The first year the annual Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Livestock Show and Fair was at the new Ag Hall in 1995, a puppy named Percy was an unexpected big shot.

Allen Whiting, the noted painter who also raises sheep on the family farm in West Tisbury, was there with his black-and-white Border collie in tow. “He was young, about eight or ten months,” Allen says. “The sheep got loose. I heard over the loudspeaker, ‘Does anyone have a sheepdog?’ and I thought, yes, but he wouldn’t know what to do.

“But they asked again, so I let Percy go. He went right for the sheep, and they turned and ran for their pens in the shed. Percy was a hero!”

A herding dog’s instinct is to gather livestock in the way its wolf ancestor brought prey to the alpha wolf. This instinct, which reveals itself even in pups, has been cultivated for centuries to make the dog useful to humans.

“Percy had a moment of glory in his youth, and he’s never gotten over it,” Allen says.

Sheepdog trials, official sheepherding competitions run over a regulation course, show dog-work out of context. In practice, a farmer moves sheep according to the situation and the terrain. The sheepdog helps shift the flock from pasture to pasture, to a shed for shearing or culling, and to shelter.

At the fair, Andrew Rice, who has been shearing the approximately 400 sheep on the Island each spring for ten years, demonstrates herding-dog skills with his Border collies. Instead of sheep, his dogs herd ducks. Yes, ducks, waddling understudies for flocking sheep. Andrew travels from his Vermont farm to New England fairs with the dogs and the ducks to educate the public.

Marie Scott’s Border collie, Ben, also herds fowl. After Marie spends the day planting, irrigating, weeding, and harvesting organic produce at her Beetlebung Farm in Chilmark, she drives to her nearby home, where chickens must be rounded up for the night. “When it’s time for the chickens, Ben’s in a real hurry to get out,” says Marie, who winters in Vermont, where she and Ben train with sheep.

Chickens disperse rather than flock, so Ben has to bring them in from the field one at a time. “Get the chickie,” Marie says. Ben looks at Marie, who points to a chicken in a bush. His white-tipped black tail slanting down, Ben speeds across the meadow, then stalks to the bush about fifty yards from the coop. The bird zigzags as Ben drives her toward the coop. Determined to get the bird inside, he runs up on her. “Gently, Ben,” Marie commands. He lies down immediately. Marie gives the hen a breather, then tells Ben to continue. With Ben closing in, the chicken pops through the henhouse door. Ben pokes his head through the doorway until she flaps up to the perch.

When the sun sinks below the tree line, all nine chickens are safe in the henhouse. Ben races around it six times, as if to secure his charges with invisible rope. “It’s his ritual,” says Marie. “He’s a great help. Otherwise, I’d have to go after each one myself.”

Border collies are very smart, with an appetite for work, but many of their sheep-collecting traits make them stubborn. This makes them difficult pets.
Sheep were the principal livestock on the Vineyard in colonial times; in 1778, a British fleet commandeered some 10,000 sheep from the Island. Today, there are hundreds rather than thousands to satisfy a market for lamb, and niche markets for wool. Grazing sheep keeps land clear, saving the price of mowing. And some people just like to have livestock on their property.

A sheepdog pup learns as it accompanies the farmer doing daily chores, being praised or scolded according to behavior. This daily education establishes the farmer in the dog’s mind as one who, like the alpha wolf, must be obeyed and from whom all blessings flow. Pups learn to obey commands such as “down” (stop), “walk on” (move toward the stock), and “that’ll do” (stop working) both as words and as whistles. Throwing a Frisbee or a foam rubber football for the dog to chase and fetch reinforces learning. But dogs are discouraged from chewing on these toys, so as not to think, “chew toy, okay; chew sheep, okay.”

At Mermaid Farm in Chilmark, a black-and-white Border collie herds sheep for Allen Healy and Caitlin Jones and is trained to behave with their children. To be with young children, Rita must restrain her instincts to herd anything that moves and to nip when the herdee disobeys.

In a field bordering Music Street in West Tisbury, thirty-six sheep – all shades of the color of coffee – bunch together behind the electric fence, baa-ing in chorus at the approaching pickup truck.

Allen turns off the electricity and lets his young son and Rita out of the truck. Red, the farm’s younger dog, a ruddy, smooth-coated Border collie, stays inside, nose at the window. Rita stands by as Allen opens a side of the enclosure, then she lies down, forelegs straight out, head up, staring intently in on-guard posture. While Allen resets the fencing for the sheep to move to fresher grass, she holds the flock in place for twenty minutes. Then Allen gives a low-voiced order: “Rita, away to me.”

Immediately she starts the flock by walking alongside, head outstretched, body intense, white-plumed tail angled downward, and drives the sheep counterclockwise to the northwest corner of the field. When the last side of the fencing remains to be set in place, Allen tells Rita, “Come by.” She turns the flock clockwise, moves it to the new area, and stands guard while Allen sets up the section. Then she leaps over the fence, lies down outside, and looks attentively at Allen.

 “I couldn’t do this without her,” he says.