qscrl=1&rlz=1T4AURU_enUS501US501&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=uStaUNi6G9Cu2gXU9IDoBg&sqi=2&ved=0CDoQsAQ&biw=1600&bih=718