Life Through Maggie’s Eyes: The Teacher and the Student

Close your eyes and envision this for a moment . . . Maggie and I walking along a fence line, about fifty yards in length, from my bus to a church which neighbors the farm school property.  The fence has vertical slats which are basically touching each other, slight crack between each of them, no way to see through, and it stands six feet tall, certainly no way for my girl to see over.

About halfway down the path Maggie stops, looks at the fence, starts wagging her tail, and starts pulling me to the end of said fence line.  Once around the corner I look out into the pasture and there, I kid you not, a good hundred feet from the fence, was Bev.

Maggie had no way of seeing her, no way to hear her, since Bev had not spoken; so strong is her sense of smell, or her sense of energy, that my girl knew Bev was there long before any evidence could be seen by lowly old human being Bill.

Blow me away!

Put another way, Maggie is aware of her surroundings. She is endowed with certain gifts, certain innate abilities we cannot fathom, and she uses her gifts to navigate, with ease, through life. Her mind is not complicated by smokescreens of worry or doubt or self-incrimination. She is aware of what she can do, she does it, and since that approach to life continues to work well for her, she continues to use it.

Allow me to brag on her a bit more.

When Maggie was six months old, I took her out to the goat farm owned by Bev’s son and wife, and started taking her for walks off-leash. It was a good area to work with her, very little in the way of human activity for distractions, just me and my dog, learning to work together in harmony.

It was there where Bev and I started raising chickens, and it was there, one day, I decided to teach my “work dog” how to herd chickens.  Her breed was, after all, known for their herding skills, excellent farm dogs they are purported to be.  I let Maggie off leash once I had let the chickens out of their coop, pointed to a wayward bird who had roamed too far from the rest of the flock, pointed at the bird, and said “Maggie” to my girl.  I swear to the gods above, Maggie automatically went over to the bird and immediately herded it back to the flock, not once touching it and yet making known, to the bird, that Maggie was Large and In Charge.

To this day, over six years later, Maggie will not show any aggression towards any bird.  Here, at the farm where we currently reside, there are eight which roam the farm freely, nine more to join them soon, and Maggie couldn’t care less. She will occasionally look at me to see if I have instructions for her, but she has obviously remembered her minimal training, and her DNA has remained consistent at all times.

Her DNA has remained constant . . . . I often think of my DNA.  My biological parents were, at first glance, I mess, soaked in alcohol, with violent tendencies when drinking, both dead by their mid-forties. I, on the other hand, have never had violent tendencies, but alcohol flows through my mind’s veins, and has caused more than enough problems for one man in a lifetime. Like my dog, I am aware of my breeding, aware of my genes, and today that has proven to be beneficial as I wander through my seventh decade of life.

Back to Maggie . . . do not make the mistake and think she is a passive farm dog.  This girl will protect her humans and protect her flock, and I’ve seen her do it twice now. Once, back when she was one, on that aforementioned farm, she took on a coyote which had come too close to Maggie’s flock, and again, a couple months ago, on this farm we currently live, again a coyote, peeking out of the woods, across the pasture from the free-range chickens, and off Maggie went in chase, no fear, the only thought coursing through her brain was “must protect flock.”  And I have no doubt this girl of mine would die trying to protect me, and no greater love there is than one willing to sacrifice all.

Would I die trying to save loved ones? Yes, I would, but that is a short list. I love humans in general, but we are talking about a different level of love, and mine is reserved for a handful, no more. I have a friend, a former firefighter, who has run into burning buildings to save people.  I would love to claim to the world I am of that ilk, but I really don’t believe I am.

Maggie is slow to warm up to humans. She will accept their pats on her head, she will accept treats from them, but a part of her is held in reserve until you have earned her trust and, I must say, we are identical that way. I am friendly to everyone I meet. I am engaging, I can carry on conversations and genuinely be interested in what they tell me, but I am holding back an easy 50% of the real me, and only a select few will ever see the missing 50%.

I am so damned grateful to have reached this point in my life where I have time to appreciate things like a dog’s love for me, time to learn from a dog, and time to begin to comprehend what is truly important in life. I think of all the years spent chasing my own tail, around and around in circles, always reaching for a distant branch on the tree of life, convinced that happiness and peace of mind would be attained if I only grabbed more, and more, and more, if I only worked harder, if I only collected more symbols of status and wealth.

What a crock of shit! The secret of life, and the secret of happiness, has nothing to do with possessions and bigger toys and heftier bank accounts, and it has everything to do with the lessons I learn from my faithful companion.

And that, right there, is the Gospel According to Maggie.

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